Tuesday, November 17th We woke to a beautiful morning in the peaceful country side. Ferdi went to feed the chickens and in return they kindly left us two eggs. We made tea and enjoyed Talita’s rusks while sitting on the veranda. What a way to live! We feel right at home here. Dave and Deborah might be in for a surprise when they return; a couple of bus-sitters with no intention of leaving. Ferdi also took care of the plants in the greenhouse. It’s a great feeling to take care of a living thing. It’s strange how he’s come almost full-circle; [View Full Entry]

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Saturday, November 14th We woke the morning very eager and continued working on the van. Neither of us had done this kind of thing before, so found it hard to make decisions. What’s right and what’s wrong? Common sense seemed to be our only guide. Also, in theory everything is easy. In practice, however, it’s really hard. For example, it’s impossible to cut a straight line with a jigsaw. We got a few tips from the net, but they didn’t help because the moment the blade got hot it would start veering off course. Hence we made much slower progress than [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday, November 11th We slept late again, only crawling out of bed after 9:30. After breakfast we drove into town to help Bruce move. We found Bruce and Paddy sitting outside the shop on the public picnic benches. Bruce was in his element. His son, Matai Kiran Hallewell-Smith was born just before midnight last night. He was beaming and very proud. He was able to watch the birth on Skype and spent two hours afterward watching Amber and Matai. We packed his boat and the rest of his gear and drove out to Paddy’s, who’d offered Bruce his “guest house truck” [View Full Entry]

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Sunday, November 8th We hadn’t seen Wobbles in two days and we were really worried about her. Bruce walked down to the building site mewing and calling her. When we arrived down there we were very relieved to hear that he’d found her. She was very scared and skittish, having spent two nights out in the wild. At least we knew she was safe and still around. We continued with the structure, but the going was slow because today we only had one chainsaw. Even so we were still happy with our progress. We felt confident and enjoyed applying the thinking [View Full Entry]

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Thursday, November 5th We continued with the course and after successfully cutting our first dove-tail joint Ferdi felled his first tree. It was quite an adrenaline rush, leaving his arms a little weak. We planted four big logs as a foundation for the structure we will build during the course. The structure is the top part of the gable-end of the roof and covers every technique needed to build your entire log home. There was also a bit of tension in the group because two of the guys has very strong personalities and lots of tree felling experience and tried to [View Full Entry]

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Monday, November 2nd Ferdi and Bruce left early to go fishing. Talita slept in and later went for a jog and a shower. The fishermen drove down to the beach, then walked a kilometer to the fishing spot. The tide was coming in so, in theory, the fishing should've been good. Bruce ran through the basics of lure fishing and they tried to catch some dinner. Ferdi had a couple of nibbles but no fish, but Bruce managed to catch two small Kahawai. After three hours of fishing they were starving and headed back home. Bruce whipped up some tuna-melt sammies [View Full Entry]

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Friday, October 30th Happy birthday Lize! Hope you have a fantastic day and an awesome party! May you have a blessed and amazing year. We slept late then spent a few hours catching up with the blog. As we were preparing lunch Paul came by and asked if we could help to catch the sheep because they needed to be sheered. It took two tries to get the sheep in the pen because on the first attempt they ran at one of the girls who got a fright and ran away. While Ferdi was helping with the catching and sheering Talita [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday, October 27th Ferdi's stomach was feeling better today. After breakfast the group met and discussed what needed to be done and what our priorities were for the next few days. With that done Bruce started cutting oars for his boat while we assisted and helped where we could. Later Tim and Ferdi was given the responsibility to come up with a way to put the bench in the boat while Talita mixed play-dough in preparation for building the model of the tree (Thanks Mel for sending us the recipe). Sometime after 6pm we headed home where Talita and Tim prepared [View Full Entry]

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Saturday, October 24th We slept late then went to the Saturday market. It’s only the second market event so far with about ten stalls selling farm produce, making music, face painting, hand made clothing etc. The market was on the lawn next to the Global Gypsy and we spent most of our time chatting to Bruce and getting to know some other interesting folks. After sammies we went to the Last Resort and Paddy explained to us, in his great Irish accent, exactly what he has in mind for his barn/house/workshop. It's an American style barn with the upper level as [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday, October 20th We slept a little late and woke refreshed and ready for our big day. After breakfast we left Westport, heading for Karamea, 100km to the north. We were very excited, looking forward to learning some new skills and hopefully finding a different way of life. It took us two hours to get up there. Welcome to Karamea, population 650 (+2). When we arrived we found that Bruce was in Westport for the day so we sat reading our building manuals and drinking tea in the sun. We met Paul, the owner of the land and the guy we [View Full Entry]

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