Ranch Life - Continued...

As I was saying in the last post I made, since Monday I have been living with John, Niel, and Edward.

A typical day starts out at 7:00am, where I'll stumble out of bed, shuffle over to the kitchen and get some water boiling for the morning tea. After getting dressed and finishing up the first of many cups of tea to come throughout the day, I'll make my way through the garden, over a small bridge above a stream through the yard, and to the horse pin (seen to the far right of the picture above). Here, I'll move the the two young horses, Kiri and Luby Lu, to the opposite pins before preparing their morning feed, cleaning their pins, and putting on their coats. After then leading the two horses out to the paddock where they'll roam for the rest of the day, I'll feed the chickens and collect the mornings eggs that are sometimes so fresh I have to push the nesting hens off of them first.

After this morning ritual I'll grab another cup of tea (always with milk and two teaspoons of sugar) and do whatever needs doing from here. I've laid stone tile in the courtyard, gardened and weeded, burned trash, detailed a 1967 Jaguar 420 (correctly pronounced 'Jag - U - R'), cleaned and PH balanced the pool, and I'm currently in the process of preparing the tile roof for some paint I'll be applying in the coming days. I'll usually work, have some tea, work, eat, have some tea, work, have more tea. 7-8 cups a day seems to be the norm around here, with Edward sometimes drinking into the teens if he is studying for exams.

John and Niel make excellent company. They're both originally from the UK, enjoy Land Rover off-roading, collecting Jaguars, interior design, international foods and performing the labors involved in keeping up 8 acres of their own. John is borderline obsessed with antiques, spending a good hour or more checking the local ebay (trade-me) for 'good deals', and at about 7:00pm every night you'll hear him ohhing and ahhing over the newest 'British Antique Roadshow' on the living network (NZ HGTV). Niel, on the other hand, loves computers, tech stuff, and researching the two. He's almost worse than me when it comes to researching things before he buys them. He spent 3 days reading about dryers before special ordering one to the local home appliance store. They also both work as Insurance Investigators, most commonly visiting the shipping docks around Auckland to inspect insurance claims.

(My room)

3 days ago, a couple more help-x'ers joined the party; friends, Laura and Angie, from the midwest of the US. Angie is good with horses, has participated in various meets and competitions and also makes some delicious meals from limited ingredients. Laura has a bit of riding experience also, laughs at just about anything (a lot like Cindy), and loves snicker bars (I placed one on her dresser just minutes ago while she was sleeping, cant wait to see her reaction in the morning, haha). The 3 of us work, prepare meals, and hang out most of the day. We share a similar sense of humor so we spend most of the day laughing and get along well.

On November 5th, we celebrated Guy Fawkes day. You can think of it as British / New Zealand 4th of July. Not so much similar in what is celebrated but rather how it's celebrated. After Saturday night's firework show we 3 Americans agreed that New Zealand has way better fireworks. It may have been their more lenient firework laws. We sat no more than 100 yards from the point in which they were firing off the rocket. Some would hurt your chest because the explosion was so powerful, others came back and touched the ground before going out completely. We got lucky and it was a full moon directly behind the portion of the sky where they were going off so you could see this amazing cloud of smoke that blew overhead. It was an awesome show that sadly none of us brought camera's for. The next day, we spent the afternoon at the annual New Zealand Jaguar show where we lost a drawing for a free vacation by just one number. John and Niel were still happy though as they drove away in their latest addition to the Jaguar collection, a 1998 XJ6 Sport if I recall right. At the same point I was pretty happy cause I got to drive the 1967 Jaguar 420 on some green rolling hilled backroads once we got home. Pretty fun week, still trying to get in on some Land Rover off-roading soon! ;)

Check out the 1 week old baby horse. The other day as I was kneeling down he came within a foot of me and was sniffing about; I'm told that's rare for such a young one.