AH! I leave New Zealand in 8 days!! I can't believe it! Then I head to the Cook Islands, then LA, then NC! All things to look forward to. Currently, I am at Gilly and Greg's for one final week of wwoofing and Shine Family Friendship before I head out. After Dad left I spent a week at Carolyn's with a couple of logging days in there, then a week with Maggie and Tim Riggins (all we did was watch the first season of Friday Night Lights on repeat), and now a week with Gilly and Greg. It's great to be here. Ron is doing very well. Yesterday he and I worked on a fence because that's all we ever do together and ate cup-o-soups in his bus. Next week he is going to take me on a trip in his bus!! That is going to rock. His six-months-left-to-live-is-up on September 4th, the day Mags and I head to the Cooks, and he said he is going to have a big party. He'll wave bye to us on the plane, but he says he'll be drunk. Good on him. Also, if he makes it until the 4th, he owes his nephew 50 bucks because they made a bet about his survival. I wish I'd thought to make a bet, because of course Ron is going to live on. I mean, it's Ron.

It's lambing season, so every drive means lamb watching and oh.my.god they are the cutest babies in all the land. One of Gilly's lambs got its tail bitten off by its mom. No joke. When I was at Carolyn's I spent a day hunting with Katy (from logging) and her brother (who is a logger and sheep farmer) and her cousin (who is very sweet.) We went to visit his sheep in the afternoon and check for new lambs and I was out of control, just pointing out every lamb we passed as if each one were a surprise. Everyone was rolling their eyes, and then I posed the question, "how do you do anything other than sit here watching the lambs?!" They gave each other sidelong looks and said it was abundantly clear that I'd never actually taken part in the lambing process. Then I remembered Jodi telling me about pulling off a lamb's leg once when trying to help with a birth gone terribly wrong. I'll stick to going all mushy-hearted from a far.

Oh, I may have forgotten to mention that at this point my plan is to spend a few weeks at home and then....head back to New Zealand and work logging for the next year or so. Surprise!!

I'll explain later.