I need to go to sleep because it is my last sleep in New Zealand. That's one of many precious things that Gilly and Greg say, "only 3 more sleeps 'til Emily Rose gets home," or "only 2 more sleeps until your birthday!" So, only one more sleep in NZ. It's strange because I've realized that New Zealand is really the only home outside of school that I've ever known. I spent my whole life up until this past year in school, but this was my first year of life where I made my own home, my own routines, my own life from scratch. Friends I graduated with have spent this year establishing lives in cities across America and growing settled there, calling those places home. Though my life here has been semi-nomadic and based out of backpacks, it is still the only life I've ever had for myself in the vast, wide open, post-college world. In that sense, leaving feels like it might feel to take a leap and quit your job, pack up all your things, and move half way across the world, instead of simply returning from a trip.

September 1st marked the first day of spring here, and the sun sang out its new season proudly. The sky was cloudless, the breeze warm, and the trees blossoming. I took the bus trip with Ron for two days this week. We paid a daylight visit to the giant fig tree that dad and I only saw under the cover of darkness, then spent the night out on a beautiful beach in Northland. We got there in time to walk on the beach, where we took a hike up a steep hill to a lookout. On the way back down Ron led the way down this slippery, muddy chute of a path and slid the whole way down. I was clinging to the grass behind him, yelling out about how he better not die because if I kill him, Margaret will kill me. Ron made a legit dinner and I saw a lovely sky of stars, which I hadn't seen in so long because there hadn't been a clear night in so long. I slept on the little couch in his "living room" and woke up at the perfect moment to peak out the curtain and see a brilliant sunrise. I wriggled my sleeping bag over to the windshield and pulled up the blinds, then snuggled back in to watch the scene from the warmth of my "bed." It was awesome. We also stopped in and met some of Ron's campervan safari friends and they were just lovely. The man writes and sings country music about traveling in New Zealand and he gave me one of his cds, which will be my soundtrack of choice for my next road trip. We also went to the country's only oil refinery where they have a perfectly scaled model of the entire plant, down to each and every valve. The model was used to built the plant in the days before computers and it is easily one of the most incredible feats of human engineering I've ever seen. It was one of those things that I'm so glad isn't my job. It seems an utterly impossible thing for my brain to produce. Anyway, we had a great trip and I'm completely sold on the idea of campervan/buses now. If your house is on wheels, you are always at home. I don't really understand why we don't all do it.

I spent all day today hiking Rangitoto, the picturesque volcano in the Auckland Harbor, with the Shine Family Daughters and their partners. It is always exciting to walk across lava paths and craters. One of the warning signs on the map at the wharf said, "Caution: the heat rays from the lava can be very intense." Hikers in New Zealand need never worry about the hazards of snake bite or bear attack, but do watch out for the lava flow.

Tomorrow I pick Maggie up at the airport at midday, take her back to the Shine home for a big party in celebration of: our going away, Emily heading back to school, Becky heading to her 8 week work experience in Samoa, Greg's birthday, which is today, and Ron's six-months left to live date. After a few hours of celebrating our many joys, Maggie and I will head back to the airport and take off for the Cook Islands. I can't believe it. I'm so excited about everything. EVERYTHING! I feel terribly sad when I think about all the goodbyes that come with leaving New Zealand, but I'm overcome with gratitude for all that I've encountered. I couldn't possibly have the words to express the depth of my thanks. So, instead of focusing on the sad things about leaving, I want tot concentrate on the exciting things. I'm so excited about his party at the Shine's, and the Cook Islands, and then that feeling of landing in America and staying with Katherine and Jodi, and then to North Carolina, my most established home. There are so many beloved faces to see in the coming weeks!!! Thus, I will focus on the excitement to come, and my gratitude for all that I've learned and loved this year.

Plus, I still think I'm coming back to be a logger. Seriously. But I'll still explain that later. I'll write more, but not until America.

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.

I put up more pictures!! I even added handy captions. Enjoy!

I have been remiss in my storysharing. Here is the first half’s other half:

IX. One day dad and I were in a lovely little clearing overlooking Lake Tawawera. We were the only people around, just looking at lake and woods. Anytime we are exploring wilderness of any sort, one of Dad's favorite things to do is daydream about the Maori chieftains who have passed this way before us. Equally thrilling for him is the thought of Captain Cook. "Ah, now this is just what Captain Cook saw," he sighs every time our line of vision is clear of anything built since the Industrial Revolution. So while sitting in this particular spot he gave his usual Maori/Cook thoughts before surprising me with, "Just think how many princesses have sat in this very spot." "Excuse me?" "Princesses." "Princesses? ....Dad the number of princesses who have sat right here is definitely zero." "Nope. Definitely princesses." "Nope." "That's exactly what Meta would say, 'what are you talking about princesses, how weird are you?'" "Yeah, she would be right. That's what I say, too.... What would Katherine say?" (long pause, quiet response with the tone of a begrudging child) "....princesses." So I ask you, Katherine, what truly say you?

X. We spent one night as the lone occupants of a hostel in a quiet inlet in Anakiwa, in the Marlborough Sounds. At night we played chess and then walked down a track that starts in the driveway of the hostel and carries on for 30 kms through the Sounds. We went in search of glowworms and sure enough, when we got to the bridge over the first creek, the banks lit up around us. I can't imagine that glowworms could ever cease to amaze me. I don't want to give the wrong impression about them. They don't glow bright and large like fireflies. They don't blink on and off; they wouldn't light up a room. They simply shine like pin pricks of light through blankets of total darkness. They shine exactly like the stars. Dad swears they mirror constellations, but I think that is his yearning for pure romance talking. We saw them at our hostel last night as well and he swore that he could see Scorpio in the sky above us and along the bank beside us. I can't say I saw it, though what I did see was no less impressive. We've seen them in daylight and it looks like a single drop of dew hanging from a thread akin to spider's silk. I need to re-watch that Planet Earth episode about them to understand how they work. The day after the glowworms we took the hostel's kayaks around the Sounds, which are always so still and gentle that I'm fooled into thinking it must be a lake, then surprised to find star fish, mussels, and other salty sea friends. Later that day we hiked to a water fall that we agreed stretched our expectations of the word "waterfall." But after adjusting to our new definition we both found it beautiful. It was like a lace curtain of water. The water was dripping down a giant rock wall covered in ferns and moss, and though it was never more than a drip, it happened constantly and from so many angles, making so many soft, watery sounds. The falling water mimicked the strands of glowworms we discovered under the mossy overhangs, so I'm certain that this place is nothing short of magical at night. I don't want to keep bringing up Avatar, but seriously, y'all. It's the closest description I can use to make you understand.

XI. Dad and I did the beginning of the Heaphy track, which wanders through rainforest and past remote beaches, hugging coastline only accessible by foot or wing. We'd been walking in silence for a long while when Dad stopped in his tracks and said only this, "Life: a tiny island in an infinite ocean of death." Thank you, Dad, for always keeping it real. The day he presents his glass as half full is the day I'll start to worry. That is when I know something has gone horribly wrong.

XII. Did I forget to say that I took my first ever flight in a glider?! It was way awesome. Dad really wanted me to and I felt unsure about whether it was something that I could enjoy without feeling freaked out. Turns out, it was. It was on an area of plains in the North Island, and from up in the air I could see both coasts of the island and each of their oceans. I could see volcanoes in the distance, one of which looked like a model volcano, so perfectly round at the base and rising to a sharp point at the summit. It must have been God's blue ribbon science fair project one year. I was flying in the front seat with the instructor, Roger, sitting behind me. He was an older guy with a glider addiction who spends his time teaching lessons and gliding about. He was a great teacher and by the end of the time he was letting me completely fly the plane. It was terrifying and thrilling. Roger stayed remarkably calm as he watched me maneuver the plane in the direction of the airport. I only began to question his judgment when it came time to land the plane and he continued instructing me, rather than taking over control. I sort of figured he was probably really controlling it and I was like the kid in the shopping cart car pretending to drive while the parent holds that plastic handle on the back. But as we crept up on the runway he said calmly, but firmly, “ok, you are flying this plane, now stay steady...” That dude actually let me land the plane. Seemed kind of rough to me, but he said it was a pretty solid landing. It was such a cool experience, I can see how people (with heaps of spare cash floating about) might make a habit of it.

XIII. One day we chased a small dot on our map labeled, “limestone arches.” After an hour of winding gravel roads we arrived at a parking lot and proceeded on our hike to the arches. The hike was just gorgeous. I’m always amazed by the presence of rainforest in cool climes, no matter how much I know it will be there. Like many of the hikes we’ve taken on the South Island, this one was drenched in moss. It looked like maybe God threw up moss all over the entire forest, leaving the trees laden with green drapery and mysterious mossy lumps. Then Dr. Seuss and James Cameron went there together on vay-cay and found the inspiration for their tales. Every inch is green and lush, including the stones that appear to be a mound of green rock, until you follow a chain leading you down a hole and come out at the arches, where you find big limestone caverns that open along a crystal clear river. Per usual, Dad and I were the only people there. Winter rocks.

14 (I have a very limited knowledge of roman numerals). One of the other people in our hostel room here, in Milford Sound, is the world’s most excitable man, Alisdair. He is incredibly nice, as anyone would be with that kind of zeal for every element of their life. Last night he nearly jumped out of his skin telling Dad and I to be sure to check out the “glowworm grotto” and this morning he referred to the hike we were taking as a “green goblin land.” Last night he was already asleep with the lights out by the time dad and I got back to the room. When we walked in he immediately awoke with a flurry of apologies and turned on his own personal light so that we could find our things. This morning he was so excited to tell Dad and I about his car’s dead battery that he pulled us over to his car and dug out the receipt for the battery so that we too could share in the silliness of defunct new batteries. Our last morning in Fiordland we took a hike with him and after we’d said our goodbyes Dad and I drove away and after minutes of silence Dad just said, “He could be an Avatar.“ Ha. You know, like an alien trying to fit-in in a human suit. He has a great point. Alisdair’s disposition is peculiar enough that it could be the result of studying a text book about human behavior. Memorizing definitions of concepts like, “kind,“ “friendly,“ “polite,“ “cheerful.“ But those definitions generally unfold differently in practice. His infinite capacity for enthusiasm is truly remarkable, and though at first it left me a bit frightened, I’m beginning to appreciate the sheer volume of energy required to maintain such zest.

XV (right?). Dad has taken to reading me passages from his book about Zen Buddhism while I drive. I can’t say I’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response. I make few comments, with the mind that one can’t force those deep, meaning-of-life conversations on people. It has to flow. Instead, I make snide remarks about the golden nature of silence while he continues reading. The first time it happened, I expected darkness to provide the silence I sought, but he pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket and kept going. He also read a poem aloud to me, which I’ve written the first two stanzas of below, but please excuse any alterations to the format, as I can‘t make it work on my blog. It just so happens that I was already well familiar with this poem because it spent my childhood hanging on the wall beside Dad's bed, so it's possible I read it thousands of times as I learned to read and later to attempted to decipher the pieces of Dad pasted on every wall. It is by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, so you can look it up if you’d like to see the rest.
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don’t mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don’t sing all the time.

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn’t half so bad
if it isn’t you
You get the just. I do not like this poem. If I were to re-write it, say as an exercise in one of Katherine’s creative writing workshops, this would be my version:

“The world is a beautiful place to be born into.”

I know that it’s easy for me to say. My world is extraordinarily beautiful and privileged. But I’ve experienced (or maybe I can only say witnessed?) the flip side of my life. The side where people don’t have enough food or adequate housing, or they live life under the burden of sickness. People I love have experienced an undue share of sorrow. But these people are some of the most joyful I’ve encountered. They sing, laugh, and share. They remain capable of gratitude despite all odds. They smile constantly, flashing their white teeth as beacons of strength in situations when weakness would be a suitable response by anyone’s standards. I cannot interpret this as anything short of beautiful.

Little stories piling up in my head, in two parts:

I. Do you know what to do in the event of an anaconda attack? I do. Do you know about Hogzilla? You're about to. One afternoon Thomas and I were passing the time by talking about crazy things, I guess, because these were the two foci of our conversation. He knew how to handle anacondas, but I didn't believe him, so we had to turn to the source of ultimate truth, google, and sure enough. There it was, written in clear steps reading something like this:
1. When you see an anaconda coming, don't run, you cannot outrun it. Lie on the ground, feet facing the approaching anaconda's head and be sure to have your knife(!) out and at the ready. Apparently you will always have a knife on your person if you are in anaconda territory.
2. Don't panic!
3. Allow the anaconda to begin swallowing you feet first.
4. But seriously, don't panic!
5. Once the anaconda has swallowed you to above your waist, stab upwards with your knife and cut off its head from the inside out.
6. Crawl out of the snake.
7. Have a great day.No joke. These are (basically) the steps. The only thing crazier might be.....HOGZILLA. (image from http://thegreatwhitehunter.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/hogzilla3.jpg, not me!) This pig actually lived and was actually killed by hunters in actually Georgia. GEORGIA. The South. My home state. Maybe we even crossed paths in the woods once upon a time. Imagine being out on a hunt and realizing that the movement you see is this pig. I mean, since Hogzilla exists, I probably believe in Sasquatch.
II. One day Dad and I paid a visit to Gilly's brother, Doug. Or Dug, rather, since that's what he has officially changed his name to. Dug lives to die, which for him is dying to live, since it is all about decomposition and the cycling of life to death to life again. He makes his living on compost. Fish compost. He lives near a seaside town and gets fish scraps delivered daily from the fish and chips shops nearby, which means that he has a sky high mound of the richest, most nutritious, most odiferous compost in the land. Gilly and her sister Billie, who Dad and I stayed with during our visit to the Bay of Islands, warned us about Dug with phrases like, "He is pretty out there," and, "A visit to Dug's would certainly be....an experience." Well, any of you who know Dad can imagine how eagerly he jumped at the opportunity to visit with a self-proclaimed hermit and compost master of the Kiwi boonies. By "self-proclaimed" I mean Dad-proclaimed. Dad called him a hermit the whole time, but no one else does. Dug was certainly full of radical rants and "interesting" life style choices, but he turned out to be such a gracious host. He immediately offered us a brew of kawakawa tea from the leaves on the tree outside, with honey from the hives outside. It was delicious. His house is built around trees with mud floors and old posts and pieces of paper covering every inch of wall space. Much like Dad's house would look if he, too, were left to his own devices for 20 years. Dug only eats what he can grow, so if it isn't growing, he's not eating, which I think is a remarkable commitment. I'm not sure how much of it is due to the fact that he is preparing for the imminent collapse of civilization on December 23, 2012, and how much is due to the fact that growing your own food is a healthy, good thing to do. My favorite part was a visit to Dug's favorite tree, an ancient puriri tree with branches the size of old trees themselves that hold up a hut he built as though they were pillars of stone. I definitely learned things from my visit to Dug's and came away grateful for his hospitality. In some ways, Dug and I are fairly similar. We both appreciate the beauty in the way our earth recycles energy, and we both see comfort in the fact that life is born again and again through death. But I wondered if in focusing so steadily on the death part of the cycle, Dug relinquishes some of his appreciation for the glorious life side of the equation. The visit reminded me how grateful I am for my own fleeting, yet rich, energetic time on the life cycle.

III. Dad keeps referring to my ipod as "those tapes." Not just "the tape," because it is clearly too many hours of music to fit on a tape, so instead it is many tapes. I made a playlist while he drove the other day and he couldn't believe how quickly I could churn out dozens of mixed tapes tailored to his musical tastes. He says I'll have to make him copies of "those tapes" when I get home. I will focus on his praise of my music selection, instead of my frustration about my dad being elderly. He also keeps pronouncing Mauri "may-or-ee" and referring to any house that a Mauri person might live in as a "village," even though they are just normal houses on a street. I think at this point he is just doing this to vex me because it can't still be happening for real.

IV. One day in logging world we'd been torn up by a few rough batches of logs, leaving our hands cut and bleeding. While we were standing there catching our breath and waiting for the chains to head back down the hill I noticed that Katy was drawing a big smiley face on her hand using her own blood. It was terrifying and badass and funny, all rolled into one.

V. Two encounters, both with giant trees: One night Dad and I were driving to our destination in the dark, but saw a little dot on our map labeled, "Giant Fig Tree." The dot was at the very tip of a small peninsula that we would otherwise drive past and we decided that it was worth the stop. We'd just be in its presence and maybe shine our headlights on it. We got to the fig and, sure enough, it was giant. This is a massive tree. And it has amazing snaky roots and strong, thick limbs perfect for climbing. Sort of like a magnolia on steroids. We pulled up the car to shine our headlights on it and see what we could see and while we were walking around it, another car pulled up, situated its headlights beside ours, and a family equipped with headlamps got out to look at the tree as well. I just couldn't believe that more than one car load of people would think it worthwhile to go see a tree, in the middle of winter, in the dark, by the lights of their headlights. It was beautiful surrounded by stars, but I've got to try to get back to it in sunlight. The other old tree was also an unplanned stop for a dot on the map, this time labeled, "2,000 year old Puriri tree." This time, we found the tree in a forest park that was a patch of old, native forest surrounded by farm land. This little patch of forest turned out to be one of the most beautiful pieces of forest I've ever seen. Think Avatar, but without the glowing and without a single thing that can hurt you. Not so much as a tick. The highlight of the forest is, in fact, a 2,000 year old Puriri tree with a huge hollow at its base that used to be a sacred burial place, and while it is still sacred, the bones have been relocated. It was amazing. Definitely makes one feel small. Dad and I were the only people there, standing in the presence of this life that has lived as a contemporary to everyone from Jesus to Shakespeare and Colombus to Cook, and now my dad and me. And it will probably outlive us all. Just as we were about to walk away, two Tui birds flitting around in the branches above us began their mating routine, letting us watch as the male danced away, unable to secure the female's affection. Tui birds sing the best song of all the birds. It makes a walk through a forest like that all the more magical. That recording hardly explains it, but it's a start. I'm so glad Dad is finally here to witness this place.

VI. We got to watch this sunset over the East Cape a few nights ago:











VII. One day at Gilly and Greg's, Dad went out on a boating adventure with Greg and Gilly and I spent the entire afternoon walking to the tip top ridge of a farm near the beach and then down a trail along those glorious west coast beaches. The farm was vivid green because rain has come back for winter. Along the way we were surprised to see a flock of peacocks, and then at the top of the hill all of the farm's horses were grazing and quickly surrounded us in hopes of treats. Standing on that hill, surrounded by beach and green grass and friendly horses felt like floating through a drugged, dream world. Couldn't possibly be real. It was dark and freezing by the time we got home, and we rushed over to Margaret's to watch the All Blacks play South Africa in rugby. Great game, they won. Watching with Margaret was awesome because you don't expect such a sweet looking 83 year old to be so into rugby, but she was feeling it. Then we went back to Gilly's for lamb stew and bedtime. I thank you God for most this amazing day!!!!!

VIII. Today dad and I were on a hike and he was looking at a big tree and said, "Could you handle that? Being a tree? Stuck in one place for the entirety of your life?" "If I were a tree, I don't think I'd see it that way," I said. "Infinite patience," he said. "That's what trees have." I thought that was lovely, infinite patience. He went on to tell me that if ever I'm in prison and know I'll be there for a long, long time, I must think of myself as a tree, at peace with being rooted in my one place. Though I wonder why he thinks I need prison advice and though I have a tendency toward wanderlust, I feel weirdly relieved to have a meditation to get me through prison, if ever I need one.

There's just no chance that I could tell all of the stories that I want to tell. There's not enough time, you'd get sick of reading, and first hand accounts are way more fun for everyone. So I'll go with a bare minimum. First and foremost, Dad is here now! He arrived on Sunday morning and I flew up to Auckland to meet him. We've been staying with Gilly and Greg, who have been the most generous hosts imaginable and Gilly has spent the last two days taking us through the highlights of Waitakere scenery. It's great to be back here, and I know that I'll have to spend a quality amount of time here before I leave. I started here and it only makes sense to finish here. Dad brought me some bags of dark chocolate reeses, one of which Tansy promptly disposed of, tin foil and all. This is the second dog-attack I've faced with imported dark chocolate reeses and you'd better believe it's not going to happen again. I can't believe I'd be so negligent of something I care about so deeply. It's fun to be around Ron again. Did I ever talk about how Ron has cancer? He found out soon after we left the last time that he has cancer of the esophagus and the doctors estimate six months more to live. He's already past three, but he just bought his sons tickets to visit him for Christmas and Ron is the epitome of determination, so I fully expect him to be around for a long while. In the meantime he is just doing his thing. Laughing, working constantly, mocking me. He bought a tractor while he was in the hospital finding out that he is sick. A brand new, hard working tractor. You can't get more Ron than that.

So I went logging. Whoa. That's one hell of a leap from Greenpeace. The thing is, it is heavily managed logging that is monitored by the Department of Forestry and harvested with the idea of renewability. We're not going all swidden over here. I think it is great for me to take part in that kind of work. The kind where liberal, idealistic Robin who loves living in world peace fantasy land has to toughen up and do things that people have to do and will keep doing. I can't pretend I don't use wood. Even when I'm not I wish was. For instance, right now I'm writing on a blog instead of on paper. But those of you have been with me since day one may remember how I feel about blogs. I hate them. I wish I was using trees right now and writing you all letters about my life. Instead I've sucked away all the "pure romance," as dad would say, and smeared my thoughts on this blog. My point is, trees are a great resource that I love using, so it's about time I took some responsibility for my resource use.

I started the job as a "poleman." We changed the spelling to "polemyn" to make it more lady-friendly, but really there is nothing about this industry that makes a point to appeal to women. This job as poleman involves unhooking chains from the trees once they are pulled up the hill and safely onto the skid site. Basically I stand near the hauler, the big machine pulling them up the hill, wait for the load to get there, get the go ahead, unhook the trees (takes an average of about 30 seconds), get out of the way, give a go ahead, and stay away until the next load gets there. That's the job. It would be wholly uneventful if I weren't working in the Marlborough Sounds. But fortunately for me I was working in the Sounds, in one of the most beautiful landscapes I can imagine, watching the sun rise and the sea wake up every single day. That kept it interesting. This picture is of the town closest to the Sounds, but doesn't at all do it justice or show the heart of the area. It's just all I have because I'd lose street cred if I brought my camera to work. Wayne (Carolyn's husband and owner of the business) and Katy (the one girl who works there) were supposed to be my safety net in my first days; however, Katy left because she was sick and Wayne hurt his foot before morning tea on my first day, so they were both out for the count. That meant meant that my first day I was taking my breaks in the tiny, dark, metal shed called "the container," sitting on oil buckets with my 8 bushmen co-workers sipping tea and talking about pig hunting. What? I'm sure they were all wondering how that American girl in the corner got there. Though they look tough, they all turned out to be so nice. The first few days a few of them sheepishly apologized for cursing in front of me and by my second week they accepted my presence without much ado.

After two days my career as poleman was cut short when Wayne announced that we were headed down the hill. I swung my boot up on a tire while he knelt down and strapped crampons on my feet, and away we went. I felt like a twisted sort of Cinderella. Modern day, working girl Cinderella getting Bushman Charming to strap the perfect spikes on her feet and lead her away down the muddy hillside. You know, this is my second experience with crampons in New Zealand? I'd never even heard of them before and now I've actually be required to wear them on more than one occasion. Before I came here if someone had asked what size crampon I wore I would have thought them very crude. Anyway. Thus began my career "breaking out." This job is the part of logging that makes it one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. It is also the part that hones super human strength. So the breaker outers work on the hillsides where trees have already been felled, hooking chains to the trees and directing the hauler to pull them up. Time is of the essence, so you do it all as fast as you possibly can, which means a lot of running straight up mountain sides. The chains come down the hill, you race to untangle them, figure out how to get them around a tree or two, race to a safe distance, and call the hauler to pull them up. You just move down the hill till the bottom, move the ropes, then walk back to the top and start the next line down. It's completely hard physically, but it is kind of fun because each time is like a little timed puzzle. It is so dangerous because if I log slips or chains or ropes break, your survival is only a matter of luck because you couldn't possibly get away from a falling log fast enough. That part makes it scary, and probably not worth it, even though I liked it and want to take on a whole season of it and see if I can get really good. It tore me up. I am covered in bruises, scrapes and cuts over muscles (or places where muscles should be) that won't stop being sore. Oh, but at the end of the day you feel so accomplished. Like you won a big race, every day.

Women don't typically have this job. It is highly unusual, which makes it all the more awesome that I was doing the job with a woman. I worked with Katy, a woman who is seriously not five feet tall and who weighs approximately as much as one of my legs. She smokes like a chimney and speaks like a sailor. On more than one occasion she was rolling a cigarette while racing down the mountain or dragging along chains. Breathing was a constant struggle for me doing that job and I've never smoked a single cigarette, so I can't understand how she does it. But she does it, and she's good at it, and she reckons that we are the only two women breaker outers in the whole of the South Island. Wayne worked with us most of the time, too, which was really nice because I got some quality time Wayne time. We took our lunch and snacks down the hill with us each day because it would take your whole break to walk all the way to the top of the hill, and I swear to you that Wayne accidentally made his instant soup in his tea thermos instead of his hot water thermos everyday. And everyday he said, "oh, I've done it again" and ate it up. Love that guy.

During the week most of the crew lives in a little cabin in the forest we work in, so I'd go home early each day and make dinner for everyone and then we would sit around talking or reading until bed time, then get up at 5:30 each morning and do it again. We don't have a TV, but I told them about those DVDs at home of fireplaces burning and so now we pretend that our real fire is a DVD that we are watching. It makes us feel more modern, less isolated. One night this conversation happened after a silent few minutes of fire-watching:
Katy: I wonder what's people are watching on TV right now.
Gavin: I think Underbelly is on right now.
Roydon: Oh, how is that show? I hear it's good.
Gavin: Don't know, never seen it.
All of us: Yeah, neither.
Silence continued.
Don't let the word "cabin" fool you into a false sense of rustic-quaint. Remember that this house is occupied by six lumberjacks, who co-habitate remarkably well with rodents and spiders of all shapes and sizes. One night early on I was horrified to wake up to find my head actually touching the pillow. It was meant to stay fully encased in my sleeping bag at all times. Then I got over myself and embraced the grime, making me a much easier, if not happier, camper.

After all of that it might sound like I didn't like that experience at all, but I actually sort of loved it. I hope I can do it more in August. It was so different from the life I generally imagine for myself, it felt sort of like I was reinventing my whole persona. Like Halloween, but real life. Real, lucky life.

On to the next adventure with Papa Fail on board. And so it goes!

Ok, so I'm not a logger yet. I've been more of a wwoofer this past week. BUT BUT BUT tonight at six I leave for the Marlborough Sounds to jump start my logging career. It'll only be a two-week long career at the moment because dad comes in two weeks, but one never knows where leads like this will take me. Carolyn and I spent the last week doing farmy things and making-over Thomas' room and watching him play rugby. Thursday marked 6 days since I'd seen Maggie and in a miraculous surprise she just walked in the kitchen while I was cooking dinner that night! I was so surprised that I forgot to smile; instead I went with a disgusted "who the hell do you think you are" sort of look. Then my brain caught up and we hugged and talked for 3 days straight. It was great. I didn't realize how much I only felt half-present. The Lentz fam mailed Carolyn a bunch of Martha Steward Living magazines and we spent an inordinate amount of time studying their pages, memorizing tricks to add seasonal spice to our homes this fall and lusting after the cake recipes. It was actually sort of weird how into it I was. But I mean, pumpkin vases?! Christmas light jack-o-lanterns?! Snow votives?!!? Score. I drove Mags to the airport this morning for her commute to Wellington to get her to work on time. It was so worth being up for sunrise because the sky was cloudy pink with a bright rainbow trapped in the pink that made it an illuminated hot pink streak in the sky. Words don't work as well as eyes, in cases such as these.

One night this week Thomas took me on my first pig hunt! Whoa, right?! He was just going one evening and I think he was joking when he invited me, but I ended up going, so careful when you joke with me because I might take you too seriously. We went up to this ridge near their house and the drive there was a four-wheel drive adventure that was sort of an appetizer to the redneck-badass fun. We went through one padlocked gate to get there and when I locked it after us Thomas seemed to disapprove. When I offered to get out and leave it unlocked he just mumbled something about, "no she'll be right, it was just in case we need to get out of here in a hurry." He didn't elaborate on why we'd need to get out in such a hurry, but it gave me a little extra kick of fear to get me started. Thomas gave me no instruction ahead of time, but sometimes he'd just hold up a hand to get me to shut up and listen. We took two of his dogs and went up to a hill top and then just sat under the trees with the dogs, just listening, waiting for it to get totally dark. After a few minutes the dogs started freaking out and we let them off their ropes and they shot away into the woods. Then we got ready to run and listened for their barks. They did manage to bail a pig and brought it close enough for us to chase it at one point, but we didn't get there in time, probably on account of the "bloody slow yank" trailing behind. But I think it was great fun because we didn't catch anything. I didn't have to see how I'd respond to the trauma of actually killing something, and instead I got to run through the woods at night with a gun slung over my shoulder, which is neither something I've done, nor is it something I could have imagined myself doing a year ago. Eventually the dogs got too far away and the barking died down and we headed back to the car and waited. Thomas called them and whistled for them and sure enough, about 15 minutes later Blaise hobbled back. Then we drove down the main road with me holding tracking gear out the window and listened for the beep that meant Swazi was somewhere near by and eventually she found us, too. It was so cool to actually use my ears. So much of it was just hard listening and I can't think of another time that I've had to practice being so quiet or so aware of exercising my hearing. I'd do it again, at least until we actually kill something and I scream and cry and commit myself to veganism.

Thank you Carolyn for inviting me back! Thank you Thomas for taking me hunting! Thank you Maggie for visiting! Thank you sky for pink sunrise rainbows! Thank you Martha for the handy home-making tips! Thank you Wayne for your abundance of laugh lines around your eyes! Thank you world for being so full of life and surprise!