Heading out tomorrow to pick apples on an orchard in Hastings for 3 weeks! It should be an adventure. We are staying in a caravan on the orchard. We will share this caravan with our friends Malcolm and Lindsay. Our boss is named Ladislav. We are paid based on how much we pick. I should have been weightlifting, not weeding!

Mags and I have befriended a new wwoofer, Loulou, who is a precious Parisian. This morning the 3 of us went to the beach after breakfast and ran until it rained. It was a great way to start a day.

I may be out of touch during the apple picking, during which time I will excitedly wait for the arrival of the dear Lentz family! Come on, guys! I can't wait!!!!

Bye now.

from now

Maggie and I made a mistake yesterday. We almost didn't see Avatar. We scoffed. Aliens? 3D glasses? I think not. Fortunately, we ignored our misgivings, undid our mistake and saw the movie. I know the fact that I feel so...affected by an alien fantasy movie is going to turn you off to the whole idea of me. But oh my god, I'm so affected by an alien fantasy movie. I think part of my response was due to the fact that so much of the remarkable scenery looked like New Zealand. Later, we learned that the animation was all done here, and it is modeled after New Zealand. Go figure. But it wasn't until I was watching war waged upon our daily wonders that it all really registered. I felt like it was all being ripped out from under me and it was terrifying. I'm going to try to resist saying anything more about Avatar, even though it is all that I want to talk about. I sound crazy.

One of my favorite times in NZ was when we were at a house in Whangarei and were assigned the task of trimming hedges. Having never used a hedge trimmer, both Maggie and I were a bit trepidacious about holding the power to shape someone's lawn. We took it slowly at first, but our confidence quickly blossomed and we were taking turns climbing to the top rung of the ladder and leaning over the hedges with our blades. At one point, I was holding the ladder for Maggie and after a few minutes realized that she hadn't paused in the trimming for quite some time and branches were still flying in all directions. After another moment Maggie stopped. Looked around. "I blacked out," was all she said. I took a few steps back and indeed she had. Directly in front of the ladder was a Maggie-shaped hole in the hedge. Oops. I took over, leaving Maggie on ladder duty. Soon after I began I looked down and Maggie was nowhere to be seen, which is a problem when you expect to find her holding your ladder (and your LIFE) in her hands. I found Maggie under the plum tree, happily munching on plums, her chin dripping with juice. I can't possibly not love this person.

from a few days ago

I saw my first New Zealand glowworms today. I’ve been excited about them ever since I first saw the caves episode of Planet Earth. Even the good Sir Attenborough could not have prepared me for how magical they actually are. Magical is the only word I can think to use. They turn a cave into a planetarium and look just like pinpricks of stars forming clustered constellations in all directions. Mom and I chose Waipu Caves in our attempt to find some of these worms. We turned off of the highway at a sign pointing toward them, drove for what seemed like forever through countryside, hit a dirt road, drove another forever, and just when we were certain we had missed it, Mom noticed a tiny, hand-painted sign, which one can imagine used to read, “caves.” We pulled up in an open field with one other car in it. No signs about glowworms, no tourists, no ticket office, no warnings about the countless things that could kill you when you wander into an unknown cave without a guide or a map or signs of any sort. Nothing. It really changes things when suing isn’t an option. So we grabbed our headlamps and headed into the only apparent cave mouth. I felt really vulnerable walking into a deep, dark cave that I know absolutely nothing about. A little ways in, just past where the light no longer reaches the ceiling, Mom and I looked up and there, suspended above our heads, was our first set of glowworms. They hang by clear, gooey threads, but all you can see is the glowing greenish-white point. That part was amazing on its own and we wanted to go deeper, but there was a stream running through the cave that seemed to cut us off where we stood. We left, walked around outside a minute, and decided that we needed to take off our shoes and head into the stream. Pushing thoughts of eels and bottomless abysses to the back of our mind, we went back in and waded through the stream. Turned out, it was about 6 inches deep at its highest point. No worries. The deeper we got into the cave, the more magical our world became. Once we were pretty near the back we turned off our lights and were surrounded by little wormy stars. Mom and I were completely alone in this cave, with only the sound of running water and constellations of glowworms. I’m always amazed when I see nature mimicking other nature. Storm cloud with rain in the distance = jellyfish, lines from the tide in sand = mountain ranges, wind through a forest = waves crashing on a beach. Those things always make me smile, but glowworms = stars is my new favorite example. I always think nature is impressive, but sometimes it is almost too much to bear.

Today was one of Mom’s final days in New Zealand, and every element of the day played out perfectly in her favor. It seems that she came surrounded by some sort of well-deserved-vacation magic that scores her perfect timing, weather, and general luck.

Today’s schedule was one of my favorites:
9 am: wake up at gilly and greg’s beach bach
9 am - 12 pm: read/eat breakfast
12-12:30 pm: eat lunch
12:30 pm: depart for the day’s activities (scenic road trip)
1:30-2:30 pm: explore glowworm caves
2:30-5:30 pm: sit/read/walk/swim at perfect beach
5:30-6:30 pm: lovely drive home
6:30-8:00 pm: dinner with garden veggies, fish, wine and chocolate
8-9:30 pm: read
9:30 pm: sleeeep

Gilly and Carolyn (and their families) have taught me lessons in generosity that I could not have conceived of before coming here. If they had a global generosity competition, like a Generous-Off, I feel certain that Gilly and Carolyn would be the two finalists and then whoever won would just give the prize to the other. I think that they have forever changed what I feel I can do for others. I don’t know how I managed this lot in life, but if anyone can give me a clue about how to even begin to deserve it, I’m open to all suggestions.

still alive, i see!

Yikes, pencils about my astonishing lack of updates!! OOPS. I'd love to take responsibility for my own negligence, only it's not en tirely my fault. Let's blame Katherine and Jodi because they distra cted me for weeks and kept me away from technology of all sorts. S o.

Here is what we did with Katherine and/or Jodi: drove around the South Island, saw big round boulders, talked to parrots in the Dunedin botanical gardens, had a geography contest with a man at a bar, drank wine on the beach, froze to death because it is "summer" here and people don't bring coats on trips in the summer, ate fish and chips, needed to throw-up fish and chips, hiked Franz Joseph glacier, took a boat out on the Milford Sound, spent Christm as with Carolyn's family, swam on Christmas day because remember, it is summer here!, awoke to a wind storm of absurd strength b lowing away our tent on Abel Tasman, surprised ourselves by spending New Years Eve at a bar in a boat club resort in the Marlborough Sounds with a traveler named Gethin who looked a bit homocidal, but turned out fine, spent that night packed like sardines in a campsite with our neighbor to the left being a man known only as "Drunk" and on our right a professional dirt bike rider we like to call "Gross", ferried across to the North Island, used our shadows to tell the time of day using a sun dial in the Wellington botanical gardens, hiked th e Tongariro Alpine crossing during another extremely extreme wind storm that made Maggie cold enough to wear underwear on her head, gave a white guy from Zimbabwe a ride after the hike and dropped him off 7 kms from his car because he "hadn't had a run yet" that day, pretended that our muscles weren't screaming in p ost-hike agony as we watched him jog away, camped on the Coromandel Peninsula beside a group of kiwi boys who were surprised to learn that more than 4 stars appear in the American skies and that the Milky Way is not a blackhole, read on the beach, ate icecream, laughed for about 3 weeks straight, woke up at 3am to take them to the airport. Bye Katherine and Jodi!

Now, Maggie and I find ourselves back in the wonderfu l, loving hands of Gilly and Greg. It felt like coming home, getting back to their house. We left their garden in October as a bunch of brown beds with frail seedlings that looked absolutely hopeless. We left half-joking about how we were soon going to need to sneak produce from the grocery store into the garden to make ou r efforts appear successful. But we returned to the most incredible forest of vegetables. More veggies than you can shake a stick at. I have found a renewed sense of wonder at the basic facts of life. For instance: plants are alive, y'all. They grow. It's incredible.

Our first day back was a fantastic day of hay collection. You might think that I use the word "fantastic" with sarcasm, but it couldn't have been more fun. For one thing, we got to spend a morning back on the farm with Ron, our most remarkable octogenarian friend. After a morning of our first 50 bales, we took Ron to the beach, where I almost asked "did you surf when you were younger?" but revised the question to, "do you surf?" Yes, is the answer. The afternoon was set for picking up the remaining 150 bales of hay straight from the paddock where it was cut. The entire Shine family, their partners, and their partner's siblings all came out to help. We ran around the paddock behind the baler throwing bales on trucks as fast as we could. It was so fun. Ron and Margaret (82 and 83, respectively) were both in it to win it with the youngest of us. They have redefined "age" for me, in case you couldn't tell. After all the bales were loaded and unloaded we snacked on pears straight from the tree until it was time for a bbq dinner for all 14 helpers. Gilly and Greg are the most generous humans in the world. This is a fact.

Yesterday we went on a snorkeling trip. Today we returned to our Most Perfect yoga class, planted hundreds of new veggies, fed pigs, calves and horses, ran at the Most Perfect beach, and made dinner with our garden bounty. So many days make Maggie and I scream out love and thanks.

There are also days when I feel a twinge of unsettlement. Dissettlement? Nope. But you get it. It is hard to know that I can be happy doing this for myself now, while trusting myself to work on something bigger later. I just feel anxious about that on some days. I suppose that things can only be so perfect before I begin to distrust the reality of it all.

Now I'm looking forward to Mom's visit in less than a week! Yay, Mommy!

OKOKOKOKOKOK. Guess what?! Katherine comes in 2 days!!!!! WHOA! That'll just be a ball and a half. Then, as though it could get more fun, Jodi comes in 9 days. Rockstar.

Maggie and I completed our hike through paradise only slightly worse for the wear because it rained most days. But it was beautiful, nonetheless, and pictures from it are posted, if you are more of a visual person. My favorite thing was making friends with people in the campsites each night and then all sort of moving through the hike as a group. We met this guy, Gerald, who is from Germany and is riding his bicycle around the whole of New Zealand. He is doing it because he feels like biking is the perfect speed to watch the world go by. Since NZ is the tiniest, a few days later we passed a couple from our camp grounds hitchhiking near Carolyn's house, so we drove them an hour toward their destination for good traveler's karma. Being the hardcore backpackers that we are, Maggie and I left for the trip equipped with 6 christmas mince pies, which had to be eaten quickly given their considerable weight. Speaking of christmas mince pies, how gross do those sound?? Very. But in truth they are marvelous, like a fig newton on steroids, in a pie, without the pretense of "healthy eating."

Since the hike we have been back at Carolyn's. I swear we'll get around to seeing more of NZ soon. But we are still here because it rules. For example, here was yesterday:

I woke up to Sweet Maggie Smile, we ate a leisurely breakfast in our little mountain cottage. There has been a mysterious white thing on the only bare patch of rock on the facing mountain that we have noticed for a month now, only on sunny days. We refer to this white thing as "White Thing" and finally our fear that it was a creepy white-robed man staring at us everyday drove us to pull out the binoculars that dad forced me to bring (thanks, daddy) and learn that White Thing is a mountain goat!! Not only is White Thing a mountain goat, but he has a Brown Thing friend that we never noticed! So now we can wake up in the morning and say hello to White Thing instead of yelling about his eerie mystery.

Anyway, post breakfast we received a Lentz Family package and gleefully put together the christmas tree they sent and ate Reese's Cups. Thank you so much, Lentzes, you made our day!!Then we worked in the garden for a few hours. Carolyn has started referring to her garden as her "grounds" because they are starting to look posh and polished. The transformation has been so fun to take part in. We actually feel proud of our work when we look at her garden. Then we all drove to town for Christmas shopping. Got pizzas, ate dinner, then made christmas mince pies from scratch! Then we had hot pie and red wine while we watched a movie. It was cold and rainy, which is all wrong for summer, but all right for Christmas. On the drive home a hedgehog ran in front of our car! I've only ever seen one in a cage in Hunter's room! So that was great.

We've decorated the tree at their house, and Carolyn and her family invited us to spend Christmas with them, which is too kind an offer to resist. In the meantime, we'll go grab Katherine and climb a glacier, before coming back to Carolyn's on Christmas Eve.

I miss you for Christmas, family! It still isn't right to be wearing shorts and sunscreen while Santas ring bells on the street. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Allow me to profile the stellar old men who we've encountered thus far on our kiwi adventure. I will list in order of acquaintance.

Ron, 82: jumps fences, drives his house around in a bus, builds sheds in his free time, carries things for us that are too heavy for us. He's 60 years stronger than us, not 60 years older.

John, 76: knows how to operate dvd players and weed eaters, maintains a manicured lawn, gives away soft toys

Jack, 80: walked us to our car from his room in the hospital for those with terminal illness and taught us a cool handshake on the way out

Gordon, 90: stood up to shake hands with us when we walked in the room, worked in a carpentry shed all day, only stopping to fix his daughter's lawn mower when she overworked it that day

These are only the most remarkable. But can you understand why I'm so impressed? Who needs the fountain of youth when being elderly can still be so fun?

Bud rubbing, for those of you who have been waiting on the edge of your seat, is neither fun, nor sexy. A little fun. Therapeutic in its banality. Good ipod time. It's just rubbing the buds off the bottom of the plant below the desirable vines. That's all. But it is one of many little things we learned about grapes at the Speedy's! They were great. They have vineyards of sauv blanc and pino grig grapes (as they say in the biz, ha) plus sheep and cattle and forests for timber. Plus they have full time jobs as a teacher and a social worker. Now as we drive past vineyards we say know-it-all things like, "goodness those vines need thinning" or "wow, they need to get to singling." Cool, huh?

Our week was highlighted by the World's Friendliest Cat, Dragon, who slept under the covers and purred the whole night through, and a pathetically sweet sheep dog, Meg. Dragon, we later learned was a donation from Pam's sister. He cost $1000. He was bred to be sweet. So he is really more of an amiable, furry robot than a cat. Meg is sweet, but unemployed and stunted because she was ruined on all the electric fences as a puppy. Poor thing.

Next adventure: Abel Tasman Coast Track. Then Carolyn's3 - The Remix. Then Katherine and Jodi! Nothin' but net (as they say in another biz.)

Also! I need you all to participate in my poll to the right of your screen, please. This is really important. REALLY REALLY REALLY important.