Life on the Farm

Monday 15 December

Set an earlyish alarm so I could help out with the morning farm duties - and grabbed my Red Band gumboots as this was bound to be dirty work.

After saying hello to Monkey the horse, the first job of the day was bottle feeding Caramello & Twix, the lambs again. On to the various different aged calves next - the youngsters got warm milk in a high trough with teats to suckle from, then a few scoops of dry nuts; the older calves had to make do with cold milk in a huge tub and kinda drinking straws! You never think of grown cows as being cute, but their offspring certainly are - the Jersey calves had adorable Bambi faces and were so curious. Liana the Swiss Brown was certainly ready for her close up - pulling an extra special black tongued pose for me!!!

We also tended to the baby chooks (curiously dark Australorp chicks - apparently they are gonna be supreme egg layers when they grow up!) and the four pigs - one of whom had escaped becoming the Christmas ham due to the butcher being too busy! It was such a cool way to spend an hour or two, and took me back to holidays on Dartmoor in the 70s and working with the Scotts’ ponies in the 80s. The shed where they separate and store the milk was certainly a tad more modern than the machinery Granny Bootie used to use back in the 1970s!

Just as we finished up, Shelli gave me a huge tub of fresh cream to say thanks for the help… Louis almost died of excitement at the prospect of adding this to his porridge for the foreseeable future! I was upset though that nobody had awarded me a "Best Udder" rosette back in my breast feeding days!!!

He’d packed up Banjo and hitched up so we were able to leave soon after and head north up the coast via the charmingly named hamlets of Herbert & Alma!

Just outside Alma we stopped at the newly opened Totara Store (launched last week) - what a fab place! Local foods and home crafts, beautifully presented in a gorgeous heritage building. My favourite thing was the huge tub of fresh herbs - for $4 you could purchase a paper bag and fill it with freshly picked organic herbs - mint, sage, parsley, oregano and more.

Not much further along we veered eastward to the coast to settle in at Old Bones Lodge POP - an old favourite of ours just outside Oamaru. Sadly Old Bones has been on the market for a while and Grant told us they had finally made the sale and a family from Kaikohe in Northland would be taking over in April 2026 - no idea yet whether they will still offer POP spaces. Met our neighbours - Max who lives here semi-permanently while his new house is being built and Buddy & his parents , Nicky and Dick, who parked up next but one from us. I loved that Buddy seemed to be rocking my hair cut and colour!!!

Popped into town after lunch (chilli lime chicken tacos) so Louis could swim and I could wander (oops, an accidental op shop visit or two!) Lots of signs of Christmas including some beautifully painted store windows.

Took a wee, blustery walk back on the beach by Old Bones before the rain hit and we hunkered down for much of the evening. No spas for us this time!