Alright, alright, alright. Photos! http://picasaweb.google.com/ellen.bucy . I've added to the last album you saw (and finally edited and captioned those photos, too). Enjoy!
We have had an awesome week, traveling up the West Coast from Wanaka. Here's our action-packed agenda:
Tuesday - Laundry and internet in Wanaka. Wait for Betty to be finished at the mechanic. Pick up Betty after lunch and get on the road! Head northwest to Haast Past, about 1.5 hours drive. Quickly pack bags and get on trail to Brewster Hut around 4 PM. Hike straight up for two hours and reach the hut in time for dinner and gorgeous sunset. Sleep in stuffy 12-person bunk room and get little sleep.
Wednesday - Early wake, pack lunches and head up to check out the glacier and the amazing turquoise lakes. Get back to the hut about six hours later, have a cup of coffee and apple at hut before packing up and heading back down the mountain. Get to the car around 4 PM, filthy and stinky smelly. Head through Haast Pass, towards the West Coast, not sure of exact destination. Feel desperate for a shower. Find a bargain tourist park for $10 per person, just south of Fox Glacier. Have the place all to ourselves - access to shower and kitchen facilities! Sit in the kitchen all night and watch TV, until time to retire to tent.
Thursday - Wake up to overcast day. Continue driving north up West Coast. Stop briefly at Franz Josef Glacier. Feel unimpressed by it. Drive on and take a detour out to the Okarito Lagoon. Lay on the beach and practice Swedish while Bjorn fishes for a couple of hours. Drive on, arriving at lovely Lake Ianthe, a DOC campsite. Enjoy a nice lakeside dinner. Retire to tent.
Friday - Forecast calls for rain. Continue north, stopping for a bit in the small town of Hokitika. Visit used book stores and jade shops. Don't buy anything. Head onto Greymouth, the West Coast's "big city". Stop at the Vehicle Testing place and finally get Betty's Warranty of Fitness. Have a celebration lunch at McDonald's (ew, but yummmm). Tour the Monteith's Brewery and enjoy quite a lot of beer tasting afterwards (though not more than the legal driving limit, they told us). Have a coffee, just in case. Head eastward towards Arthur's Pass, stopping at Lake Brunner, a cute little lakeside town. Stay at a tourist park. Have showers and enjoy sitting in the kitchen/lounge while it POURS down rain for a couple hours. Retire to tent.
Saturday - BEEAutiful day in Lake Brunner. Rent Ellen a 24 hour fishing license and rod, and rent a little rowboat for the day to go out on Lake Brunner. Spend about five hours sitting in the boat, casting out and reeling in. Don't catch any fish. Return dinghy. Drive down the road a little ways to Arnold River access point. Go for a lovely afternoon walk while Bjorn fishes. Return to car and enjoy the sunshine while sitting out and reading through our Lonely Planet Tramping book. Place the book on top of the car while packing things up, and drive off to Arthur's Pass, leaving the book in the ditch. Arrive to free campsite in Arthur's Pass just before sundown. Prepare dinner in the freezing cold and dark. Realize we've lost the tramping book and retire to the tent, feeling very sad about it. Wake several times during the night to the blaring Tranzalpine train, passing just next to our campsite.
Sunday - Pack up camp and pack day bags. Climb straight up for 2 hours 15 minutes to top of Avalanche Peak, 1800 meters. Sit at the top and enjoy salami and cheese sandwiches and apples. Climb back down. Reach car by 3:30 PM and retrace our route back to the West Coast. Stop for a brief snack at Jacksons Tavern, a small, nothing town west of Arthur's Pass. Split a venison pie and remark that it tastes like roast beef. Pass back through Lake Brunner and check to see if our tramping book happens to still be in the ditch. Believe you've experience a true miracle when it is! Retrieve the book and celebrate. Arrive in gorgeous Punakaiki and check into a tourist park. Shower, eat, and have a sunset stroll along the gorgeous beach, drinking red wine and collecting smooth stones. Retire to tent.
Monday - Pack up camp. Question the weather, but decide to go on with the Inland Pack track anyway. Weather turns out to be perfect. Hike for 4 hours through rainforest and then for 3 through a river gorge. Ford the river about 20 times. Have extremely cold and wet shoes and pants. Reach The Ballroom, an informal camp site under a huge limestone overhang. Build a fire, eat, and wait for the arrival of the nice German girl we passed earlier. Feel relieved when she finally arrives just before it gets dark and listen in awe as she talks about how she got lost along the way. Retire to tent.
Tuesday - Pack up camp and tramp 2.5 hours out. Arrive at main road, 12 km from where we parked the car the day before. Walk for about 30 minutes down the road, trying to hitch rides along the way. Feel rejected many, many times, until a white station wagon pulls over. Find the nice German girl in the passenger seat and feel so grateful! Get back to car. Fill up our new solar camp shower with water and store in car for later. Go marvel at the pancake rocks and blowholes on the coast of Punakaiki. Drive on to free campsite on beach at Charleston. Use solar shower and feel unimpressed with its water pressure but cleaner nevertheless. Giggle about being naked under a plastic shower in the middle of nowhereland. Eat, watch the sun go down, retire to tent.
Wednesday (today) - Pack up camp and head to Westport, twenty minutes north. Spend hours on internet. Make a few phone calls and post pictures while Bjorn does laundry.
WHAT a week. We are now going to get some lunch, load up our grocery supply, and head onto Golden Bay - the northwestern part of the South Island. We are giving ourselves about 10 days to get through the north here - Golden Bay, Nelson, Abel Tasman National Park, Marlborough (wine country!) - before heading onto North Island. Just over five weeks left and counting....trying to make it count!
Love to you all.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Final Thoughts
Bjorn and I would not have visited Gore had we not WWOOFed there. It isn't exactly the kind of place you want to have a lot of time to kill in. Not much to do really. About 7,000 people live in Gore proper, about 3,000 more on the outskirts. The town center consits of a main drag with stores, pharmacies, and a few cafes, and has a certain timelessness about it. Many of the buildings still have their original facades, displaying signs and names for shops long gone, replaced by more modern ventures. I looked through a history of Gore book at the house one day and noticed that the photo of Gore in 1900 looked almost exactly like Gore in 2009.
Gore is located in central Otago, which is part of an area called Southland, basically covering the southernmost parts of the South Island. It's farm country. Sheep farms, dairy farms, and a bit of horse breeding. That's about it. And the people live and breathe the stuff. They're attached to the land in a way I admire in some ways, but don't fully understand. Both Biddy and Russell grew up in the Gore area. Russell actually grew up just across the street from his present home, and his mother grew up just around the corner from that. They KNOW this land. This is THEIR land, their home.
Biddy had just celebrated her sixtieth birthday before we arrived, and they mentioned a few times in passing that they had been married for 43 years. Do a little quick math, and you realize that they married when Biddy was 17. I suppose that's not TOO crazy for that generation, but it still seems unbelievably young to me. In addition to this, their eldest daughter is in her forties and has a 17 year old of her own. The whole story was never divulged to us, of course, but I imagine that Russell and Biddy met at the local high school, got pregnant, and well, what else were they going to do? Russell did say at one point, that if they hadn't married, they couldn't have had everything they have now. I'm not sure what he was trying to say, but it wasn't said in Biddy's presence, and I sort of got the feeling that he was trying to say, "I didn't necessarily want to get stuck with her, but that's how it had to be."
During our first few days in Gore, Biddy and Russell's relationship really bothered me. I went to bed sad at night, feeling the strain of an unhappy and boring marriage. By the time we left, though, I could see how the marriage functioned. And perhaps they were happy, in their own way. It's impossible to know what goes on (or went on before) between two people and therefore unfair to judge.
Our time in Gore wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, I'll be honest. I guess I had hoped that we'd end up in the company of people that we could identify with, engage in enlightening conversations with, discuss current events with, something! But I think that we would've missed the point of the whole exchange had we lived with people with whom we had more in common. For two weeks, we lived with an average Kiwi couple. They were farmers, proud of their land and their family tree, proud of hard work and their lifetime's achievements.
Biddy and Russell prided themselves on the number of functioning household appliances they owned that had been wedding presents. They prided themselves on the amount of money they saved - eating all their meals at home, always finishing leftovers - and how little they wasted. I once remarked to Biddy that her kitchen was like a grocery store; everything you could possibly need for any recipe was there. "We're country people," she responded to me. "You need a stick of butter? I've got a pound in the freezer. You need an egg? Go out back and see if the chickens have laid any. Need vegetables for dinner? Go out to the garden and pick some. That's how I've always lived. You just don't go into town when you need a stick of butter."
Biddy and Russell weren't interested in "flash" things. "Why would a person buy a Mercedes?" Russell said after seeing a car commercial one day. "Just isn't practical." They didn't aspire to have flash things, to have gobs of money, to be anything superior to exactly what they were. They didn't go see movies at the local theater, weren't interested. They could only see the world as far as Southland, New Zealand. Things beyond were out of reach.
There was a time when I looked down on people like Russell and Biddy. Didn't understand why, generation after generation, they stayed in the same place, working the same farms, associating with the same families. I won't say I now understand it, but I can at least say I've seen their life from their shoes now. I admire a great deal about Biddy and Russell and their lifestyle. They have only as much as they need. In the world I grew up in, it's unthinkable that a couple in their sixties, approaching retirement, would have only ONE bathroom in their house. But Biddy and Russell just didn't see the need for more than one. They're not educated people, but they are smart in ways most people I know are not. They know how to survive off what they have.
It was a good experience. I learned a great deal about New Zealand, about sheep, about marriage, about people. And it might not have been two weeks of pure fun, but it was two weeks of mental stimulation, to be sure. Lots of new things to ponder. The homestays I've done over the last year or so have easily been the most memorable experiences of my time traveling. Getting to see how other people live out their daily lives is just fascinating to me. Getting to see all the options!
We saw Biddy a few days ago - she was selling her wool and knitted goods at the Sunday craft fair in Wanaka. It was awkward. We had nothing to say to each other in such a neutral zone, when she couldn't ramble on about her yard or her kitchen or her pets. So we small talked and said final goodbyes, and that was that.
We've been in Wanaka for a week now. We went out to do some tramping in Mount Aspiring National park for three days, celebrated our one year anniversary, and enjoyed some of the most glorious weather we've had lately. Fall is slowly creeping in here - the mornings and evenings are quite cold, though it still gets nice and warm by mid-day.
We are leaving Wanaka this afternoon and starting our journey up the West Coast. It feels like the home stretch of our trip, for some reason. We have just over six weeks left in NZ! So...off to enjoy it now. I'll be in touch in another few days. Here are some pictures of our tramping in Mount Aspiring National Park, as well as some wanderings around Wanaka - the Cardrona Valley and the Rippon Vineyards. I don't have time to edit them or comment on them today, but if you want to go ahead and check them out, you may! http://picasaweb.google.com/ellen.bucy
Love to you all!
Gore is located in central Otago, which is part of an area called Southland, basically covering the southernmost parts of the South Island. It's farm country. Sheep farms, dairy farms, and a bit of horse breeding. That's about it. And the people live and breathe the stuff. They're attached to the land in a way I admire in some ways, but don't fully understand. Both Biddy and Russell grew up in the Gore area. Russell actually grew up just across the street from his present home, and his mother grew up just around the corner from that. They KNOW this land. This is THEIR land, their home.
Biddy had just celebrated her sixtieth birthday before we arrived, and they mentioned a few times in passing that they had been married for 43 years. Do a little quick math, and you realize that they married when Biddy was 17. I suppose that's not TOO crazy for that generation, but it still seems unbelievably young to me. In addition to this, their eldest daughter is in her forties and has a 17 year old of her own. The whole story was never divulged to us, of course, but I imagine that Russell and Biddy met at the local high school, got pregnant, and well, what else were they going to do? Russell did say at one point, that if they hadn't married, they couldn't have had everything they have now. I'm not sure what he was trying to say, but it wasn't said in Biddy's presence, and I sort of got the feeling that he was trying to say, "I didn't necessarily want to get stuck with her, but that's how it had to be."
During our first few days in Gore, Biddy and Russell's relationship really bothered me. I went to bed sad at night, feeling the strain of an unhappy and boring marriage. By the time we left, though, I could see how the marriage functioned. And perhaps they were happy, in their own way. It's impossible to know what goes on (or went on before) between two people and therefore unfair to judge.
Our time in Gore wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, I'll be honest. I guess I had hoped that we'd end up in the company of people that we could identify with, engage in enlightening conversations with, discuss current events with, something! But I think that we would've missed the point of the whole exchange had we lived with people with whom we had more in common. For two weeks, we lived with an average Kiwi couple. They were farmers, proud of their land and their family tree, proud of hard work and their lifetime's achievements.
Biddy and Russell prided themselves on the number of functioning household appliances they owned that had been wedding presents. They prided themselves on the amount of money they saved - eating all their meals at home, always finishing leftovers - and how little they wasted. I once remarked to Biddy that her kitchen was like a grocery store; everything you could possibly need for any recipe was there. "We're country people," she responded to me. "You need a stick of butter? I've got a pound in the freezer. You need an egg? Go out back and see if the chickens have laid any. Need vegetables for dinner? Go out to the garden and pick some. That's how I've always lived. You just don't go into town when you need a stick of butter."
Biddy and Russell weren't interested in "flash" things. "Why would a person buy a Mercedes?" Russell said after seeing a car commercial one day. "Just isn't practical." They didn't aspire to have flash things, to have gobs of money, to be anything superior to exactly what they were. They didn't go see movies at the local theater, weren't interested. They could only see the world as far as Southland, New Zealand. Things beyond were out of reach.
There was a time when I looked down on people like Russell and Biddy. Didn't understand why, generation after generation, they stayed in the same place, working the same farms, associating with the same families. I won't say I now understand it, but I can at least say I've seen their life from their shoes now. I admire a great deal about Biddy and Russell and their lifestyle. They have only as much as they need. In the world I grew up in, it's unthinkable that a couple in their sixties, approaching retirement, would have only ONE bathroom in their house. But Biddy and Russell just didn't see the need for more than one. They're not educated people, but they are smart in ways most people I know are not. They know how to survive off what they have.
It was a good experience. I learned a great deal about New Zealand, about sheep, about marriage, about people. And it might not have been two weeks of pure fun, but it was two weeks of mental stimulation, to be sure. Lots of new things to ponder. The homestays I've done over the last year or so have easily been the most memorable experiences of my time traveling. Getting to see how other people live out their daily lives is just fascinating to me. Getting to see all the options!
We saw Biddy a few days ago - she was selling her wool and knitted goods at the Sunday craft fair in Wanaka. It was awkward. We had nothing to say to each other in such a neutral zone, when she couldn't ramble on about her yard or her kitchen or her pets. So we small talked and said final goodbyes, and that was that.
We've been in Wanaka for a week now. We went out to do some tramping in Mount Aspiring National park for three days, celebrated our one year anniversary, and enjoyed some of the most glorious weather we've had lately. Fall is slowly creeping in here - the mornings and evenings are quite cold, though it still gets nice and warm by mid-day.
We are leaving Wanaka this afternoon and starting our journey up the West Coast. It feels like the home stretch of our trip, for some reason. We have just over six weeks left in NZ! So...off to enjoy it now. I'll be in touch in another few days. Here are some pictures of our tramping in Mount Aspiring National Park, as well as some wanderings around Wanaka - the Cardrona Valley and the Rippon Vineyards. I don't have time to edit them or comment on them today, but if you want to go ahead and check them out, you may! http://picasaweb.google.com/ellen.bucy
Love to you all!
Sunday, March 22, 2009
The Master Weaver
I didn't mind the rain, though I think it made Bjorn somewhat crazy. Every day, when I woke to the sound of rain pouring on the roof, I felt like a kid who has woken to a foot of snow on his front yard. SNOW DAY! The rain didn't mean that we didn't work, exactly, but it did mean that we didn't work very hard. We would spend a couple hours after breakfast doing odd chores around the house (vacuuming, dusting), and then we'd basically serve as Biddy's companion for whatever it was she needed to do. We went with her on a road trip to Invercargill one day, where we helped her disassemble an antique weaving loom she was buying off someone. We ran all of her other city errands with her and then were treated to a nice lunch at the local art museum!
The third rainy day was Tuesday, which meant Biddy had to spend the entire day at the meeting of the Gore Spinning and Weaving Club, of which she is the president. The Gore Spinning and Weaving Club meets in a small building on the local fairgrounds. They are somehow an important enough club that they have this room all to themselves, and only have to lend it to the Fishing Club twice a month. Because it is theirs, they have covered the bland, white brick walls with photos of finished products, and tables around the room overflow with show and tell displays. Look what I made!
At their monthly meetings, which last from 10 AM to 4 PM, the members bring in their spinning wheels,weaving looms, and knitting projects, sit in a large circle and spend the whole day working on their crafts, talking, watching educational videos about spinning and weaving. Sounds exciting, no? Not knowing what else to do with us, Biddy dragged us along with her. The night before, at the prospect of attending the meeting, Bjorn said he'd rather go out on the farm and pull up the thistles (one of our ongoing tasks) in the pouring rain than go sit around with the old ladies.
Not only did he go to the spinning club meeting, but Biddy had planned a special activity for him. "Wouldn't you like to try weaving, Bjorn?" she asked him. Unable to disappoint our host, he, of course, said, "Why, yes! I'll give it a try!" So while I sat in the circle of ladies, mindlessly knitting away at a hat, a woman named Lois sat outside of the circle with Bjorn, helping him get the weaving loom set up.
Well, having a young Swedish male at the monthly meeting of the Gore Spinning and Weaving Club just tickled these ladies to pieces. After he'd gotten a few inches into the scarf he was making, the ladies started passing by, one by one. "Oh! Would you all just LOOK at what he is doing! It is BEAUTIFUL!" Bjorn was the talk of the day. "It's just aMAZing what he is doing over there," they'd say to each other.
Bjorn finsihed up his scarf later that day, and as the rainy week wore on, Biddy had him weaving all week. He finished three scarves in three days, which, as far as Biddy was concerned, was the greatest accomplishment ever made by anyone ever. She was just smitten with Bjorn. I swear, she had a crush on him. She'd sit and watch him weaving and just have this silly grin on her face. Her friends would call on the phone, and all she would talk about was the boy wonder who was living in her home. The master weaver. I must have heard her tell the story of male weaver about 10 times over our last week there, and well, it got a little old.
I'm the first to admit that I suffered a large case of second child syndrome that week. While Bjorn was soaking up all of this praise, I was working on some of the best knitting I've ever done and getting literally ZERO recognition for it. I don't know whether Biddy wasn't interested in me because I came to her already knowing how to knit (though I have PLENTY I need to learn) and she didn't feel could be her best teacher self or what. Bjorn said he thought it was merely because I was a girl, and in Biddy's old-fashioned vision of the world, I was SUPPOSED to be good at this sort of thing. My good knitting wasn't anything out of the ordinary. But a boy who could weave? Now, THAT was something special. It all made me completely crazy.
By the time we left Gore, I was just out of my skin with irritation at Biddy. Our last night there happened to be Bjorn's birthday, so I made him a lovely carrot cake for our final dinner. Biddy invited her daughter and her family over to join us so it would feel like a real celebration. That afternoon, as I was icing my cake, Biddy was puttering around the kitchen. "Now I'm just going to whip up some of my mereingues, and I made some ice cream earlier..." WHAT? I thought. This woman is completely aware that I have made an entire CAKE, and she's making extra desserts? The cake was plenty big for everyone. It was not necessary.
I left the kitchen very close to being in tears. Why will this woman not let me be good at ANYthing? I wondered. WHY can I not even make a stupid cake for my boyfriend's birthday without her trying to steal my thunder? I felt so childish and immature. I knew I was being stupid, but just couldn't make myself shrug it off. I told Bjorn that I felt about her the way I imagined some people feel about their mothers-in-law.
Luckily, my carrot cake was deeeelish, if I do say so myself. (I was terrified that Biddy had thought maybe she should make some desserts just in case mine was inedible - and what if my cake was inedible?!) Bjorn had a lovely birthday, and we said our goodbyes to Biddy and Russell and Gore the next day.
The third rainy day was Tuesday, which meant Biddy had to spend the entire day at the meeting of the Gore Spinning and Weaving Club, of which she is the president. The Gore Spinning and Weaving Club meets in a small building on the local fairgrounds. They are somehow an important enough club that they have this room all to themselves, and only have to lend it to the Fishing Club twice a month. Because it is theirs, they have covered the bland, white brick walls with photos of finished products, and tables around the room overflow with show and tell displays. Look what I made!
At their monthly meetings, which last from 10 AM to 4 PM, the members bring in their spinning wheels,weaving looms, and knitting projects, sit in a large circle and spend the whole day working on their crafts, talking, watching educational videos about spinning and weaving. Sounds exciting, no? Not knowing what else to do with us, Biddy dragged us along with her. The night before, at the prospect of attending the meeting, Bjorn said he'd rather go out on the farm and pull up the thistles (one of our ongoing tasks) in the pouring rain than go sit around with the old ladies.
Not only did he go to the spinning club meeting, but Biddy had planned a special activity for him. "Wouldn't you like to try weaving, Bjorn?" she asked him. Unable to disappoint our host, he, of course, said, "Why, yes! I'll give it a try!" So while I sat in the circle of ladies, mindlessly knitting away at a hat, a woman named Lois sat outside of the circle with Bjorn, helping him get the weaving loom set up.
Well, having a young Swedish male at the monthly meeting of the Gore Spinning and Weaving Club just tickled these ladies to pieces. After he'd gotten a few inches into the scarf he was making, the ladies started passing by, one by one. "Oh! Would you all just LOOK at what he is doing! It is BEAUTIFUL!" Bjorn was the talk of the day. "It's just aMAZing what he is doing over there," they'd say to each other.
Bjorn finsihed up his scarf later that day, and as the rainy week wore on, Biddy had him weaving all week. He finished three scarves in three days, which, as far as Biddy was concerned, was the greatest accomplishment ever made by anyone ever. She was just smitten with Bjorn. I swear, she had a crush on him. She'd sit and watch him weaving and just have this silly grin on her face. Her friends would call on the phone, and all she would talk about was the boy wonder who was living in her home. The master weaver. I must have heard her tell the story of male weaver about 10 times over our last week there, and well, it got a little old.
I'm the first to admit that I suffered a large case of second child syndrome that week. While Bjorn was soaking up all of this praise, I was working on some of the best knitting I've ever done and getting literally ZERO recognition for it. I don't know whether Biddy wasn't interested in me because I came to her already knowing how to knit (though I have PLENTY I need to learn) and she didn't feel could be her best teacher self or what. Bjorn said he thought it was merely because I was a girl, and in Biddy's old-fashioned vision of the world, I was SUPPOSED to be good at this sort of thing. My good knitting wasn't anything out of the ordinary. But a boy who could weave? Now, THAT was something special. It all made me completely crazy.
By the time we left Gore, I was just out of my skin with irritation at Biddy. Our last night there happened to be Bjorn's birthday, so I made him a lovely carrot cake for our final dinner. Biddy invited her daughter and her family over to join us so it would feel like a real celebration. That afternoon, as I was icing my cake, Biddy was puttering around the kitchen. "Now I'm just going to whip up some of my mereingues, and I made some ice cream earlier..." WHAT? I thought. This woman is completely aware that I have made an entire CAKE, and she's making extra desserts? The cake was plenty big for everyone. It was not necessary.
I left the kitchen very close to being in tears. Why will this woman not let me be good at ANYthing? I wondered. WHY can I not even make a stupid cake for my boyfriend's birthday without her trying to steal my thunder? I felt so childish and immature. I knew I was being stupid, but just couldn't make myself shrug it off. I told Bjorn that I felt about her the way I imagined some people feel about their mothers-in-law.
Luckily, my carrot cake was deeeelish, if I do say so myself. (I was terrified that Biddy had thought maybe she should make some desserts just in case mine was inedible - and what if my cake was inedible?!) Bjorn had a lovely birthday, and we said our goodbyes to Biddy and Russell and Gore the next day.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Get Your Reading Glasses On
Or if you don't feel like it, just check out the latest batch of photos from the Rees-Dart Track, as well as our time working on the farm in Gore - http://picasaweb.google.com/ellen.bucy .
We left Gore yesterday and are up in Wanaka. I've posted the first three of a series of things I wrote about our time in Gore. I'm still working on the last two. I know it's an overwhelming amount of reading, so thanks to whoever gets through it! If you DO decide to read it all, start with the first one - "Biddy" and work your way back up. I've got a couple more to post when I have some more internet time. And I'm sorry I wasn't able to post at all during the time in Gore, but they were living in about 1993. Dial up internet that I didn't feel comfortable using for more than a few minutes at a time!
Anyway, hope all is well! More on Gore soon...Love you all.
We left Gore yesterday and are up in Wanaka. I've posted the first three of a series of things I wrote about our time in Gore. I'm still working on the last two. I know it's an overwhelming amount of reading, so thanks to whoever gets through it! If you DO decide to read it all, start with the first one - "Biddy" and work your way back up. I've got a couple more to post when I have some more internet time. And I'm sorry I wasn't able to post at all during the time in Gore, but they were living in about 1993. Dial up internet that I didn't feel comfortable using for more than a few minutes at a time!
Anyway, hope all is well! More on Gore soon...Love you all.
Willing Workers
Having Russell in charge of our work for the weekend certainly changed the pace of things a bit. He was decidedly more relaxed than he'd been during the work week, and we were finally allowed to do some REAL farming. No silly weed pulling work while Russell's the boss. No, we were going to spend the day drenching the sheep (whatever that meant).
Before we headed out to get the sheep, Russell again looked out our outfits and asked if we minded getting dirty. Oh, no, we replied. We'll be fine. "Well, you might want to put a work suit on," he said. "You're going to get shitty." Of course, I'd never heard the term shitty used in quite this way, but after mulling it over for a minute, I decided he meant we were actually going to get shit - sheep shit- all over us. Okay, then! we said. We'll take a work suit! Work suits look a bit like what a mechanic wears - just a baggy cotton body suit that goes over your clothes and zips up the front.
Thoroughly ready to get shitty, we went to gather up the sheep. Sheep are incredibly silly animals. They are terrified of humans, so they'll flee as soon as you approach them, and they're followers, so if one of them walks off in one direction, the rest of them follow. It, therefore, can be quite easy to herd sheep. One person gets behind them, one to the side, and you just walk forward, directing them where you want them to go (which is usually through a series of fences). So, if they're being good, they will move en masse. If one of them decides he's nervous about the direction he's heading and takes off, though, others will follow, and suddenly you've got mass sheep chaos on your hands, and you have to start the herding all over. One or two times, the whole herd would get through a gateway, but one really stupid sheep would stop to eat grass and suddenly look up to find himself all alone in the paddock. Then real panic would set in. The sheep would spot his friends in the neighboring paddock, and just take off running in their direction. Sadly, that usually meant that sheep would smack himself straight into a fence. Don't ask me how, but I witnessed it happen several times. The first time I giggled nervously and felt really sorry for that poor sheep, but after seeing it happen repeatedly, it became just an annoying nuissance. One day we spent probably twenty minutes trying to get one idiot sheep out of the paddock.
Once we finally got the sheep where we wanted them to go, we forced as many of them as would fit into a small holding pin. If you can get the sheep shoved up against each other, it makes it harder for them to move and therefore easier for you to get your work done. Our first task was to "drench" the sheep, which meant giving them their anti-worming medicine. One of us had to put on this little backpack full of liquid that had a little hose running out of it and into a squirt gun. We had to straddle a sheep, grab it by its mouth, shove the gun into its mouth, give it two full squirts, and then hold its mouth closed for a couple seconds to ensure swallowing. You then had to sort of push the sheep to the other side of the pin, so you could keep track of who you had drenched.
After drenching a group (we could do about fifteen sheep at once), we had to "clean them up". This entailed using the electric shearing shaver and shaving all of the dirty wool off of the sheep's bottom and legs. If you've ever gotten close to a sheep, you know that the poor thing just spends the whole day pooping all over himself and consequently gets quite a lot of it stuck to his fur. So we were literally shaving the shit off of the sheep. I attempted to do this on about three sheep, but it just wasn't for me. You had to literally run this shaver right around the sheep's anus, and I'm not trying to be disgusting, but I couldn't do it. I was so scared of nicking them in the wrong place. So Bjorn did all of the shaving, and I did all of the drenching. Team work! It took us probably four hours to do this to all of the sheep, and it was seriously exhausting, hard work.
We worked WITH Russell all day on the sheep, which was great, because it was sort of what I had hoped we'd be doing a lot of, and you can learn a great deal more about something when you have someone knowledgeable working with you who will answer your questions and explain things for you. I think that's probably was WWOOFing was designed to be - an educational experience, heaving on mentoring. With Biddy in charge, we ended up doing a lot of grunt gardening work (at least when the weather was nice), which was fine and enjoyable to some extent, but it sort of annoyed me that she was inside doing this and that while we were outside working. I wanted her to be working with us, telling me about the flowers and how things grow and things like that. TEACHING me something, not just having me work for her.
The following day was Sunday, and we woke to pouring rain. There was nothing we could do, and with laid-back Russell in charge, we basically sat around the house all day. This was a welcome break from the heat and the outdoor work, but as it turned out, this was the first of FIVE straight days of rain.
Before we headed out to get the sheep, Russell again looked out our outfits and asked if we minded getting dirty. Oh, no, we replied. We'll be fine. "Well, you might want to put a work suit on," he said. "You're going to get shitty." Of course, I'd never heard the term shitty used in quite this way, but after mulling it over for a minute, I decided he meant we were actually going to get shit - sheep shit- all over us. Okay, then! we said. We'll take a work suit! Work suits look a bit like what a mechanic wears - just a baggy cotton body suit that goes over your clothes and zips up the front.
Thoroughly ready to get shitty, we went to gather up the sheep. Sheep are incredibly silly animals. They are terrified of humans, so they'll flee as soon as you approach them, and they're followers, so if one of them walks off in one direction, the rest of them follow. It, therefore, can be quite easy to herd sheep. One person gets behind them, one to the side, and you just walk forward, directing them where you want them to go (which is usually through a series of fences). So, if they're being good, they will move en masse. If one of them decides he's nervous about the direction he's heading and takes off, though, others will follow, and suddenly you've got mass sheep chaos on your hands, and you have to start the herding all over. One or two times, the whole herd would get through a gateway, but one really stupid sheep would stop to eat grass and suddenly look up to find himself all alone in the paddock. Then real panic would set in. The sheep would spot his friends in the neighboring paddock, and just take off running in their direction. Sadly, that usually meant that sheep would smack himself straight into a fence. Don't ask me how, but I witnessed it happen several times. The first time I giggled nervously and felt really sorry for that poor sheep, but after seeing it happen repeatedly, it became just an annoying nuissance. One day we spent probably twenty minutes trying to get one idiot sheep out of the paddock.
Once we finally got the sheep where we wanted them to go, we forced as many of them as would fit into a small holding pin. If you can get the sheep shoved up against each other, it makes it harder for them to move and therefore easier for you to get your work done. Our first task was to "drench" the sheep, which meant giving them their anti-worming medicine. One of us had to put on this little backpack full of liquid that had a little hose running out of it and into a squirt gun. We had to straddle a sheep, grab it by its mouth, shove the gun into its mouth, give it two full squirts, and then hold its mouth closed for a couple seconds to ensure swallowing. You then had to sort of push the sheep to the other side of the pin, so you could keep track of who you had drenched.
After drenching a group (we could do about fifteen sheep at once), we had to "clean them up". This entailed using the electric shearing shaver and shaving all of the dirty wool off of the sheep's bottom and legs. If you've ever gotten close to a sheep, you know that the poor thing just spends the whole day pooping all over himself and consequently gets quite a lot of it stuck to his fur. So we were literally shaving the shit off of the sheep. I attempted to do this on about three sheep, but it just wasn't for me. You had to literally run this shaver right around the sheep's anus, and I'm not trying to be disgusting, but I couldn't do it. I was so scared of nicking them in the wrong place. So Bjorn did all of the shaving, and I did all of the drenching. Team work! It took us probably four hours to do this to all of the sheep, and it was seriously exhausting, hard work.
We worked WITH Russell all day on the sheep, which was great, because it was sort of what I had hoped we'd be doing a lot of, and you can learn a great deal more about something when you have someone knowledgeable working with you who will answer your questions and explain things for you. I think that's probably was WWOOFing was designed to be - an educational experience, heaving on mentoring. With Biddy in charge, we ended up doing a lot of grunt gardening work (at least when the weather was nice), which was fine and enjoyable to some extent, but it sort of annoyed me that she was inside doing this and that while we were outside working. I wanted her to be working with us, telling me about the flowers and how things grow and things like that. TEACHING me something, not just having me work for her.
The following day was Sunday, and we woke to pouring rain. There was nothing we could do, and with laid-back Russell in charge, we basically sat around the house all day. This was a welcome break from the heat and the outdoor work, but as it turned out, this was the first of FIVE straight days of rain.
Russell
Just after 5 PM on that first day, Russell came home from work. I was in another room when he arrived, so after hearing him, I went to join everyone in the kitchen for introductions. Oddly, I thought, Russell didn't actually look at me when I walked into the room. He and Biddy were having some sort of quiet discussion about something involving sheep. After a few minutes of standing around awkwardly, he nodded toward our general direction and walked out the back door. We followed.
Russell, Russell, Russell.
He walked us into the "garage" - basically a shed off the back of the house that is full of more of Biddy's spinning supplies, as well as the usual tools and random junk. I was wearing my Chaco's at the time (sandals, like Tevas), having no idea what we were going to do (I had been told nothing), and he looked at my feet, frowning, and asked me if I didn't have any proper shoes. Um, I have tennis shoes? Here, he said, just put on these boots, and threw both Bjorn and I a pair of tall black gum boots. Appropriately geared up for whatever we were about to do, we exited the garage, at which time I decided I really ought to introduce myself. The man, after all, had not yet asked my name, or even really acknowledged that he'd never met me before.
"I'm Ellen, by the way," I said in a friendly tone. He again nodded in my general direction, said, "Yep" and continued walking. Well, okay then, I thought. Wow, this guy might be a real asshole.
We followed him down a side driveway, to yet another shed, this one open on one side and housing a huge bunch of hay (200-something bales he later told us proudly), Biddy's car, more miscellaneous farming tools, and a little four-wheel motorbike.
"You know how to drive one of these?" he asked Bjorn gruffly (and may I point out that he directly asked the male member of our party?). Bjorn strode eagerly forward - driving a motorbike is fun! - and Russell showed him how to start the engine. He ably hitched a large trailer onto the back of the bike and took a seat on one edge of it, apparently waiting for Bjorn to drive off somewhere. "Should I sit here?" I asked, motioning toward the opposite edge of the trailer. "Sit wherever you like," he said, and I quickly took a seat and held on for dear life as Bjorn pulled us recklessly through the 30 acre farm.
Russell seemed to enjoy watching me act like a nervous girl, clinging to the trailer, and he finally made eye contact with me, cracked a smile, and made some comment about Bjorn's driving. We drove through several paddocks (little fenced off areas of farm - this is how they separate certain groups of sheep from others), pausing briefly to open and close gates on our way, and made our way to the far back paddock, the last one on their property, bordered on one side by a little creek. We were, it was finally revealed, going to move a temporary fence that had been set up back there. Someone was supposed to come the following day to bale the hay laying around the paddocks, and the fence was in the way.
Out on the farm, Russell was a different person. He pointed out different groups of sheep, talked about the property lines, explained what we were doing and why. His quiet bruqueness from before had disappeared.
By the time that we sat down for evening tea (this is what they call dinner, in an irritating British fashion), however, the old Russell was back. Biddy yapped on and on about something, and Russell kept his head down til he was finished eating, when he scooted back his chair, took his plate and cutlery from the table, placed them in the sink, and then retired to an easy chair in the back of the room, while the rest of us sat around the table, finishing our meals. He didn't make one attempt at small talk or getting-to-know-you-conversation during the meal (though to be honest, he probably didn't have a chance against Biddy's prattling). It was so bizarre, I thought. Such completely incorrect behavior. Surely this was not how it was going to be for two weeks!
The next day, as we headed down the driveway for our day's task of clearing out an overgrown garden by the mailbox, I asked Bjorn what he thought about all of this. Opposites attract, he said. Ha. He didn't seem particularly bothered by Russell's behavior or think that it was unusual really, but I couldn't let go of it that easily. People were supposed to like me. This man was going to like me, damnit!
That evening, as we milled around before dinner, I noticed that Biddy was having a glass of wine while she cooked. There were wine glasses and wine bottles hanging on racks around the main room, so I assumed they were drinkers, but had yet to see either of them drink (and I mean, drink ANYTHING, for that matter. One of the strangest things about Russell and Biddy is that they sit down for their meals without even a glass of water and never offered us one either! Russell, Biddy later told me, doesn't drink water. "Would never think of drinking the stuff. Hates it," she said. Can you imagine?! A grown man who won't drink water?) Russell abstained from the alcohol for the evening, though. Maybe we need to buy some alcohol and share it with them, I told Bjorn. That would be a good ice breaker, I think.
So the next day, after we had completed our five hours of work, we went into the local liquor store, and bought some wine and beer. We cooled down the beer when we got home, and when Russell arrived home from work, offered him one. He seemed pleased by the gesture and sat out on the front patio with us for a while, drinking his beer and engaging in pleasant conversation (or maybe I should say pleasantly listening while Biddy talked). Over dinner, I made a point to asked Russell some direct questions about the sheep, forcing him, I hoped, to talk. He did say a few things, though Biddy, of course, jumped on an opportunity to talk and sort of took over. But, I thought, we were making progress.
We fell into a nice routine during that first week. We were expected to be up and eating breakfast by 8 AM, after Russell had left for work. We were given some task or other - mostly involving tidying up the gardens - which we were expected to do for five hours. Sometimes Biddy invited us in around 10:30 AM for a cup of coffee and biscuit (cookie), and lunch always started just after noon, when Russell's little white car pulled into the driveway. We'd eat, Russell would sit on the couch quietly eating an apple for dessert, and then he'd nod, and take his leave, heading back to work. We'd go back out to our task, laboring on until Biddy came out around 3 PM, notifying us that it was quitting time, and the rest of the day was ours.
Every Friday afternoon, Biddy drives herself to Queenstown, where she has a stall at the Saturday morning craft fair. She then drives to Wanaka on Sunday morning, for their craft fair, and returns to Gore on Sunday evening, in time to get Russell's dinner on the table. When our first Friday afternoon rolled around, Bjorn and I were both thrilled to get a break from Biddy's non-stop yammering.
Apparently, Russell was, too. He was in a grand mood when he got home from work, talkative and full of interesting things to say. He went out to the garage and brought in 6 beers, offering to share with us. We, of course, obliged, and sat with him in the living room for a couple hours, watching some big horse race in Auckland that was on TV. Russell is big into horse racing. His father raced horses, his brother races horses on the old family farm, and Russell has also raced horses from time to time. Though neither Bjorn nor I have any real interest in this, we were delighted to have Russell opening up to us a bit, getting him onto a subject he was interested in.
Later that night, I told Bjorn that it was the victory of my life getting Russell to like us. He laughed, and told me I shouldn't jump to any conclusions before Russell was able to evaluate my farming skills. He would be taking us out to work with the SHEEP the next morning.
Russell, Russell, Russell.
He walked us into the "garage" - basically a shed off the back of the house that is full of more of Biddy's spinning supplies, as well as the usual tools and random junk. I was wearing my Chaco's at the time (sandals, like Tevas), having no idea what we were going to do (I had been told nothing), and he looked at my feet, frowning, and asked me if I didn't have any proper shoes. Um, I have tennis shoes? Here, he said, just put on these boots, and threw both Bjorn and I a pair of tall black gum boots. Appropriately geared up for whatever we were about to do, we exited the garage, at which time I decided I really ought to introduce myself. The man, after all, had not yet asked my name, or even really acknowledged that he'd never met me before.
"I'm Ellen, by the way," I said in a friendly tone. He again nodded in my general direction, said, "Yep" and continued walking. Well, okay then, I thought. Wow, this guy might be a real asshole.
We followed him down a side driveway, to yet another shed, this one open on one side and housing a huge bunch of hay (200-something bales he later told us proudly), Biddy's car, more miscellaneous farming tools, and a little four-wheel motorbike.
"You know how to drive one of these?" he asked Bjorn gruffly (and may I point out that he directly asked the male member of our party?). Bjorn strode eagerly forward - driving a motorbike is fun! - and Russell showed him how to start the engine. He ably hitched a large trailer onto the back of the bike and took a seat on one edge of it, apparently waiting for Bjorn to drive off somewhere. "Should I sit here?" I asked, motioning toward the opposite edge of the trailer. "Sit wherever you like," he said, and I quickly took a seat and held on for dear life as Bjorn pulled us recklessly through the 30 acre farm.
Russell seemed to enjoy watching me act like a nervous girl, clinging to the trailer, and he finally made eye contact with me, cracked a smile, and made some comment about Bjorn's driving. We drove through several paddocks (little fenced off areas of farm - this is how they separate certain groups of sheep from others), pausing briefly to open and close gates on our way, and made our way to the far back paddock, the last one on their property, bordered on one side by a little creek. We were, it was finally revealed, going to move a temporary fence that had been set up back there. Someone was supposed to come the following day to bale the hay laying around the paddocks, and the fence was in the way.
Out on the farm, Russell was a different person. He pointed out different groups of sheep, talked about the property lines, explained what we were doing and why. His quiet bruqueness from before had disappeared.
By the time that we sat down for evening tea (this is what they call dinner, in an irritating British fashion), however, the old Russell was back. Biddy yapped on and on about something, and Russell kept his head down til he was finished eating, when he scooted back his chair, took his plate and cutlery from the table, placed them in the sink, and then retired to an easy chair in the back of the room, while the rest of us sat around the table, finishing our meals. He didn't make one attempt at small talk or getting-to-know-you-conversation during the meal (though to be honest, he probably didn't have a chance against Biddy's prattling). It was so bizarre, I thought. Such completely incorrect behavior. Surely this was not how it was going to be for two weeks!
The next day, as we headed down the driveway for our day's task of clearing out an overgrown garden by the mailbox, I asked Bjorn what he thought about all of this. Opposites attract, he said. Ha. He didn't seem particularly bothered by Russell's behavior or think that it was unusual really, but I couldn't let go of it that easily. People were supposed to like me. This man was going to like me, damnit!
That evening, as we milled around before dinner, I noticed that Biddy was having a glass of wine while she cooked. There were wine glasses and wine bottles hanging on racks around the main room, so I assumed they were drinkers, but had yet to see either of them drink (and I mean, drink ANYTHING, for that matter. One of the strangest things about Russell and Biddy is that they sit down for their meals without even a glass of water and never offered us one either! Russell, Biddy later told me, doesn't drink water. "Would never think of drinking the stuff. Hates it," she said. Can you imagine?! A grown man who won't drink water?) Russell abstained from the alcohol for the evening, though. Maybe we need to buy some alcohol and share it with them, I told Bjorn. That would be a good ice breaker, I think.
So the next day, after we had completed our five hours of work, we went into the local liquor store, and bought some wine and beer. We cooled down the beer when we got home, and when Russell arrived home from work, offered him one. He seemed pleased by the gesture and sat out on the front patio with us for a while, drinking his beer and engaging in pleasant conversation (or maybe I should say pleasantly listening while Biddy talked). Over dinner, I made a point to asked Russell some direct questions about the sheep, forcing him, I hoped, to talk. He did say a few things, though Biddy, of course, jumped on an opportunity to talk and sort of took over. But, I thought, we were making progress.
We fell into a nice routine during that first week. We were expected to be up and eating breakfast by 8 AM, after Russell had left for work. We were given some task or other - mostly involving tidying up the gardens - which we were expected to do for five hours. Sometimes Biddy invited us in around 10:30 AM for a cup of coffee and biscuit (cookie), and lunch always started just after noon, when Russell's little white car pulled into the driveway. We'd eat, Russell would sit on the couch quietly eating an apple for dessert, and then he'd nod, and take his leave, heading back to work. We'd go back out to our task, laboring on until Biddy came out around 3 PM, notifying us that it was quitting time, and the rest of the day was ours.
Every Friday afternoon, Biddy drives herself to Queenstown, where she has a stall at the Saturday morning craft fair. She then drives to Wanaka on Sunday morning, for their craft fair, and returns to Gore on Sunday evening, in time to get Russell's dinner on the table. When our first Friday afternoon rolled around, Bjorn and I were both thrilled to get a break from Biddy's non-stop yammering.
Apparently, Russell was, too. He was in a grand mood when he got home from work, talkative and full of interesting things to say. He went out to the garage and brought in 6 beers, offering to share with us. We, of course, obliged, and sat with him in the living room for a couple hours, watching some big horse race in Auckland that was on TV. Russell is big into horse racing. His father raced horses, his brother races horses on the old family farm, and Russell has also raced horses from time to time. Though neither Bjorn nor I have any real interest in this, we were delighted to have Russell opening up to us a bit, getting him onto a subject he was interested in.
Later that night, I told Bjorn that it was the victory of my life getting Russell to like us. He laughed, and told me I shouldn't jump to any conclusions before Russell was able to evaluate my farming skills. He would be taking us out to work with the SHEEP the next morning.
Biddy
We pulled into the drive at 111 Racecourse Road just after lunch on Tuesday, the third. The gravel road was narrow and lined on both sides with bushy agapanthas, red hot pokers, daisies, and the shade of taller trees guarded us from the sun as we drove the short distance toward the house.
I was excited. I was anxious to meet my hostess for the next two weeks - Biddy. I had conjured up an exact image of her in my mind. She would be grandmotherly. She'd have long greying hair, tied back in an artistic knot of some sort, have beautiful skin, a sweet smile, and we'd probably find her in the back yard, sitting under a tree at her spinning wheel, whiling the afternoon away plying wool. She'd be the perfect knitting tutor for me. Kind and instructive, encouraging, inspiring. And she'd probably have some sort of baked good in the oven, ready to pull out at the exact moment of our arrival.
We parked in the middle of the drive, next to the house. The front yard was small and enclosed by yet more flowering plants and trees. A brick patio off the front of the house was covered in clutter - a picnic table, potted plants, garden art, a grill. We heard the sliding glass front door before we reached it, and there was Biddy. Ah, Biddy.
Biddy is a sixty year old woman, born and raised and married and mothered and grandmothered, all in a 20 mile radius of Gore. She stands about 5’4” and the bulk of her 300 odd pounds is carried in her lower half, so her body see-saws from one leg to another as she lumbers about the house. She has pixie-cut white hair, wears glasses that turn brown in the sun, and has at least one tooth missing from her lowers, so that when she talks, her slight lisp makes her tongue peak out through the missing holes.
I was able to observe her physical features in such close detail due to the amount of time that I spent, staring into her face, hoping to appear interested, as she talked. Perhaps yapped is a better word. Or went on and on. Or rambled. I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered such a talker in my life. She seamlessly moves from one subject I’m not now or ever will be interested in to yet another subject of the same genre. Even stories that have potential to be interesting turn sour, taken over by superfluous details.
Within our first hour there, we were introduced to the dog - "This is Lottie. She's called Lottie for lotsa reasons. She's lotsa things. She's got Jack Russel, shnauzer, etcetera, etcetera." (This would be the first of about 5 times we heard her say this.) We were also given an extensive lesson about her family. She told us the names, ages, and occupations of her three daughters, their husbands, and their children. One of her son-in-laws, she made a point to say, was really her "sin-in-law" "cause they never got married, never will". We also heard that line several more times before we left.
After a whirlwind introduction to her life, she finally turned to us. "So, what do you two do?" Uhhhh... As I told Bjorn later that day, I'd never felt so embarrassed at my lack of occupation. Even though she'd just told me that her sin-in-law worked at the local freezing works (an enormous factory where they slaughter and freeze the lambs), I felt totally uncomfortable under her gaze. Saying I was certified to teach but hadn't really gotten around to it yet and was just travelling a little bit - it just didn't feel good enough.
We stammered out a few excuses for our current joblessness, and she immediately turned the subject back to herself. That was the last time she asked us about ourselves for several more days.
She showed us our room, which felt like the guestroom in your grandparents' house - full of family stuff, but not inhabited by any particular person. About five dressers lined the walls of the room, surrounding the bed on all sides. One of them was empty and avaialble for our use. The other dressers were draped with handmade lace coverings, and sitting atop were old, black and white photos of previous generations, sternly looking at the camera, and family history scrolls rolled up into little wooden cases.
She led us around the one-story, three-bedroom house, pointing out the only bathroom, just off the main hall, as well as the shower, which was tucked into a corner of the laundry room. It was a cozy, lived in house, and we were so thrilled at the prospect of having a place to be for two weeks, having a place to put our things, having a real bed to sleep in, having a daily shower and cooked meals!
We weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves that first day, and that never really changed as the two weeks went by. Biddy would start talking, walk off in a direction, and we'd look at each other, wondering if that was supposed to be a cue to follow her. We followed her out to a shed in the back yard where she keeps all her wool dyes and watched in amazement as she dyed several hanks of wool she had spun herself, all the time yammering on about something or other. After following her around like lost lambs for a while, we asked her if there was anything she wanted us to do for her today, and she directed us to the vegetable garden, where we could pull out all of the beans, as they were done for the season, as well as do some general weeding, and oh, why don't you fill this bucket up with beets while you're at it? We'll have those for tea tonight.
As we sat out in the vegetable garden, working away in the afternoon heat, we talked a bit about first impressions. At the time, neither of us said anything about Biddy's tendency to...talk. She was quite a character, we both admitted, but this was all going to be great. Working with our hands, learning about gardening and farming - it would be an amazing experience, to be sure.
I was excited. I was anxious to meet my hostess for the next two weeks - Biddy. I had conjured up an exact image of her in my mind. She would be grandmotherly. She'd have long greying hair, tied back in an artistic knot of some sort, have beautiful skin, a sweet smile, and we'd probably find her in the back yard, sitting under a tree at her spinning wheel, whiling the afternoon away plying wool. She'd be the perfect knitting tutor for me. Kind and instructive, encouraging, inspiring. And she'd probably have some sort of baked good in the oven, ready to pull out at the exact moment of our arrival.
We parked in the middle of the drive, next to the house. The front yard was small and enclosed by yet more flowering plants and trees. A brick patio off the front of the house was covered in clutter - a picnic table, potted plants, garden art, a grill. We heard the sliding glass front door before we reached it, and there was Biddy. Ah, Biddy.
Biddy is a sixty year old woman, born and raised and married and mothered and grandmothered, all in a 20 mile radius of Gore. She stands about 5’4” and the bulk of her 300 odd pounds is carried in her lower half, so her body see-saws from one leg to another as she lumbers about the house. She has pixie-cut white hair, wears glasses that turn brown in the sun, and has at least one tooth missing from her lowers, so that when she talks, her slight lisp makes her tongue peak out through the missing holes.
I was able to observe her physical features in such close detail due to the amount of time that I spent, staring into her face, hoping to appear interested, as she talked. Perhaps yapped is a better word. Or went on and on. Or rambled. I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered such a talker in my life. She seamlessly moves from one subject I’m not now or ever will be interested in to yet another subject of the same genre. Even stories that have potential to be interesting turn sour, taken over by superfluous details.
Within our first hour there, we were introduced to the dog - "This is Lottie. She's called Lottie for lotsa reasons. She's lotsa things. She's got Jack Russel, shnauzer, etcetera, etcetera." (This would be the first of about 5 times we heard her say this.) We were also given an extensive lesson about her family. She told us the names, ages, and occupations of her three daughters, their husbands, and their children. One of her son-in-laws, she made a point to say, was really her "sin-in-law" "cause they never got married, never will". We also heard that line several more times before we left.
After a whirlwind introduction to her life, she finally turned to us. "So, what do you two do?" Uhhhh... As I told Bjorn later that day, I'd never felt so embarrassed at my lack of occupation. Even though she'd just told me that her sin-in-law worked at the local freezing works (an enormous factory where they slaughter and freeze the lambs), I felt totally uncomfortable under her gaze. Saying I was certified to teach but hadn't really gotten around to it yet and was just travelling a little bit - it just didn't feel good enough.
We stammered out a few excuses for our current joblessness, and she immediately turned the subject back to herself. That was the last time she asked us about ourselves for several more days.
She showed us our room, which felt like the guestroom in your grandparents' house - full of family stuff, but not inhabited by any particular person. About five dressers lined the walls of the room, surrounding the bed on all sides. One of them was empty and avaialble for our use. The other dressers were draped with handmade lace coverings, and sitting atop were old, black and white photos of previous generations, sternly looking at the camera, and family history scrolls rolled up into little wooden cases.
She led us around the one-story, three-bedroom house, pointing out the only bathroom, just off the main hall, as well as the shower, which was tucked into a corner of the laundry room. It was a cozy, lived in house, and we were so thrilled at the prospect of having a place to be for two weeks, having a place to put our things, having a real bed to sleep in, having a daily shower and cooked meals!
We weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves that first day, and that never really changed as the two weeks went by. Biddy would start talking, walk off in a direction, and we'd look at each other, wondering if that was supposed to be a cue to follow her. We followed her out to a shed in the back yard where she keeps all her wool dyes and watched in amazement as she dyed several hanks of wool she had spun herself, all the time yammering on about something or other. After following her around like lost lambs for a while, we asked her if there was anything she wanted us to do for her today, and she directed us to the vegetable garden, where we could pull out all of the beans, as they were done for the season, as well as do some general weeding, and oh, why don't you fill this bucket up with beets while you're at it? We'll have those for tea tonight.
As we sat out in the vegetable garden, working away in the afternoon heat, we talked a bit about first impressions. At the time, neither of us said anything about Biddy's tendency to...talk. She was quite a character, we both admitted, but this was all going to be great. Working with our hands, learning about gardening and farming - it would be an amazing experience, to be sure.
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