We arrived here in Te Uku, about 10 minutes from Raglan, on Friday afternoon to do our first 'Helpx' thing. We're staying with Matt & Jane and their 2 children, Emily & Isabelle...and their chickens, goats, cows, a pig named Pepper & her baby called 'baby pig' and another pig named George (who is pregnant), and 3 cats...Jesus, Butter & LeeLee. Our work on this occasion, in return for room & board, has been to dig a ditch and weed a huge garden around a pond. It's been interesting.

Our accomodation for 3 of the 5 nights has been a small apartment in their basement. It's been comfortable, except for the flies, (which are everywhere due to the animals).

Anyway, we got stuck into our assignment and over the past few days Pat has dug an amazing ditch. About 300 feet long, 8-10 inches deep and up a big hill. He buried a big black pipe in the ditch afterwards. I've been weeding a massively overgrown garden that surrounds a pond. It was so overgrown that you couldn't even tell that there were little bushes/trees planted and irrigation pipes in there too. So I hacked everything away and didn't kill a single bush. Pat helped w/a weed wacker as much as we could. Overall, good physical work in a beautiful location. As we worked, the ducks in the pond quacked non-stop and every time one of us spoke to the other...the ducks would all start quacking 'cause they thought they were going to get fed.

On our day off, Matt & Jane let us use their car and we went into Raglan to a classic car show. Mostly American cars...fancy that!! We also went to the beach and to a waterfalls. It was a really nice day.

So tomorrow we're off bright & early to the Southern part of the North Island to a town called Masterton to stay w/Maggie. Our transport...bus!

Good night for now! By the way...did you know chickens sleep in trees?