Otane to Feilding- where it all began!

This past week we finished up our time in the Hawke's Bay. We spent over two months there, after planning on spending only a week or so.  It was nice being able to stay somewhere over the winter months, plus we met some awesome people and got to see some beautiful countryside that lots of people probably miss when they're trying to quickly get from one city to the next.  We did a LOT of gardening and lawn mowing the last week or so, and Chris also helped with lamb 'docking' (where the new lambs get their ears clipped and tails chopped off) with Nick, the owner and Daniel, his farmhand.  I headed over to the paddock long enough to get some quick photos.

note the pile of tails in the background and the herd of nervous sheep mommas in the background.

Bronte the spaniel, posing with probably the 11th new ball after losing the others in the bushes.

On the road to Feilding

So our next destination is Feilding, 2 hours north of Wellington, where Weslie lived as a Rotary exchange student in 2002-2003.  We are house sitting for my first host family, Bobbie and Lindsay. We also stayed with them for a couple nights when we were here in 2010. There are a lot more shops in the town since 10 years ago, and even a movie theater! I used to have to take the bus to the nearest city (Palmerston North, 25 min South) if we wanted to go to the mall or to the movies.  It's been interesting exploring the area again, catching up with people and remembering the places I used to go. We're probably not going to get jobs while we're here since it's only for a month, so we've been spending time cooking, going to museums and art galleries, second-hand shopping, and getting a lot of reading done. Also running and working out in the backyard but that's not really fun. :)  We have a whole list of day hikes we'd like to do, but it's been raining on and off basically since we got here. We are hoping to go camping for a few days also.

'downtown' Feilding with the clocktower 

A visit back to the Rotary club, I spent nearly every Thursday evening at meetings here as an exchange student.

Farmer's market with Lindsay and Bobbie. Farmer's markets are Chris' favorite!!!

made enough granola to last a month! so yummy.

first of many trips to the local library-- plus a sneak peek at what we're planning for April/May 2014...

second hand books are the best kind of books.

Chris searching the isles, reading list in hand.

One of the new attractions in Feilding  is the Coach House Museum, which has history and information about the heritage of the area, and collections of vehicles, farm machinery and other items from the settler days to present.

wearable art contest piece inspired by the logging/wood industry

Learning about the history of John Deere in NZ.
Take a good look at the long locks on Chris before they are gone!

We also visited Te Manawa, the museum of natural history and art gallery in Palmerston North, which was really interesting (and FREE. A rare bonus in this country), part of the art gallery was an exhibit about video games and their role as a 'major role as an art medium in modern society', basically involved a lot of NZ made video games for us to play. Pretty neat.

found this in a second hand shop called 'American Vintage'. So random!