Saturday, August 22, 2009

What a day in the life of a kiwi fruit farmer

Today was a very interesting day to say the least. I woke up this morning knowing that I was going to work on the kiwi fruit farm but little did I know how much work I would be doing, how enjoying it would be, and how beautiful and amazing the day would become. From the start I realized and found out that kiwi fruit grows from these huge vines that are help up by wire, fence post, and worrd frames. Since kiwi fruit picking season starts in the next few month ahead the process of builiding new frames and getting the branches ready for pruning is what we did today. The guy that I worked for, and will be working for from now on since he told me today he really enjoyed my hard work, quick learning, and interest asked me if I wanted to help him over the next several weeks buling fence, spraying his fields, and helping him herd and kill his lambs for harvest and selling. I am not the big country type of guy, i mean i do enjoy it but to be honest it is not my favorite thing, but I am very interested in learning about it as well.
We spent hours on the side of the green mountain tearing about logs and de-nailing the railing in order to put new ones up. The land that this guy has is amazing and come to find out his wife went to Texas Tech and they met here while her parents were missionaries here, small world; i think so.
We spent hours working and talking about Texas BBQ, california beaches and surf, In n out burger, football, and movies. Really great guy and family to work for and after work they invited me to dinner where we had Tui (there type of beer), kiwi lamb sausage, mashed potatoes, and leash (which is a type of onion apparently).
The most amazing thing though about today and this guy is that he is a competitive sheep calling guy. Every year they have the sheep dog competitions where they do different types of calls that make the dogs go right, left, sit down, back up, herd up or down, and a couple other things. It was pretty amazing to watch as we sat down, had a cup of hot tea and scones for a snack break and to see him stand in his driveway and get the dogs to herd the sheep from about 300 yards away in the direction he wanted the sheep to end up. With every whistle, yell, and occasional yell (back back Tex) the sheep dog did exactly what was asked of them and it was so amazing to listen to and watch. I look forward to the hard work ahead, of course the pay because to be honest it is pretty good, and just getting to know the culture of farming and working with kiwi fruit and animals, going to be a good experience i think.
All in all it was a great day and I look forward to church tomorrow. I just wish that, since it is sunday here tomorrow and sat there, that I could watch some college football but the All blacks Rugby team is playing tonight, which the entire country will be watching im sure, so I guess that will have to do for now.

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