When our neighbors John and Aussie Bronwyn announced that they were selling their property and moving away, CJ and I were mortified. More than anyone, those two have taught us how to live on 20 acres. How could they abandon us?
We’d just finished our Thanksgiving meal, and we headed out with some of our guests to the top paddock. Kowhai, our pet kunekune boar, was out there wandering happily through the grass.
I felt bad. The poor pig had no idea what he was in for.
This is my very own special recipe. If you want to make fabulously failed cherry jam like I did, you must follow these steps exactly.
Ingredients
1 cherry tree
1 gruff Kiwi bloke
2 lesbian farmers
It was the height of summer when I found a brown duck swimming around our goldfish pond like it owned the place. It stared me down fearlessly as if to say, “I was here first. Go find your own pond.”
I was happy to have a new guest. After all, how much trouble could a wild duck be?
“Why won’t you share it?” I asked CJ. We were standing in the kitchen, looking at a carrot cake recipe written on the back of a long, white envelope.
“Because it’s too special,” he answered.
“But all the neighbors are asking for it.”
“There’s a sheep down in your paddock,” our neighbor Jim said over the phone. He’d been working along the fenceline when he saw the sheep. “It looks pretty sick,” he said.
I immediately called Hamish. The sheep belong to him.
CJ called me at work on Thursday morning in a panic. “It’s going to rain all day Saturday!” he said. “We need to cancel Thanksgiving!”
Some might think canceling Thanksgiving due to a little rain is a bit extreme. Those people have never been to one of our Thanksgiving parties.
Old Man Henry is our geriatric rooster. He is mangy and decrepit. The feathers on his head are just quill stubble. He’s half blind, bow-legged, and he pauses strangely after every step. On certain misty mornings, when the light is right, he looks as though he’s stepped out of some twisted chicken fancier’s version of Dawn of the Dead.
There are many ways to make your own olive oil. This is my own personal recipe. Feel free to modify it to make it work for you.
In my experience, there are three essential things you’ll need: good olives, good friends, and good neighbors.
The first of the city friends arrived on Friday night, driving over the Rimutaka Hill Road after work in the dark, ready to settle in for a three-day weekend full of food, friends, olives, and a lot of hard work. There were big hello hugs all around and bags deposited in guest rooms.
