An unexpected guest
It was the height of summer when I found a brown duck swimming around our goldfish pond like it owned the place.
The duck stared me down fearlessly as if to say, “I was here first. Go find your own pond.”
Our property has long been a home for waifs and strays. We’ve taken on geriatric roosters and aged sows, not to mention the occasional stray human. So I was ready to have this new guest stay as long as it liked.
After all, how much trouble could a wild duck be?
9 Comments | 
Neighbors, New Zealand | Tagged: animals, goldfish pond, nature, waifs and strays | 
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Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
A while back, ‘Moon Travel Guides’ approached me and asked if they could interview me for the new edition of their book, ‘Living Abroad in New Zealand’.
Well, with a name like ‘Moon Travel Guides,’ how could I say no?
Find out what I like about the rural lifestyle, what I miss, and what special expat tips I have in the interview, which you can read below.
And I swear, I don’t get a commission on new migrants to New Zealand. I just love this place!
8 Comments | Commute, Guest posts & media, New Zealand | Tagged: American, expat, living abroad, olive grove, olive oil | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Kowhai displaying his tongue
“Kowhai’s lonely,” I said. “We have to give him back.”
Rick looked horrified. “What?! Get rid of Kowhai? How can you say such a thing?!”
I shrugged. “Well, he doesn’t really belong to us.”
Kowhai had served as Old Lady Lucy’s strapping young boarfriend and companion in the last year of her life. Towards the end he kept guard outside the gate to the hayshed hospital where we cared for her. He lay there in driving rain and scorching sun just to be near her.
After we buried Lucy, I let Kowhai inside the hayshed so he could see she was gone. He wasn’t convinced, and for the next three days he continued lying in his spot at the gate, as if waiting for her return.
It was heartbreaking. Pigs need company, and we had to do something.
17 Comments | Commute, Neighbors, New Zealand, Pet kunekune pigs | Tagged: free range pork, heritage breed, kunekune, new pig, pet, pig, pig farmers | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Donuts for Lucy
Rick had been back from the States a week when our pet pig, Old Lady Lucy, got sick again. She had her time with him, her walks around the paddock and her belly rubs. Then she decided to go.
She lay down and stopped eating. When I syringed water into her mouth, she let it fall out the other side. I got her a new round of anti-inflammatories in a powder form, but I couldn’t get the drugs into her. She wouldn’t even eat the lovely, drug-infused jam sandwiches I made. She began whimpering in a new way.
30 Comments | Death, New Zealand, Pet kunekune pigs | Tagged: burying a pet, gratitude, pet, pig | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Lucy on a hot day
It wasn’t until Rick went away to the States and I had a week off that Rick’s beloved pet pig, Old Lady Lucy, started having trouble.
The first sign was when she showed no interest in a piece of bread. This is a bit like a fierce lioness losing interest in a limping wildebeest.
Lucy’s previous owners regularly fed her day-old donuts, but at our place the occasional piece of bread is as close as she gets to the glory days of her misspent, donut-eating youth.
As a result, she usually snatches bread up. When she wouldn’t even lift her head to eat the bread I’d laid next to her, I was worried.
24 Comments | Death, Neighbors, New Zealand, Pet kunekune pigs | Tagged: kind neighbors, pet, pig | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Happy 2012!
On this day, the very first of 2012, I was curious to see which were the top ‘Moon’ stories from the last year. So, I took a look at the stats.
Below are the top 5 stories posted in 2011, based on page views. I find this interesting, because these aren’t the ones I’d choose. But there you have it. The people have spoken. And they love carrot cake!
8 Comments | Guest posts & media, New Zealand | Tagged: carrot cake, Chickens, Happy New Year, olive harvest, pig, podcast, top 2011 stories | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Feeding Jack the baby lamb
I knew I was in trouble when I received a text from Rick that said, “We have a new baby.”
When I got home I found Rick sitting on the front deck, holding a very small lamb in his arms. Its head was resting peacefully on Rick’s shoulder.
Rick looked up and smiled, “Isn’t he just the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?”
I sighed. “And just how did this lamb end up in your arms?”
20 Comments | Death, Neighbors, New Zealand, Sheep & cattle | Tagged: bottle feeding, kind neighbors, lamb, lambing, sheep, Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Little Francoise the Aracuana Hen
“Kill them all,” Rick said. “We’ll start over.”
“What?!” I was horrified. “We can’t simply cull all of our chickens because they couldn’t learn how to use the chicken feeder!”
For the past few months, we’d been hearing stories from our neighbor Aussie Bronwyn about how easy her life was with her ‘Grandpa’s Feeder’ – how she didn’t have to go out and feed her chooks every day, how the sparrows never ate the feed anymore, and how even her clever young hatchlings had learned how to use the feeder.
We were sick with envy. But kill our chickens?
22 Comments | Chickens, Neighbors, New Zealand | Tagged: blue-green eggs, chicken coop, chicken feeder, Chickens, chook house, lavendar araucana | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Kowhai and Lucy grazing
“So, is she pregnant?” Rick asked.
Naya looked over the fence at our pet kunekune pig, Old Lady Lucy. “She does look a bit more plump, doesn’t she?”
Naya is a vet and a pig farmer. She was wearing a thick knit cap and an old jacket that was tied closed with a bit of twine wrapped around her waist. There was a bit of hay stuck to her left shoulder.
Rick and I had asked Naya to come over to give us her professional opinion. Although Rick and I suspected Lucy was ‘in pig,’ as they say, the simple truth is that city boys like us wouldn’t know a pregnant pig from a bar of soap.
23 Comments | Food, Neighbors, New Zealand, Pet kunekune pigs | Tagged: kunekune, meat, pig, pork, pregnant | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Lucy and Kowhai
One sunny afternoon a few months ago I noticed that Old Lady Lucy, our pet kunekune pig, was standing in the middle of the top paddock covered in mud and screaming. Something was clearly wrong.
I went over to check on her, but she was irritable, aggressive, and didn’t want to be touched.
So I did what one does when your pet pig turns psychotic. I called the Martinborough Pig Whisperer.
33 Comments | Food, Neighbors, New Zealand, Pet kunekune pigs | Tagged: kunekune, pet, pig, pork, Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
It was howling a gale outside when Amelia from Radio New Zealand showed up at my door. We immediately headed out for a walk through the paddocks. She had a black box hanging from her side, and she was holding two very large, imposing microphones.
When the gusts picked up she would jump from one side of me to the other, trying to block the noisy wind with her body and always holding one of the microphones in front of my mouth. I tried to pretend like this was normal, and I continued answering whatever question she’d asked.
20 Comments | Guest posts & media, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil, Pet kunekune pigs, Podcasts, River & sea | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Apple tree and moon by the house
Rick and I shut off the lights in the main room, ready to go to bed one night, and suddenly we were surrounded by bright, silver-blue light.
It was flooding in everywhere – through the large bay windows and the square panes of glass in the front French doors, spilling across the floor and slipping up onto the edges of the furniture.
I pressed my nose to the glass and saw an entire blue world outside.
“Let’s go for a walk,” I said. “Let’s go see the moon.”
25 Comments | New Zealand, Paddocks | Tagged: moon, moonlight, night, olive grove, olive trees | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Grass in the olive grove
“He canceled,” I said, hanging up the phone.
Rick looked nervous. “What do you mean?”
“It’s taking him longer than expected in another olive grove. He says he’ll come here tomorrow, but he won’t commit to a time.”
“If he doesn’t come here first, he’ll get stuck in another grove again,” Rick said. “He’ll never make it here.”
“I know.”
Every year at harvest time, Andrew-of-the-Olives becomes a very popular man. With his Mighty Tree Shaker, he can harvest an olive tree in something like 30 seconds. He’s based in the Hawke’s Bay and he has the only tree shakers on the North Island.
16 Comments | New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: kind neighbors, olive bin, olive crate, olive grove, olive harvest, olive oil, tree shaker | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
The first ripe Barnea
Our very first harvest was just around the corner, but Rick and I had no idea how to harvest and no equipment to do it. So that first year in Martinborough, I volunteered to help Helen at Olivo with their harvest. That way I could learn how to do it myself.
In late May I stood in the Olivo olive grove with Helen and her harvest team – Mavis, Scott and Bernard (pronounced BER-nerd here, not Ber-NARD the American way). Mavis was a thin, elderly woman. Scott and BERnard were clearly used to physical labor. I, it must be said, was not.
13 Comments | Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: gratitude, olive grove, olive harvest, olive oil, satisfying work | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Overgrown olive grove, 2006
Rick and I were standing with our neighbor John down in the olive grove. The trees were thick and green all around us.
“Look how great the grove looks,” Rick said.
John scowled and shook his head. “Well, you’re not done yet.”
Rick and I had only been living in Martinborough for less than a month. When we moved in the grass in the olive grove had been chest high, and John had helped us to hire a contractor to mow it.
Now the beautiful green grass was low to the ground and wonderfully even – with 500 significant exceptions. Around the base of every tree, there was a perfect square of long, ungainly grass that the contractor’s enormous tractor mower hadn’t been able to reach.
22 Comments | Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: kind neighbors, olive grove, olive trees, prune, pruning, satisfying work, secateurs, suckers, water shoots | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
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