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 | 
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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
Frantoio olives (click to enlarge)
Podcast available.
“They’re all still green,” Rick said.
We were standing in the middle of the olive grove on a cold morning in the middle of May. Nearly five hundred olive trees surrounded us, and there wasn’t a single ripe olive to be seen.
The frosts would be starting soon, but the grove simply wasn’t yet ready for harvesting. We didn’t know what to do.
Frost damage can completely destroy your crop, because it ruins the taste of your oil. We needed more time.
I looked around at all the green olives. “We have to delay the harvest. There’s no choice. We just have to hope the frost doesn’t get us.”
20 Comments | Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil, Podcasts | Tagged: city friends, gratitude, kind neighbors, olive grove, olive harvest, olive oil, olive press, satisfying work, Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Wine Centre Open
I took a deep breath and walked up to the counter at the Martinborough Wine Centre. All around me bottles of gorgeous wine and olive oil stood sparkling on the shelves. I was there to try and sell our olive oil for the very first time, and I was nervous.
Would a Real Live Store actually want to put our little labor of love out on display with all those bright shiny things?
21 Comments | New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: olive grove, olive oil, olives, selling olive oil, Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Sunshine
Podcast available.
“Buy a used tractor?” I said to Rick. “Do we need one?”
Three years ago, after finishing the paperwork to purchase 20 acres with an olive grove in Martinborough, Rick and I received an email from the real estate agent asking if we’d like to buy the vendor’s tractor as well.
In our city boy minds, a used tractor would break down and require mechanical know how. We wanted a new tractor, but we were already broke from the mortgage. We planned to wait a few years before investing in equipment.
So we sent an email back to the agent confidently telling him that we did not yet need a tractor.
19 Comments | Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil, Paddocks, Podcasts | Tagged: gratitude, kind neighbors, olive grove, satisfying work, tractor | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Petting newly shorn Sweetie
Podcast available.
We have a new sheep at our place. We call her Sweetie because she really is sweet. But she has a little problem.
She arrived about three months ago when Hamish, the stock agent, brought about 20 new sheep to graze in our paddocks. “One’s a pet sheep,” he said. “Belongs to my sister. That one’s never going to the butcher.”
At first the new sheep were down in the paddock beyond the driveway and the row of gum trees. I didn’t see them much. But after a while Hamish moved them into the paddock where the chicken run is. That’s when I got to know them.
10 Comments | New Zealand, Paddocks, Podcasts, Sheep & cattle | Tagged: animals, chicken coop, chicken feed, olive grove, sheep, Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Podcast available.
Because we lease our paddocks to a stock agent, we’ve seen a variety of cattle and sheep come and go on our property.
Being city boys, one animal has always seemed the same as another to us. One cow, however, has been a standout. She not only made an indelible impression on us, but she left Rick with an ongoing remembrance in the form of a dull ache in his side when it rains.
We named her Evil Cow.
Local farmers say cattle are smart. One farmer once told me he’d actually seen a cow push another cow into an electric fence just to see if it was on. Before I’d met Evil Cow, I didn’t believe that such calculated bovine treachery was possible.
Let’s just say that I believe it now.
18 Comments | New Zealand, Paddocks, Podcasts, Sheep & cattle | Tagged: cattle, olive grove, pruning, stock agent | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Our roast turkey
Rick called me at work on Thursday morning in a panic.
“Did you see the weather forecast for Saturday?” he said. “It’s horrible. Rain all day. Should we cancel Thanksgiving?”
For most people, the idea of canceling Thanksgiving on account of a little bit of rain would seem a ridiculous idea, but they’ve never been to one of our Thanksgiving parties.
16 Comments | Country dinner parties, Family, Food, Neighbors, New Zealand | Tagged: city friends, gratitude, kind neighbors, olive grove, rimutaka hill road | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Flower buds on a Barnea (click to enlarge)
The other day I took a walk through the olive grove to see how the trees are doing.
It was comforting to see the small, green flower buds of spring. It isn’t always this way.
Sometimes olives groves don’t behave according to plan.
When we bought this place the house had been empty for some time, and the grove hadn’t been pruned or sprayed for pests and disease in years.
So it wasn’t producing very much.
7 Comments | New Zealand, Olives & olive oil | Tagged: barnea, flower buds, gratitude, olive grove, olive harvest, olive oil | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Local newspaper Wairarapa Times-Age ran an article on ‘Moon over Martinborough’ last week, and I was slapped on the front page, top right.
Dorky picture of Jared
They asked me to pose for this picture – sitting awkwardly on our fence, pretending to do a blog post with the olive grove behind me and a bottle of our oil beside me.
As if I always write blog posts this way…
I felt like such a doofus!
There was an absolutely enormous version of this picture on page 3, plus a cropped version on the front page.
14 Comments | Guest posts & media, New Zealand | Tagged: olive grove, olive oil | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Podcast available.
Rick and I had been living in the country for only a couple of months when Rick’s city friend Fiona came to visit.
Well in the olive grove
Fiona is like a graceful, exotic bird you feel compelled to pamper and adore, and Rick had promised her a relaxing country weekend far away from her stressful professional life. So it caused us great concern when, just hours after her arrival on Friday evening, our tap water suddenly stopped running.
I was in the kitchen preparing to cook dinner when I turned on the kitchen faucet and nothing came out. I checked the sink in the guest bathroom and found the same thing there.
Out on the deck I made the announcement.
“There’s no water.”
20 Comments | Neighbors, New Zealand, Podcasts | Tagged: city friends, gratitude, kind neighbors, olive grove, Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine, well | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Moon over Martinborough has been named “New Zealand Site of the Month” in the October 2009 issue of NetGuide Magazine!
I was sitting at my computer at the government agency where I work when an email came in from someone in the Communications team telling me about it. Most of the people at work didn’t know I have a blog.
They do now.
15 Comments | Guest posts & media, New Zealand | Tagged: olive grove, olive harvest, olive oil | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Events in Martinborough
