I believe in the force of intentionality. When one has the intention of things working out, they often will. I have been loving my time in Waitara with Daniela, Chris, Bianca and little Cassia. I had one really tough day of work digging fence posts out of the ground (I took a picture of the outlines of two HUGE blisters on my hands). Other than that, it has been easy mornings of work, good food and leisurely spent afternoons.
My main task at the farm is to take the shells off of macademia nuts. I go to the Nut House and put two big bags of nuts into the cracking machine. After it has done its work, I spend about 3 hours listening to the radio and sepparating shells from Nuts. I also have a couple pictures to upload that show the machine and about how many nuts I can process in a morning. It is nice that the farm works on a schedule. 7:30 breakfast, 8:00-12:30 work, 12:30 lunch, 6:00 dinner. That leaves me with wonderful 100% organic meals, my own little cabin and about Nine daylight hours to myself.
Even though I am taking today off to see New Plymouth town, I am returning tomorrow evening. They have convinced me to stay longer than I intended. I will work three more days (though Monday will not be nut-work). I will get three things for this: 1) a free horseback ride, 2) the chance to participate in sheep shearing on Monday and 3) a ride on Tuesday afternoon almost ALL THE WAY to Hastings. That actually puts me in Hastings on schedule, and what fringe benefits, eh?
BTW, I have uploaded some pictures from my time in Tokaanu. Including the trout I caught, the building projects a various stages, the horse I rode bare-backed and the Toyota truck we found turned over on the way to Waitara. That was a great little story which I never wrote about. You will just have to ask me when I get back to the States. For now, I plan on checking out a free Maori music event tonight. Should be interesting. In case anyone is interested, I am about 2/7's the way done with War and Peace!
