Rowing the Rakaia

Had a day off today. Spent the day canoeing on the Rakaia river. Did 5 and half hours on the water. Not sure how far we went but it was a long way. The river is quite swift with quite a few rapids. Just enough to make it interesting. Managed the whole day and didn't tip the canoe once! We're getting good. Uncle Brent took me. The same guy I went hunting with. Roger brought the jet boat and took the other two guys back upriver to get the trucks while we carried on downstream. The water was crystal clear and a beautiful blue color. And quite cold. You wouldn't want to be in it for long. In the second photo below you can see a wheat field high above the river. And there is a yellow New Holland combine in the field. Not sure if you can see it but it was neat to see so high up on the side of the mountain. A really fun day. Love being on the water. Hopefully we will get finished with the harvest this week. The weather is supposed to be good. Then hopefully will be having more days like today!!

Ocean in View, O the Joy!

Finally went and saw the big blue. This place really is surrounded by water!! Took a drive yesterday to the Rakaia river mouth. It's 45 minutes away. There was a big salmon fishing tournament going on hence all the people fishing. Talked to a couple of guys and they reported only a few fish being caught. Saw one guy with one decent fish. Regardless it was a magnificent day and appeared everyone was having a good time. Someone just forgot to invite all the salmon! And low and behold I made a little friend while there. The cute little guy was just chill'n by the sea. And he had a fish. He was probably wondering what all the people were doing on his beach. Not sure where all his buddies were. Interesting to note that they farm right to the edge of the ocean. Within half a mile of the surf there are crop fields and dairy cows. And the country looks all the same till you get to where I live about 20 miles inland. Then "Bam" the mountains are right in front of you. Pretty cool. A good finish to a 60+ hour work week. Needless to say we had a good harvest week. We need another week like last and will be mostly finished harvesting.

Healthy Harvest

Hey everybody. Haven't posted in a while because we've been real busy harvesting. The weather has been really good. Sunny everyday and mid 70s. Perfect for harvest. Yesterday was a 14 hour day and the combine went for 10 and half hours. Wheat and barley at the moment. Have about 60 hectares left to harvest. So getting close to finished. Needless to say I've been hauling a lot of grain. The pics below are of info boards at the agricultural center in town. Went there some time ago.

Hot Air Ballon Ride!

Really fun!

A Colorful Day

Up extra early today. The family I work for got me a Hot Air Ballon ride for my birthday. And needless to say it was awesome!! Got to help set up the ballon which was cool. Amazing how fast it could lift off with 7 people on board. Flew for about an hour and sat down in a dairy farmers field. Super quiet up there. A beautiful way to fly!! One of the best birthday gifts I've ever had. I'll post some more pics in another post.

Mountains of Meat

Caution!!! The Knives are Sharp!!

Today went took a field trip to the local Slaughter Plant. It was a organized tour for all the animal producers. And I found it utterly fascinating! They slaughter around 2000 lambs and 500 beef a day. If you consume beef or lamb then you must see this I think. That steak or hamburger that you order in the restaurant came from a place like this. Just remember that. Had a beautiful lunch of Lamb Chops and Steak after the tour which was nice. One of the most interesting things I've seen since being here. If you are kinda faint at heart or don't want to see where your meat comes from then you might want to skip the next couple of posts. You have been warned!!

Video of Tahr Hunt

I can't begin to describe how beautiful the mountains are here. Hope this video helps!!

The Himalayan Tahr

Went on a short hunting trip this weekend. About 2 and half hours south of here. Twizel was the town we stayed in. Hunted near Mt. Cook the highest mountain in NZ. An amazing trip. We hiked straight up the mountain about 4000 vertical feet. Nearly to the very top. Which is we're you find the elusive Tahr. And for us fortunately they weren't so elusive. We found a group of about 10 and I shot a young bull about 5:30 pm. Got down off the mountain right at 10:00 pm. Spent 13 and half hours going up and back down. Well worth the effort.

Hay Baler video

Pretty cool how this thing works.

Grass Seed Harvest

Finished the Rye Grass seed harvest yesterday. The combine ran non stop for exactly 13 hours. The shed where I am standing is the drying shed. It has a drying floor in bottom. Inside is about 20 tons of seed. And the grain bin Aaron is standing on has about 20 tons in it as well. 40 tons of seed in one day. Worth around $2.25 a kilo. So quite a lot. All came from a 47 acre field. Roger baled 250 bales of hay right behind the combine. The contractors baled the pea vine yesterday morning as well. One of the balers individually wraps the bales as it goes. They are round the other baler was making big squares that were weighing 950 kilos. You will see in the video it working. So much for grass seed this year. We now have to move 400 hay bales back to barnyard!

Harvest Continues!!

We're back in harvest mode!! We are now on Italian Rye Grass. Going quite well. New Zealand produces a lot of the worlds grass seed. It's a pretty neat crop. They plant it, graze it the first year then graze early the second year followed by windrowing and harvest of the seed. This continues for 3-4 years. A dual purpose crop. The pic of the self propelled windrower is mowing green peas. They were supposed to be harvested for human consumption but the processing plant is overloaded. So they are getting cut today and tomorrow will be baled for cattle feed. They're really good to. Quite a shame to feed them to cattle but that is how it goes. The truck unloading is at the seed cleaners where I haul the grass seed to. They unload into the boxes then run through the actual seed cleaner. You can see the boxes in background. It's been really hot here all week. 85-90 degrees and full sun. Which is good for the harvest. Rain in forecast for Monday.