Oahu I Love to Ski in July!

OH-HOW. That's how you pronounce the name of the ski field I skied at today. I'm in Twizel with Brent, his daughter Ella and Andy (Brent's friend). We had a awesome day skiing today. The weather was perfect, the slopes uncrowded, and the views stunning!! At this point I've totally lost track of what month it is as it seems so foreign to think that I'm snow-skiing at this point. It's weird to think its mid- July. The place we skied today is much smaller than Mt.Hutt where I went last week. Only one lift here. But it was equally as good. It had a lot more personal touch. There were less than 100 people skiing, so it felt like you had the whole mountain to yourself. Very nice! We're headed off tomorrow down south to ski at two other hills near Wanaka. If all goes to plan we'll ski 3 mountains on this trip!!

A Bit of Competition

Took in a little competition this weekend. Friday night was Rugby in Christchurch. The Crusaders vs. Chiefs. We root for the Crusaders. The chiefs are from the N. Island. I've finally got figured out the basic rules. Which makes it way more fun to watch a game. Thankfully we whipped the Chiefs and it was a very good game. It's more intense than Football by a long shot. Makes the NFL guys look like wimps. And on Saturday night there was a Speed Sheep Shearing contest inside the local pub. There were about 10 people competing and they each sheared 5 sheep. And the fastest shear one in under 20 seconds. Most 25-30 seconds. And the pub was absolutely Packed!! Shoulder to Shoulder. It was a good introduction for me as I helped a local farmer here shear today. I never sheared any myself but worked as a shedhand keeping the fleeces away from the shearers and pressing wool. There were 3 guys shearing and in about 5 hours they sheared 650 sheep. Really good to get to help out as wool and lamb meat are two of the major factors in the NZ economy. A big part of farming life here.

First on the Fourth

Another first for me today. Snow skiing. On the Fourth of July. I thought it a fitting way for me to celebrate here in the middle of a NZ winter. It was a really beautiful day. Two days ago it got to 70 degrees here. Almost summer like. It hovered around 32 on the mountain today. Mt. Hutt is the mountain I was at. Right outside Methven and only a 20 minute drive from here on the farm. So nice and close. The mountain has 900 skiable acres, 3 chairlifts, with a vertical drop of 2000 feet.
Made 17 runs down. Needless to say my legs were burning and I'm sure tomorrow I'll really feel the effects. The view out onto the Canterbury Plains is just stunning. You can see approximately 50 miles in any direction and all the way to the ocean. Truly amazing views. It was well worth the price of admission for the scenery, let alone the skiing. And to top off the day a gorgeous sunset! Happy Fourth of July everybody!!!

Flying High

The results from my latest hunting trip. The first day I started up the mountain after a very nice bull by myself. I managed to get right on top of a bunch of nannies and kids but there was no bull in the group. I turned around, the snow was just to deep and the mountain to steep. In all the hunting and hiking I've done I've never been afraid of falling. But this day I admit I was a little nervous. It was REALLY steep. I made the wise decision and headed back down to the creek bottom. Hiked up the creek and met up with Jim and Jacob. They were watching a decent bull with about 10 nannies not to far up on a ridge. I started up after the bull but got turned around again because of a bluff at the ridge top. There was just no way up. Upon hiking back down to the huts we came across a young bull just up from the creek. After 3 shots he was down. Not sure what my problem was. I'll chalk it up to the first time I had shot the gun! The good part was that he practically landed at our feet. My second New Zealand Tahr. A good one for meat. The second day we all three started up after the bull I went after the day before. It was really slow going and way to steep. But we all three stuck together and made it up. We managed to get within about 300 yds. Jacob made a good second shot and dropped the bull. After surveying the situation we decided it would be to time consuming to get up to him. Let alone dangerous. So that left only one option: Helicopter. We marched back down to the huts and got packed. Hiked back out to the truck. Home about dark. Helicopter arranged for the next morning at daylight. Met the pilot at his house at daylight. My first time in a helicopter. And what better place than New Zealand right. Per Capita New Zealand has more helicopters than any country in the world. Flying in one was one thing I really wanted to do upon coming here. And to get to fly in to where we were hunting was awesome. Long story short we flew in, hovered over the tahr, Jim jumped out and got a rope on it. The chopper hovered back in, Jim hooked the rope underneath got back in and we were off. Flying back home with Tahr slung underneath. I wish I could have gotten a picture of that but being in the chopper made that impossible. All told the flight was 54 minutes. And the scenery amazing.

Winter Wonderland

Winter is upon us here in the Southern Hemisphere. As you can see. The snow made a bit of a challenge on last weeks hunting trip. Just driving in was a chore. As you can see we managed to get stuck. But thankfully with Jim's expert driving and super tough 1983 Toyota Land Cruiser we managed to make it up to the creek we were going to hunt. After a 3 hour hike up the creek we finally made it to the huts. The snow was about knee deep. Hiking up the creek was pretty tough. By the time we made it up to the huts I was soaked from the waist down. Putting on frozen stiff pants in the mornings and solid ice in your boots wasn't the most pleasant thing. But the scenery more than made you forget the cold. As you can see the huts were tiny. And no heat. So long nights in the sleeping bag were the order. In bag about 7:30pm and out about 8am the following mornings. Thank goodness for the new sleeping bag I bought before coming to NZ. It was really neat to see the mountains here covered in so much snow. Unlike Montana they tell me that all this snow with the exception of the very tops of the mountains will melt. It comes and goes all winter. Where in Montana you know that when snow comes at the start of winter it is going to be with you for 5-6 months. The last few days here have been really beautiful. Mid 50's and full sun. Not to bad for winter I'll say!!

Happy Hunting

I'm sure by now you are all wondering why no posts lately. Well I'll tell you. I could have posted pictures of a billion raindrops/snowflakes because that's all I've seen for the past six days till today. One of the biggest snowstorms in two decades just swept across NZ. Some places here on the South Island got a meter and half plus of snow. That's 4.5 feet!! The top of the mountain in the photo is Mount Hutt behind my house and it got that much on top. It is one of the major ski fields in NZ and its neat at night to see the headlights of the snow groomers working way up on the mountain. The skiers will be real happy! They now have a 3 meter snow base. So around 10 feet! Here at the farm we had at the most about 2-3 inches of snow with A LOT of rain. The good news is it is supposed to be sunny for the next 5-7days:-) Enough about the weather. All the dead critters are the result of a big hunting competition that was held this past weekend. I stopped and looked at them today. There was about 30 wild boar, 3 Himalayan Tahr which are the animals in the third photo. And 5 deer. Also a bunch of Hares and Possums in the last photo. The neat thing was that I was in town to get groceries for my own hunting trip starting tomorrow. Am going with the guy who's boat I fished on a couple of weeks ago. Him, me, and one other guy. We're planning on being gone 4 days. And we're after Tahr. Just Google Himalayan Tahr and you'll see good photos of what they look like. They're a type of goat that live on the very tops of the mountains. Should be interesting with all the recent snow. Hopefully you'll see me with one later in the week!!

Feeding

I took this video this morning while I was feeding the small heifers. That's oat baleage I'm feeding. Oats that were baled green and put in bag. If you go all the way back to the early January posts there is a video of us moving this same group out the driveway. They sure grow fast!! I hope this works as my last attempts at videos weren't working.