And the WWOOF goes on...

Hello from the other side of the world 🙋🌏

As announced, I will describe in this report what happened in my second week of WWOOFing with Carolyn. Have fun reading 😊

Monday, January 21 - Wednesday, January 23

Aside from the specific tasks, there were few differences in the daily routine, so I will summarize these three days in a short report. On Mondays, I worked on the "Flexes". Unfortunately, I don't know what they are called in German, but they are trees whose leaves grow from the ground and are similar to palm leaves. In any case, my honorable task was to pull out the withered leaves and clean around the trees. Sounds manageable. But it wasn't. There were such huge amounts of leaves that after finishing the job, three big piles had formed next to me, and that was just with one Flex. Carolyn was very impressed and praised me for it. Fortunately, the second one had significantly fewer leaves. But overall, it was incredible how many withered leaves were growing under the healthy ones. You would never guess from the outside. It was truly amazing. I also had to clean the ground from the rampant ivy. The next day, my task was relatively easy to summarize. I did nothing but pluck the grass by hand in places where the lawnmower couldn't reach. The grass had grown around various plants and was much taller than the mowed lawn. Quite a few nice piles accumulated. Wednesday was supposed to be the day when I would paint the garden fence, which I had painstakingly freed from ivy and grass beforehand. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Just as I started applying the first layer of paint - I was just about to start with fence slat No. 4 - it started pouring rain ☔💧 It rained heavily throughout the day and into the night, so I couldn't do anything outside. What a pity, especially since the fence is now completely soaked and probably won't dry before I leave, especially since it would need several consecutive days of sunshine. Otherwise, there was nothing really important to report from this time.

Thursday, January 24

To my surprise, I didn't have to work on this day because Carolyn offered to take me to the city in the morning and spend a few hours there. Of course, I gladly accepted. We started with the Skyline Walk on the roofs of Oamaru. It was really beautiful, although it was very windy. The path led through flocks of sheep and offered some great viewpoints from where you could overlook the entire city and the harbour. After a short stop at the warehouse, we went to a small art gallery, where I also enjoyed myself. Mainly jewelry and amulets were exhibited there. Afterwards, we had lunch again in the old town, where there is a Dutch bakery that is unfortunately very expensive but probably offers the best pastries in all of Otago. I treated myself to it 😆🍮 After that, I took a closer look at the old town and also visited one of the numerous souvenir shops there. We continued with a visit to the Anglican Church of St. Lukes, which, as the name suggests, is a church. A beautiful one in fact 👍 To conclude, I visited a small garden area next to the Oamaru Public Gardens, which I had already explored extensively a week earlier, before Carolyn and I went home together after her work was done. There, I also got to know Daniel, a friend of Melinda's who also works at the rectory. When we arrived home, we decided to play a few rounds of Rummy-O together, which many of you may know as Rummikub. I love this game and, to the annoyance of the others, I won 4 out of 5 games right away 🏆😅 During the last game, the guests for dinner arrived: Ross, a sheep farmer who once held a leading position in New Zealand agriculture, and his wife. Ross was very interested in me and asked me several questions, especially about agriculture in Germany, motorsport, and football. He was also very enthusiastic that I live right next to the Nürburgring 😉 By the way, the food was phenomenal 😋 As always, it was great, but this time Carolyn had made an extra effort and made it particularly elaborate. We sat together and chatted until late in the evening after dinner.

Friday, January 25

The next day was a bit less eventful without any noteworthy highlights. I continued my task of pulling out the tall grass that was growing next to the trees. In the evening, we sat in front of the TV again while a wild storm raged outside, which knocked down three tall trees on the property during the night.

Saturday, January 26

Saturday started with some variety. First, I noticed that Carolyn, who is an enthusiastic early riser, had already started repainting the fence, which had been prevented by heavy rain last time. As soon as I noticed, I joined her and got to paint the spaces between the fence slats. After we finished one side - the majority is still pending - we went to Daniel, who was using a chainsaw to cut up the trees that had fallen victim to the storm. My task was to help Carolyn load the resulting logs onto the trailer and then unload them at the wood depot after the subsequent drive. In between, we also collected some branches, which were then brought to the large pile in the garden. And as this pile had been growing steadily over the past few weeks and had now reached a considerable size, the weather finally allowed us to light it and burn it. It was much faster than I expected. Within seconds, the fire, which started from newspaper, spread to two-thirds of the pile, quickly creating a large wall of orange flames and yellowish-white smoke rising towards the sky 🌋 After observing the glowing spectacle for a few minutes, we pushed the remaining wood scraps into the flames. So after some time, everything was truly burned. And the amount of wood, which we diligently transported away with the trailer, became steadily more manageable. Nevertheless, it was late afternoon when we finally finished. But we had accomplished a lot on this day. A big shoutout to Daniel, who stayed with the chainsaw until the end. I wouldn't have been able to do it 😉 In the evening, Mark visited, a friend of Carolyn's. We watched two movies together before going to bed.

Sunday, January 27

After experiencing an unconventional but very beautiful church service last week, I was curious to see how things would go in the "proper" church this time. Let me tell you: It was worth coming again. After a short opening by today's priest, a Maori, we quickly moved on to the songs. They were accompanied by a band with a singer, flute, keyboards, and guitars. After that, there were the prayers of intercession, communion, and finally the sermon. The sermon was delivered by Graham, who had spoken to me after the service the week before. It mainly focused on Christmas. But even here, things were different. Six older men from the audience were brought to the front, and three of them were given fancy headscarves (shepherds) or crowns made of yellow cardboard (the three wise men) 😂👑 A photo of them was taken and shown on the big screen. After the service, I played football with two children, their father, and two teenagers in the youth room where the church service had taken place the week before. It was a lot of fun. Finally, playing football again, even if it was just a little kickabout for fun ⚽ By the way, one of the boys, Luke, dreams of a career as a professional football player. He is really good. Let's see if we will hear from him someday, as there isn't too much competition here in New Zealand 😆 Since it rained all day outside, I couldn't work when I got home. Instead, Carolyn and I had a long movie day 😊

Next, I will continue with my last days in Oamaru and the first experiences at my third WWOOFing station in Palmerston, which will hopefully - I strongly assume - be very nice for me as well.

See you soon 👋

Your Max