Celeriac, anyone?

Adam and I have been members of the Vermont Valley farm, an organic CSA in Blue Mound for the past 2 years, but this is the first year we decided to buy a storage share. This consists of 2 deliveries, one in November and one in December, of 80 lbs each. Included in the share are pumpkins, winter squash, turnips, rutabagas, carrots, potatoes, leeks, brussel sprouts, radishes, daikon radish, beets, and 12 celeriac roots. Now I'm pretty open to eating any vegetable and I love to be creative in how we use them. I pride myself in my ability to open the refrigerator and create dinner from what I find. However, I am having a hard time bringing myself to attempt to cook the celeriac. According to the helpful sheet that comes along with each share, celeriac is an "essential winter vegetable," but the one time we tried it last year, it made the whole soup taste very strongly of celery (one of our least favorite vegetables) and I can't get over that mental block. I put up a post at work and managed to get rid of 4, but there are many more waiting in our fridge for some creative (and merciful) friends to come over and take them! Help!

You can see that it was a good year for potatoes (the whole right side of the lower shelf) and carrots (the whole right drawer). Yes, you can indeed keep potatoes in the fridge. In fact, they seem to keep better there than in our "cellar" in the basement.

New Zealand is for the birds

New Zealand originally had no mammals (except for a couple bats), so it has an amazing bird life. Many of these birds are flightless. Of course, it was better before they introduced mammals like rabbits, stouts, ferrets, dogs, cats, and deer that ate a lot of the birds (especially the flightless ones), but it’s still quite an amazing diversity. Before we went, Adam bought me a book of New Zealand birds and it was really helpful. We wouldn’t have enjoyed them half as much without it. Thanks to Mom and Dad too for the binoculars that served us well. Here’s a list of the birds we are sure we saw, in the approximate order we saw them. The pictures are not ours, because we don’t have a cool zoom lens to actually get good pictures. It should be noted that we also believe we heard a kiwi (New Zealand's national icon) and a kaka, both of which are rare.

• Magpie (introduced; these were everywhere, especially in pastures)

• Chaffinch

• Yellow-eye penguin (this is one of the rarest penguins)

• Little blue penguin (probably my favorite)

• Fantail (these were really cute – they fly with their large tails up in order to catch insects)

• Wood pigeon (NZ’s only native pigeon)

• Harrier
• Goldfinch (not the same as ours)
• Song thrush

• Bell bird

• King shag

• Black swan (they introduced these for hunting, but turns out they don’t taste good)

• Paradise shelduck

• Pukeko (kind of like a chicken – very cute)

• Myna (common, sort of like our crows)

• Australian Coot

• White-faced heron
• Welcome swallow
• Silvereye
• Yellowhammer
• Blackbird
• Australian gannet
• Little black shag (also called a cormorant)

• Grey teal
• California quail
• Variable oystercatcher

• Pied stilt
• Red- and black-billed gulls
• Black fronted tern
• New Zealand pipit

• Skylark (they sing like crazy while hovering in the air until they run out of breath and then they fall)
• Bush robin
• Redpoll
• Eastern rosella (not native, but still very cool)

• Tui (the largest of the honey eaters - we usually saw these on flax plants like in the picture below)

• Pheasant (saw lots of them on the side of the road in Northland)
• New Zealand dotterel

• Reef heron
• Banded rail

Peace & Plenty

For our final 2 nights in New Zealand, we decided to spend them at a well-known B&B called Peace and Plenty. It's in a charming Auckland suburb called Devonport. The B&B is in an 1888 mansion with a view of Auckland harbor and 7 bedrooms. Our room has an attached Juliet balcony and came with Devonport chocolates, port, and sherry. The owner loves to talk and makes an amazing Belgian waffle.

Unfortunately, it's been raining since we got here. We spent the day touring the Auckland Museum and the Auckland Art Gallery. The museum had a fantastic Maori and Pacific Islander collection.

We had hoped to visit a bird sanctuary island tomorrow, but I don't think the weather will allow it. We fly out at 11pm and will get back Sunday morning at 10am after a long layover in LA where we think we'll head over to Hollywood. We look forward to seeing you all soon and whipping out the Christmas decorations ASAP. :)

Go North, Young Couple

So, to start, a quick story. When we were planning this trip, we were going to stop in Fiji on our way home. But in the end, that was prohibitively expensive, plus that would take away from our New Zealand time. And the nation of Fiji has had a significant amount of unrest of late. So we decided to go to Northland instead, hoping to get a taste of subtropical weather. We stayed just north of Kerikeri, on a river called Takou River (Incidentally, I think it's pronounced 'taco'). Most international visitors don't go north of Auckland, so Northland is much less of a tourist destination. Many Kiwis (the people) vacation in the North, in an area called the Bay of Islands, which includes Kerikeri. Where we were staying is at 35 degrees south, Which for comparison, is about as far from the equator as Northern Los Angeles. (The furthest south we were during our first week here was about 45 degrees south, which is equivalent of Wausau, WI.) The area has a very tropical feel.

We stayed at a cottage called the Magic Cottage at a resort called the Takou River Lodge. The entire resort is off the main grid. They generate their own electricity from solar and small scale hydro power. Our cottage was very cute, and was set into the tropical gardens that they have planted all around. We were surrounded by huge tree ferns, pohotukawa, kauri and palm trees. Also, fragrant tropical flowers, beautiful birds of paradise, and other great tropical plants. Perhaps most stunning of all was the birdlife. We were surrounded by birds. The most common were Tui, Pukeko, and Rosella. The Rosella were certainly the most striking, they are essentially a very colorful parakeet. The Tui is a native NZ bird that is mostly black/blue and eats nectar. The Pukeko is another native bird that looks a little like a chicken, except they are blue and have a large red beak. We also saw lots of quail, pheasants, Shags, herons, gulls. The area we were in is known to be home to a (relatively) large population of Kiwi (the birds) which are very rare. They are nocturnal, so we didn't see any. But we heard several bird calls that might have been kiwi. We're not very sure, since we don't know the kiwi call very well.

There was a kayak at the cottage that we could take down the river. We took it down to the ocean. It's about 25 minutes paddling. The river is tidal, and we paddled down at low tide, so the river was low, and we got stuck in the estuary trying to find where it was deep enough to paddle. But we finally made it to the ocean. It was ridiculously windy, but very beautiful. We found a hill to shelter the wind to have our picnic, and then waded into the ocean a bit before heading back during the rising tide.

We also explored a litte bit in the Puketi Kauri forest. The Kauri trees are the second largest trees in the world (behind Redwoods). The Northern part of the North Island used to be covered in Kauri forest, but they were cut down for farmland and timber. Now they've protected a few areas to preserve these incredible trees. Some of the oldest trees are believed to be between 1200 and 2500 years old, and are up to 45 feet around and 60 feet tall. The ones we saw were only a few hundred years old, but were still huge. The walk through the forest was nice, we saw a lot of the native plants, like the huge ferns that grow into tall trees living amongst the monster Kauri.

Overall, Northland is a beautiful place. I'm glad that we went up there. It was a nice chance to relax, and see some pretty incredible natural features of these islands.

Rotorua

After we left Marlborough (very reluctantly i might add!), we took the ferry to Wellington. Unfortunately, we had only left ourselves 1 night and a few hours there, so we didn't get to see the New Zealand national museum, Te Papa, which is supposed to be excellent. We did drive up to a very windy lookout, Mt. Victoria, to get a view of the city which is tucked between the mountains and the harbor. The picture does not do justice to how windy it was!

We then drove to Rotorua, an area known for its natural thermal springs and Maori (NZ's native people) culture. We attended a Maori concert which included displays of their fighting prowess along with singing and dancing. After the concert, we were served hangi, a traditional way of cooking, where the food is placed on top of hot coals and covered. This hangi was lamb, chicken, potatoes, and kumera (sweet potatoes). Only the kumera was really a traditional food. I'm guessing the original hangi might have included Moa, a now-extinct flightless bird that was the size of an ostrich. The whole thing was pretty touristy, but since there is no other good way to have this experience, we enjoyed it for what it was. After the meal when it was dark  we were taken on a tour of the gounds to see the glow worms and trout (of course the trout were introduced for sport fishing and subsequently killed all the naive fish - lots of things are like that here).

The next day we headed out to one of the main thermal areas. This area has a geyser, Lady Knox, that the ranger sets off each day at 10:15am by pouring soup into it. Something about breaking the surface tension so the hot water underneath comes out. This was pretty cool, but the bad thing was that everybody watched the geyser and then proceeded into the park immediately after so it was really crowded.

The park had a 3k trail with various thermal features throughout. There was a feature called the Champagne Pool that was really neat because all the minerals in the water turned the pool various colors including champagne pink. This park was ok, but i would have enjoyed it a lot more with fewer people. I've discovered that certain kinds of tourists have no shame about having their pictures taken in front of anything and everything.

The good life

We've spent the past 3 days at a vineyard in Marlborough, a region on the East coast of New Zealand's South Island. It's an area known for its wines and sunshine. These past few days have been incredibly relaxing and enjoyable and I am most reluctant to leave. We stayed at the Straw Lodge, a bed and breakfast set in 20 acres of Pinot and Sauvignon grape vines. Our hosts, Nettie and Jane, live in the main building and have added 3 Spanish-style suites where they accommodate guests. They have been most gracious, giving us access to their living spaces and outdoor barbeque area.

We cooked a lovely salmon dinner on their grill, complete with fresh asparagus that we bought from a roadside stand. Yes, it is indeed asparagus season here! We didn't think about the fact that coming halfway around the world in winter would mean we got a second asparagus season. We've also eaten strawberries and cherries grown locally. Breakfast each morning is fantastic. We get fresh fruit, yogurt, cereal, muffins, toast, espresso drinks made to order, and hot cooked breakfast of our choice. We leave each morning totally stuffed and have just had light picnics for lunch each day.

Our first full day here we drove to Picton for the aforementioned kayking trip. Our second day we toured local wineries. There are probably 20 within a couple miles, but we decided to take it easy and only toured 4. Unfortunate item umber 1: most of these wineries do not have distributers anywhere near Wisconsin. Unfortunate item number 2: Adam and I can only bring back 2 bottles each, duty free. We purchased 5 bottles so far (including 3 of Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough's sigature wine), so we'll have to drink at least 1 before we fly back. We weren't sure if we were expected to be wine experts when going to all these tasting rooms, but it turns out that all the hosts were extremely gracious and did not make us feel dumb for asking what were probably really basic questions. We also tasted some amazing olive oil (grapes and olives like the same kind of soil) and chocolate.

Dinner last night was a bit of a splurge. We went to a restaurant in a vineyard called Gibb's. Adam had some delicious lamb and I had John Dory, caught fresh from Nelson (an hour away). We had dinner with a lovely Australian couple who is also staying at our lodge and finished the night in the spa at the lodge. This morning we're heading back to Picton to catch the ferry to Wellington. I can't describe the incredible relaxing days we've had here and I know that we will come back here some day.

PS 1: Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Did you go around the table and say what you are thankful for? I'm thankful for sunshine, chocolate, God's amazing outdoors, and my wonderful husband.

PS 2: April- has Zoe arrived yet?!!

Waves? What waves?

We are currently staying at a vineyard which is amazing and I will post more about that later. For now, i have to post about yesterday's adventure. Yesterday we drove to Picton which is the town on the Marlborough Sound from which the Interisland Ferry departs (it connects with Wellington on the North Island). We rented a nice tandem kayak, very similar to what we have at home. It was a gorgeous day and we packed our picnic into the waterproof hatch. We headed out of the harbor, dodging the ferry, and were enjoying some nice calm water (for the ocean).

Our picnic spot at the Governors Bay Scenic Reserve was a little further than we thought, but we made it there and enjoyed our fresh cherries, cheese,and crackers. Since we only rented the kayak unti 4:30, we headed back before too long. Unfortunately, while we were picnicking, the wind had picked up quite a bit and we were now heading back into a strong headwind that was creating whitecaps. It was manageable at first, but then we hit some huge swells. Adam and I estimated them to bee 4 feet from top to bottom. Adam did a great job keeping us headed directly into the waves, but my heart was still pounding for quite a while. Plus, i had taken my Keens off in the bottom of the boat and i didn't want to tip and lose them. So after paddling as hard as we could for about an hour, we finally rounded the last bend into the harbor and calmer waves. At this point i basically couldn't lift my arms anymore. As a reward for all our hard work, we did see a king shag, a seal, and a pod of dolphins. Now that it's over, i'm happy we had our sea kayaking adventure. Needless to say, the hot showers we took when we got back to the vineyard felt amazing.

Nov 21-24: Canterbury Tails

So, after the hectic stay in Queenstown, we were ready for a change of pace. Geraldine would serve that purpose for us. Geraldine is a small rural town in the Canterbury region of the south island. It's an area that is mostly agricultural, it's known for honey, and paddock after paddock of grazing animals. It served as a mid-way point between Queenstown and Blenheim, so we don't need to drive as far in one stretch. We decided to stay on a venison farm while there. The farm had a cute little cottage in the yard. It was a single bedroom, kitchenette and living room. A decent place to stay, and much less uncomfortable than actually staying in a farm house. The farm is mainly venison, but they raise a few cows for beef and a handful of sheep, mostly for their own consumption. The rolling hills and distant mountains provided a perfect backdrop for relaxing. When we got there, we had dinner with our hosts, Dave and Nikki, and their son Daniel. It was venison, raised on their farm and was amazingly delicious.

Our first day, we spent the first part of the day in Geraldine, which was a completely charming little town. We stopped into a cafe for a scone and flat white. Delicious as always. Then we walked around through a few shops, our favorite of which was this little shop that sold fruit juices, jams and sauces. They were all made from local ingredients, in combinations like blackcurrant blueberry juice. Delicious! We bought a bottle of kiwifruit wine, and took that back to the farm. We then headed out for a little walk around the farm. We climbed up to one of the highest paddocks and walked down towards a wooded section of the farm. At the edge of the woods, we saw something moving in a bush. A tiny fawn came stumbling out. It was clearly only a few days old, still shaky on its feet. And then it looked straight at us and started walking towards us. We got out of there fast, before its mother found us.

The next morning, we headed out to the peel forest for a rafting trip on the Rangitata river. We were a little nervous, because this river is one of the only rivers in NZ that has grade 5 rapids in any level of water flow. Grade 5 is the highest grade that you can raft and still have the option of ending up upright. But it's not a guarantee that you'll keep the right side down. We started off on flat water, with our guide training us through the commands, and paddling. We then hit a few of the small grade 2 rapids, which gave us some practice for the bigger ones. Our guide, Cam was an incredible leader for our raft. Then things got more fun. We hit some grade 3 rapids, navigated them expertly. We stopped briefly before our first grade 5 rapid, and almost overshot it because of a strong tailwind. The rapid was called Roostertail. It was a short distance, but a big drop. We survived upright, and everybody stayed in the boat. Then we hit our second grade 5, called The Pinch, which was a narrow point in the river, making it very fast and bouncy. Again, we made it through. We stopped after that for some "surfing." We paddled into a wave in the rapids, where we were going upstream. The boat got stuck there, and the front of the boat started to submerge and the back lifted up. Our guide moved three people to the front, and the boat really sunk under the wave. I got thrown over the side of the raft, and my paddle went floating downstream. I was essentially leaning in the water outside the boat, and held on with my feet as I flipped my body back into the boat. After that, everything went smoothly, we finished the trip and headed back.


When we got back, Dave took us out for a farm tour. We saw an incredible cliff on his property, and then he took us bushwacking across a stream, and into a pasture full of his neighbor's dairy cattle. Once there, he decided to lay down in the pasture and wait for the cows to all come around and surround him. He was hoping to get the cows to lick his face. Oh, did I mention that Dave is a little crazy? Then we walked back into the farm where we saw a fawn running, so Dave jumped out of the ATV and grabbed it. He put it on Emily's lap and we petted a baby fawn. Kinda cool. Overall, the farm was very nice, a beautiful farm. The cottage was decent, but there were a lot of spiders in it, and Dave was maybe a little too crazy, but overall it was a good experience.

Routeburn Track

***A note before I talk about our trek - we had a bad internet connection earlier and weren't able to upload pictures. We've now gone back and added pictures to our earlier posts, so check them out. For this post, the pictures come before the paragraph that describes them (blogspot isn't great with text wrapping around pictures).***

We just got back from doing the Routeburn Track (pronounced "root-burn"). It's a legendary hike that Kiwis have been walking since the mid 1800's. It's a 38 km trek over the continental divide of the South Island. It's one of New Zealand's “Great Walks” and is known the world over. We decided to hike this as part of a guided hike with a company called Ultimate Hikes. They provide gear, guides, food and lodges along the walk. It's impossible to describe the hike adequately, but we'll just give a quick summary that will hopefully give you a small taste of what we experienced.

First Day: The Divide to Lake Mackenzie

We started early in Queenstown, and walked to the hike center to catch our 7:00 bus. After a couple of hours on the road, we stopped in Te Anau for tea and scones. We picked up 7 more trekkers who had just finished up the Milford Track, for a total of 21 in our group. We were the youngest in the group, most were in their 50's, and we were the only ones without hiking boots (which wasn't as big a deal as our mates thought it would be). We continued on another hour to the trail head for the Routeburn Track, at a place called The Divide. We hoped that we were prepared for what was to come. The first hour was a gradual climb of about 300 meters of elevation, and then dropped our packs and continued another 150 meters to Key Summit, which is above the tree line at about 919 meters. Fortunately, it was a gorgeous sunny day, and the view in every direction was spectacular. We came down from Key Summit, and continued another 10K of gradual climb to our lodge at Lake Mackenzie. The hike was mostly in temperate rainforest of silver beech, with dozens of varieties of ferns covering the ground, and mosses covering the trees, and hanging from the limbs. It had the effect of feeling like an enchanted forest. I almost expected to see the trees start talking. It was quite interesting to be hiking in a rainforest, and come across a modern lodge. After a much deserved shower, we had a delicious hot dinner prepared by the lodge hosts. We shared a room that night with an Australian couple, and woke up to another beautiful day.

Second Day: Lake Mackenzie to Routeburn Falls.

Day two began with Porridge (yum) and Vegemite (not yum) and we immediately began a steep 400 meter ascent to a spot called ocean peak corner, at about 1250 meters, where on a clear day, you can see the Tasman sea, many miles in the distance. On the way up, we saw a New Zealand Wood Pigeon, which is about twice the size of a Rock Pigeon, with a green head and white belly. Unfortunately, cloud cover obscured our view. From there we sidled along the Hollyford face, and past a spot where the previous day, a woman had fallen off the track, and was helicopter-lifted out. There were also several sections with avalanche warning signs, and evidence of a recent rock slide. Around lunchtime, we arrived at Harris Saddle, the continental divide, and our highest point on the hike. The elevation there is about 1300 meters. The ground was snow covered here. The trail just past the saddle was covered in deep snow, with a high avalanche risk, so we had to be ferried past that section in a helicopter, 6 at a time. The trip took about 30 seconds, but was thrilling nonetheless. Some of our Aussie friends, less familiar with snow, decided to make snow angels, but we passed on the opportunity, figuring we'd have plenty of that when we get home. From there, the track descended 200 meters to Routeburn falls, which is where our next lodge was. This point was right at the tree line. The lodge was brand new, only open for 2 weeks, and all the building supplies were helicoptered in. Another delicious meal, and a nice evening getting to know our trekmates. Dessert was pancakes, which were delivered to us by the guides flipping them through the air, where we had to catch them on a plate. This night, we shared a room with a Japanese couple, on their 25th Anniversary trip. They only spoke a little English.

Third Day: Routeburn Falls to the Routeburn Road End.

We woke to a gentle rain, had more porridge plus baked beans, and headed out for our last day. The day's hike was mostly downhill, pretty gradual and gentle. We crossed a number of suspension bridges, and saw our favorite waterfall for the trip, which is saying a lot, since we saw hundreds of others throughout the course of the trek (several of which we drank straight from). We got to the bottom, walked out, and hopped on a bus back to Queenstown. Overall, we had an amazing time, the views were indescribable, and we sustained only sore muscles, no major injuries, and nobody fell off the mountain.

New Zealand days 3 and 4

Day 3 – Most of this day was spent driving from Christchurch to Wanaka. Along the way we stopped at Tekapo to see a cool old church set against the backdrop of an amazing Caribbean-blue alpine lake and snow-capped mountains. We also drove through a lot of wide open valley that was mostly filled with sheep. It was fairly wasted-looking land that seemed as though it would have once been covered with trees, so that seemed somewhat of a shame. There were several more bright blue lakes along the way. Our hotel room had a gorgeous mountain- and lake-filled view.

Day 4 – Another gorgeous day. Perfect for driving out to a nearby mountain/ski hill and going paragliding (they called it flying). When we arrived at the base of the mountain, we were met by 4 tough-looking New Zealand guys (one of whom we had just watched fly down the mountain by himself doing flips). We piled into their van and raced up this mountain. I've come to realize that the van rides to things are just as exciting if not more than the actual activity. This gravel switchback road was no exception. We made it to the launch point and after some brief instruction, Adam took off with his pilot. Adam immediately soared up a few hundred feet. The wind conditions were really good. I then took off with my pilot. It took probably 10 minutes to spiral our way down. It was pretty smooth and the view was indescribable. Much less scary than skydiving. I would definitely do it again (although it wasn't cheap, so I think it will be a while). Altogether a very good adventure. Afterwards we drove to Queenstown which I already do not like. Too many people and everything is too expensive. Tomorrow morning early we leave for our Routeburn Track trek. We'll be gone 3 days and I'm sure we'll have lots to tell after that.

New Zealand Days 1 and 2

Trip Day 1: We're faster than luggage.

So it turns out that New Zealand is really far away. I think that academically I knew this, but it took 24 hours of travel and 3 connections for it to sink in. The bad thing about having 3 connections is that means you need to be on time for 4 separate flights. The flights I booked were all pretty well timed out with 2 hours in Minneapolis, 3 in LAX, and another 2 in Auckland. Well, NWA merged with Delta, moved our flights around, leaving us only 2 hours at LAX, and they moved NWA into a new terminal across the airport from Air New Zealand. Then our flight from MSP to LAX was delayed, making it an hour late, giving us approximately 20 minutes to get across the airport, get boarding passes and get through security by 30 minutes before the flight leaves. So we got off the plane and raced... Out of the terminal onto the parking ramp, down several flights of stairs, across a busy road, into the other terminal, then all the way to the end where the ANZ counter was. Then we had the world's slowest ticket counter guy. Finally, we got our boarding passes, rushed through security and got on the plane just in time. 13 hours later, we landed in Auckland, tired and in bad need of a shower. One more easy connection to make and we're in Christchurch. Just gotta get the luggage and walk through customs. Standing by the baggage claim carousel, we hear an announcement. “Would passenger Buckingham please come to the baggage services counter.” We get there and the very nice gentleman informs us that Mr. Hunt-and-peck at the LAX counter didn't get our baggage tags entered right, so the luggage never made the flight. Oh well, we made it, and the luggage would be delivered the next day.

Day 2: Yellow Eyes, White Flippers, and Coffee.

Well, day 2 arrived, and we were looking forward to our first full day in New Zealand. We were scheduled to go to Akaroa for a Penguin viewing tour. We decided to wait for our luggage to arrive before making the 1.5 hour drive to Akaroa, so we could wear some clean clothes. We left early afternoon and made a quick stop at Pak 'n Save (no, that's not a typo) for some snacks, breakfast food and a picnic lunch. The drive to Akaroa was beautiful, once I got used to driving on the left. The road was curvy, hugging the edges of some small hills, or what we would call mountains in Wisconsin, probably about 3000 feet. When we told the lady at the info centre that we were driving back to Christchurch after the penguin tour got done (after dark) she gave us a funny look. In truth, it wasn't too bad. Well, Akaroa was a cute little French inspired town, with a few shops and a view to die for. Our tour guide, Shireen, picked us up at 6, and we drove out to her farm on Flea Bay (aka Pohatu). They own thousands of acres, where they raise 2000 sheep, a few hundred head of cattle, and have created a sanctuary for the Canterbury White Flippered Penguin. It's a subspecies or color variant of the Little Blue penguin, which is the smallest penguin species. They have 1063 breeding pairs of penguins that call Flea Bay their home, and they nest on Shireen's farm in nesting boxes or in their own burrows. We had the opportunity to see several young chicks and a few of the adult mothers/fathers protecting their young in the nesting boxes. We also were hoping to see the others come ashore, but they decided to come ashore later than usual, and we had to leave due to darkness.

However, while waiting for the white flippered penguins to come ashore, we had the incredible opportunity to see a Yellow-eyed Penguin. They are the third largest species of penguin, behind the Emperor and King Penguins. They are also probably the most threatened, with only a few thousand known to exist. A few of these penguins live in Flea Bay as well. We saw him come ashore and start his slow climb up the bank where he would find a bush under which to spend the night. It was a treat to see such a rare penguin. We were struck by how much work Shireen and her husband put into preserving these penguins. They do this privately with little to no funding from the government or other groups, and it's a lot of work. What they do is not only a service to the penguins and the visitors who see them, but it's such a great service to the world to preserve a unique bird that is threatened due to the introduction of mammals to New Zealand by settlers.

Speaking of mammals, Emily made a friend on the farm. His name is Coffee. He is an incredibly soft brown sheep who was cut off from his mother after he was born, and she rejected him. So he has been raised by Shireen and Francis. He and Emily became pretty good buddies, I'm not kidding, she really did like him, and he followed us while we went on the penguin tour. Sheep are not a threat to the penguins, and their only interactions are curious sniffing which generally end with a sheep getting pecked on the nose and running away.

And we're off!

We're sitting here at the Madison airport, waiting for the first leg of our 4 leg journey to start. Just to prove what total dorks we are, we took a photo of ourselves while we're still happy and wide awake. Adam had to prop the camera on a suitcase on the heat register to get this shot.

3...2...1...Blastoff!

Tomorrow we leave for New Zealand! This trip is sure to be full of adventure. We fly out of Madison at 3pm and arrive in Christchurch sometime on Saturday (after crossing the date line). We're hoping to post updates and pictures of what we're doing every few days. In the meantime, here are some final pictures of our produce from this summer.

Kohlrabi, a golden tomato, and Sugar Ann snap peas. Our kohlrabi harvest was fantastic (there are still a bunch in the fridge).

Various carrot varieties (most of our carrots are still in the garden under a layer of leaf mulch).

My giant zinnias. I got the seeds from Erin's baby shower and planted them in the completely dry, sandy soil that is right against our porch. Somehow they decided they would grow anyway. I'm definitely planting zinnias again next year!

Our pies at the recent Fab 5 pie party. I made a pumpkin pie from a whole pumpkin (that's a pumpkin cutout on top) and Adam made a chocolate mousse pie. Good thing i talked him out of attempting the sugar penguins, because he won the "Most Creative" award anyway. Unfortunately, several of the pie party attendees don't like pumpkin pie because my pie lost. :( I thought it was good!

Madeline Island 2009

We had an amazing time on Madeline Island as usual. This is our fourth year in a row going up there to celebrate our anniversary. Activities included wine tasting at Mission Hill Coffee Shop, watching the kids' parade (pretty small this year), dinner at Lotta's, hiking the public trail down to the water, and trips to the state and town parks. We also eyed up some real estate. Since about a third of the island is for sale at any given time, it's really hard not to be tempted to own our own piece of this paradise.

A beautiful sunset as viewed from our condo balcony. The sailboats were a convenient addition to the picture.

Northshore Road. It was really the peak of fall.

Favorite Tomatoes

We have discovered that our Golden Girl and Brandywine tomatoes are our favorites. We bought both plants from Jung. The Golden Girl produced very early and produced a lot of tomatoes (until it got the blight which will reduce it's yield, but that's another story). The Brandywine produces fewer tomatoes, but they are huge and amazingly delicious. We refuse to cook these because when they're cooked you don't taste that delicious sweet flavor that you notice when they're eaten raw. Next year we're definitely planting more of each and fewer paste tomatoes since we can just buy a big bulk box of paste tomatoes for canning from the farmers market. We saw a 25# box for $20 this past Saturday. This picture isn't actually one of our tomatoes, but ours look quite similar.

Homemade bread is delicious

We've come to love homemade bread, to the point where we very rarely buy store-bought bread (except for the occasional baguette which we haven't yet learned to make). I have a Better Homes & Gardens Breadmaker cookbook which has served us pretty well. We use part whole wheat flour and part white bread flour usually. I make the dough on the dough cycle in my breadmaker, then i take it out, put it in a bread pan that's been greased on the bottom, let it rise again (i use the "warm" cycle on our toaster oven with the door open), then bake at 375 for about 35 minutes. Here's a picture of some sage wheat bread i made last week. Yum! The process isn't hard, you just have to know you'll be home at various points over the course of a few hours.

Tomatoes with the Blight

Our tomato plants have the Blight. It's an agressive fungus that lives in the soil and causes the plant to die. In our case, the tomatoes are starting to fall off the vines before they're ripe. Sad.

Why won't they leave us alone?

Madison has been overrun by japanese beetles. This is a fairly recent phenomenon and it's wreaking havoc with various plants in our yard. Things these bugs like to eat: grape leaves, peas, our new cute pear trees, eggplant leaves, and our shasta daisies. Adam sprays an organic bug spray we got from Jung every few days, but the bugs keep coming back. It's very sad. Not quite as sad as the emerald ash borer's appearance in Wisconsin (it's not yet in Dane county), but still sad.