On to Kiwitea

It was goodbye to Marton on Sunday morning and we travelled on to Kiwitea, a lifestyle block full of horses for this horse mad family. Daughter Nicky is the only one who doesn’t dote on horses, especially when they reach over the fence and chew on her carefully nurtured young trees.   We backed the caravan alongside the garage, connected on to power and their wi-fi internet connection, and went inside for a tasty lunch.

On the farm at Kiwitea

There is always plenty going on here.  Grand-daughter Megan had her horse Sonic tethered to the fence and she busily got on with the job of trimming his feet.  The horse stood patiently as she lifted up one leg after another and started filing down the hoof.  The horse wasn’t bothered at all.

Megan working on Sonic’s feet

Farm dog Patch jumped up on the back of Robert’s quad bike and off they went to bring some of the ewes and their lambs in from the paddock, and past our caravan.  I had to step smartly back out of the way, I was told, as the sheep won’t come if they see me standing in the way.

  Robert with Patch ready to help bring in the sheep

Here they come

The sheep were going to market the next day and needed “crutching”, tidying up their nether regions.  Patch helped put them in a pen and Robert got to work with his electric shearing clippers.  Two horses in adjacent pens were watching all this activity with interest.

Crutching before being sent to market

The horses were watching what was going on in the next pen

One of the neighbour’s called around with a dozen free range eggs for Robert’s in-laws  to take home – how generous was that!  There was quite an assortment, tiny pullet eggs together with great big ones from their other hens.  

 

Farm fresh eggs

Farm people rise early and Robert was up and away taking the freshly crutched sheep off at the market while we were still soundly sleeping in the caravan.  It was just about our breakfast time by the time he returned, and I whipped up a cheesy omelette each for all of us.  That was Robert’s second breakfast of the day, but he is a very hard worker and probably needs the extra energy..  No sooner had he eaten his  omelette than he drove off up the road to do some more contracting work.  We always enjoy our time on the farm, but had to pack up and head back to suburbia.  Never mind, we will be back at the farm for a week over Christmas.  .