Look at the kittens face, silently begging the chook not to take a bite.
I have been packing. I hauled my silver suitcase out to the barn and weighed it on the feed scales. And I am just under the allowed 50 pounds. So barring any last minute additions (JOKE) I should be ok. Being overweight in the luggage department is a very expensive exercise nowadays. Air New Zealand is very strict and allow us 50 pounds and no bloody more. 
The suitcase hanging from the barn roof looks like a strange sacrifice to the cow gods. 
John purchased a trailer load of scaffolding pipe a while ago from the Surrogate Milkers brother, at cost. An incredible score. So now the fencing work is roaring ahead. This is the first of the gates he has made. He is using all the left over pots of old car paint on them, after the red, there is blue or white. I said no to the pink and yellow!
Oh dear. 
Snap. Bad peahens on the porch again! All the doors were open yesterday, a beautiful day.
Yesterday was quite divine and a perfect day for a meeting between the Kiwi Builder, The Matriarch, The Contractor and the excavator/concrete man. They all argued to and fro determined not to give an inch on their departments high standards. I asked them sweetly to move everything back four feet when it looked like the roofline was going to take out the tree in our sunrise view. So they did. And the little weeping cherry will be carefully dug out by the exavator man, who cannot bear to lose even a young tree. He wandered out into the yard with his orange spray can and decided where he would plant it. So it will have a chance at survival at least. If not I will plant two more in the spring. That is the rule, lose one – plant two.
The Kiwi Builder has given me his NZ grocery order; Chocolate Slabs, Pineapple Lumps and Crunchy Bars. I hope you are going to share, said his boss The Contractor. The Kiwi builder and I looked at each other and laughed. Yeah Right!
They will only lay the foundation concrete next week. In fact basically they will make a really big mess then all sod off and wait for the next thaw to do some more. They have assured me that we will not miss out on much, except a big concreted hole resulting in the total destruction of my front gardens which I would rather not see anyway! All the good plants are already shifted.
Two more sleeps, then California, then on Thursday off to New Zealand, surely it is time to panic.
The Daily View and Daily Temperatures are suspended until Boxing Day because this Farm Blog will soon seamlessly morph into a daily wandering Travel Blog with Food.
You all have a lovely day.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
81 responses to “Please Mrs – Don’t Eat me!”
You must be SO excited…Are you sleeping at all?
Have a wonderful day, C!
Like log.. nothing gets in the way of me and my sleep, except possibly an early flight to paris, i never slept that night! c
Seems like you’ve got everything in hand. I shall look forward to watching this blog morph into a travel blog– & finding out, when you return, how the farm survived without you. Safe travels.
Those scales look way more accurate than trying to balance your big bag on the bathroom scales and then lying on the floor trying to see how much they think it is – a procedure I did once to such ill effect I really had no idea how much my combined baggage weighed – and guess what, $600 excess baggage charge! Time for the litany: tickets, passport, spare copies in case of loss/theft, telephone numbers/address book, phone, kindle, toothbrush … with that, you’re right to go! Have a great time.
Talk about a terrifying story.. 600 dollars!, presumably every time you checked in and hopefully not all at one time! Now I feel the fear! c
You got it! No more shopping in California 🙂
This is my favorite way to start the day, right here on your farmy. Can’t wait until we visit the other side of the world. Is it time yet?
Seeing the sights of NZ is going to be such a joy for us
Packing; THE WORST AND MOST TRYING part of trip preparation. With that out of the way there’s nothing more to do but get excited, leave your worries behind, and leave the farmy for a wee time.
Exciting times indeed! I hope you have a blast!
Enjoy yourself and have fun… going home is always great… and NZ is one very special place, a friend of mine tells me, he goes to see his kids who live there about 3 times a year…
Love the cats expression. You’d think the chook would be the concerned one but, there you go. Wishing you a most fabulous and awesome trip.
Oh No, these barn chooks are mean, I have to feed the barn cats where the chooks cannot steal their food! c
Ready to morph……..!!!!!!!!!
Like a transformer.. we will become an plane.. c
I am so glad I did most of my traveling before the baggage weight costs rose so high. I surely would have been hit with over-weight charges. As it was, I often packed older clothes for “touring days” and left them behind, along the way. freeing up space for souvenirs.
Your John and his scaffolding pipe reminds me of my Grandpa. When a playground was replaced by a parking lot, Grandpa was given all of the piping used to build the baseball diamond’s backstop. He used it for various projects around the house, including his grape arbors. Waste not, want not.
Have a great day, Celi!
interesting that your grandpa made grape arbors, I recently begged john to make me some out of the pipe but he is bent (s’cuse the pun) on turning the pipe into gates, save heaps of money though! morning john.. c
Well done on being underweight on your luggage! I love that you double up on planting trees when you have to lose one. Makes me think of one of my favourite quotes / Chinese proverbs – “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
Our trip is soooooo close!
🙂 Mandy xo
That is an excellent quote, i would love it if someone had planted a weeping cherry here twenty years ago! c
Chickens are nothing to laugh at! Can be quite aggressive.
You have to love someone that will take pains not to simply kill a tree.
Maybe nap on the plane – must be as bad as a kid trying to sleep on Christmas Eve there?
I love your description of construction work, Celi: “basically, they will make a really big mess then all sod off…” I am pleased that you managed to keep your outgoing luggage under the limit. I wouldn’t talk too much about NZ sweets if I were you, or we’ll all be clamoring to taste them.
Oh true, maybe I can order a plane with windows that open and put them on wee parachutes and drop them off on my way home! morning sharyn.. c
Maybe you can become an American representative for the company and they will ship you cases of sweets to distribute to prospective customers (in your spare time)!
We’ll be traveling light–through your blog!
So you will, you are all light as air! no weight for me to carry at all.. c
That’ll be the first time any one has called me light—heehee. Wheeee
Laughter!! have a lovely day alice, honey!