My Sister has a Farmy

Yesterday I said my last gulping goodbye when Senior Son dropped me off at the airport, with my lightened luggage, to collect my little zip zip rental car. 

Wellington is very easy to drive out of especially from the airport and even in the misty rain and low cloud.  My little zip zip car and I paused in Palmerston North for lunch with an old friend before we raced through the hills.. 

up the island and across the Takapau Plains,

then  dropped into my home territory; Hawkes Bay.  The Bay.  There is a singular very specific surge of old joy when you see the land of your birth. 

Then to find my own sister Gabrielle’s gorgeous farm nestled into the hills of home was just bliss to my battered traveller’s good bye heart.  Here are Maggie May and Angus. 

Her place is high in the hills of Hawke’s Bay.  We will see the actual Bay later today. 

She has  stunning views that need no words. 

She is raising her own herd of Devons and Fresians.  Dairy cow breeds.  From the left is Texas, Holly, Betty Boop, Lady and Brie. As well as two very obedient dogs, she has very obedient calves.  Everyone lined up quite nicely for a shot. 

The wee heifer on the right, Mabel, is in training to be the milk cow. A naughty Daisy in the making. 

Along with you, Gabrielle reads The Farmy weblog every day, which made our walk really interesting. To everything she would laugh and say I know, I read about that. I know, she would say. So we spent a lot of time catching up on her life. 

We have not seen each other for many years due to my travel and I said to her over home grown corned beef,  salad from the garden and crisp roast potatoes out on her verandah  overlooking the valley. I said to her but what if I had turned into a horrible person after all these years. She laughed again, looking so like my Mother my breath caught.  

But I do know you, she said. I read your words every morning.  Every morning, first thing.

One thing she did say on our walk around her property was that she was very impressed with the amazing collection of people who make up the Fellowship of the Kitchens Garden Farmy commenters. Your readers are like your friends, she said. Have you met them, she wondered. No, I said. And we both paused to look out over our beloved hills. Amazing isn’t it.

This morning as I write in the sleeping house of my sister, the rising sun is picking out the gentle colours of her roses, pointing out the dryness in the hills, (and it is only December), and warming the air  – preparing us for a magnificent  Hawkes Bay day.

Good morning. Today you and I are going to visit Ocean beach, then drift netting a little group of friends we are going to drive out to a beach house in Mahia for the night. This is up the East Coast of the North Island, New Zealand and is stunning.  We will make the most of this amazing day.

Have a lovely day.

celi