Waitekere Ranges

It took about two hours with one transfer in Newmarket and Jane was at the station to pick us up. I had called her at the house and told her what time we were arriving because at this time I didn’t have a cell phone.

Jane brought us to our accommodation first, a giant tipi with two mattresses under mosquito nets and colorful sarongs surrounding the walls. Then she gave us a tour of their house and land, 45 acres! No, we did not walk around the entire thing. 500 lime trees are going to be planted so they have cleared a patch of land and planted buckwheat to mix up the soil. There is a garden with green beans, tomatoes, zucchinis, mint, basil, rosemary, lettuce, cabbage, flowers, comfrey, shiso, and more.

Apart from their house they have the tipi, a cottage and two sleeper vans, which are like a boat inside, with wood paneled ceilings. From what Courtney and Brent say, it also sways like a boat at night. Not too violently of course. Oh and they are the other WWOOFers from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Where my parents put a down payment on a house when I was a fetus, but realized that your nose hairs froze in the winter… thanks for choosing California mom and dad!)

You know when someone kind of warns you about someone they like, but know he/she can be a bit much? I can’t say I wasn’t warned about Peter. They told me he would tell me all about bees so one day I go over to where he is working and two hours later know A LOT more about bees. In no particular order here are a few facts:

Some bees stay with the hive forever, brooding=breeding, there are harvesters, salvagers, brooders, etc., honey takes about a year to make, bees only sting to protect their hive, he bought 10 queen bees ($600), which came in a small plastic box with a sugar mixture on one side, he takes half of the hive which are rectangular frames where the bees have created the comb, part for brooding and part for honey and puts them into another box, then he sticks the small plastic container in the honey and the worker bees will eat the sugar from the inside and out until their queen is free. Apparently they were making a specific buzzing sound signaling chaos from not having a queen bee… since they had no queen they had no purpose. Peter said if humans acted like honeybees there would be no crime b/c if a bee does something wrong they are kicked out and forced to fend for themselves, which is nearly impossible. The queen takes 3 days to get pregnant, 11 days to hatch “like clockwork,” if a queen bee is introduced and there is already a queen, the worker bees will pin the new one down and the queen will sting it until death, wax is made from bee sweat, there are 50,000 bees in one hive, one hive makes about 75kilos of honey per year, each queen has her own scent (lavender, roses, shit), Queen lives 5-7 years, workers live 3 weeks because they work so hard, some hives produce propolis, an antibiotic, I ate some and it tasted like wax, but felt like gum, it was stuck on my teeth while he was talking to me apparently, what they used to make gum out of, he uses a French style roof that is slanted to keep heat in during winter and cool during summer… that is all I can remember off the top of my head.

I went on the Pipeline Hike on the Hillary Trail  (after Edmond Hillary who was the first man to climb Everest). It is right down the road from their house and goes back into the national preserve. Currently, the government decided the land was perfect to build more pipelines for water to send to Auckland so there are these terribly disruptive tractors and such. They get $100 a day, but would rather have their peace and quiet since it has been going on for about a year. While the workers were suppose to be fixing the road, they decided to take the opportunity to travel around the world, Tibet, India, South America, North America, Laos, among others, but when they returned home the workers had only started to fix the road. Anyways the hike was really pretty and humid. The north part of the north island is sub-tropical so there were the biggest ferns I had ever seen! I went through a dark tunnel and over a few bridges. The hike goes on for ages so I turned around after about an hour and headed back.

I did do work, but that’s just boring to write about. I pulled weeds, the end.  At one point Peter needed someone to help oil a bee roof so I went with him back to his house which is a one bedroom, kitchen, and workshop, two cats who are the loves of his life, a bookshelf which he apparently reads all of the books on it. I know why they call him encyclopeter now! He makes all of the beehives and is planning on having one hundred by next year. He also makes the most beautiful furniture I have ever seen. He says he can do anything with his cat and bites on its paw. He is manic depressant so he is either working really hard or super upbeat or really depressed.  It is genetic and certain stimuli can set it off. He works seven days a week because he loves woodwork. The beehives are made out of moving boxes. I never would have guessed, they are so beautiful. His hair is in a bun, but he says it goes down to his lower back and has jets of silver. “It looks pretty amazing” he says. I love that he loves his aging hair. Most people are ashamed when they get older, but he embraces it. His face looks so young though. I would say maybe forty. I think he is probably fifty. He honks at everyone as we go through town and speeds like a crazy person. We stop at his friends’ house, Sophie. She hugs me and kisses me on the cheek… so caring. He gets a plum from his car and cuts it open for us to try. It is the best plum I have ever eaten in my life and is about the size of my fist. There are 25 trees at his other friend’s house all covered in these plums. I would go help pick them in my free time! 

This all sounds great right? Ok it was a pretty cool experience, but the entire time I was being hounded with questions that made me feel like an idiot.

Do you know who Buckminster Fuller is? He created the geodynamic dome, one of Belgium’s most notorious buildings.

Did you know the border to Mexico is going to open up and your currency is going to change to Americano… to get out of trillions of dollars of debt to China?

What is this plant? Lemonveridum, used in tea, very soothing.

Why do I have hives in many different places? So the harvesters don’t have to compete.

What are those kinds of birds? Flitwits… and why are they flying so low? Because it’s about to rain so the bugs are in the grass so the birds must fly lower to eat them.

And on and on and on…

One question he asked was: What is your passion? I didn’t really answer fully because my brain was on automatic, I don’t know what you’re talking about mode so I didn’t have a chance to answer, but I’ve thought about it since. I love learning new things, cooking, talking to people, and playing volleyball. Most of all I love to travel because it stimulates my mind. “The fool who is traveled is better off than the wise man who has stayed at home.” ~Rashi

Alex too had asked a similar question; what is your mission? It’s under construction, but for a start I guess it’s to never stop learning and to live the way you dream.

When I got out of the car I didn’t want anyone to talk to me for a while. I went to the kitchen and started making Paella for dinner.  It wasn’t as good as Alex’s, but everyone had second helpings. At dinner I learned the meanings of Saskatoon (berry) and Saskatchewan (slow flowing river). If you ever go to Saskatoon they apparently have a place with every sort of food made out of the Saskatoon berries, such as syrup complemented by a waffle station. Maybe I’ll go there just for the waffles!

Our ritual after dinner was to name the highlight of our day. Mine was getting the honey after listening to Peter talk about bees for two hours straight. Brent’s highlight was his nap. We all laughed about that.

We played skip bo and it felt like we had all known each other for years. It was so fun to play cards on a Friday nightJ Jane was holding one of their little dogs. She told us that her mother calls it a “touch slut.”

Cleaned cobwebs from cottage, checked out house vans, studio, rebirthing, tea, celestial prophecy, pache mama, the story of stuff