The French Connection

No more llamas, but we have found another all you can eat paradise! Now I just have to break out the oatmeal raisin recipe and we’ll really be having a good time.

We’ve landed ourselves in Akaroa, the French Connection. Apparently, this area was first settled by the French, sometime around 1840. They promptly tore down all the natural vegetation, introduced some invasive species in the form of mammals and went to town, or at least built a town. We’re staying in Duvauchelle, on the Duvauchelle Bay, which is part of Akaroa Harbor. Again, we have found another lovely slice of paradise as we are flanked by water and mountains.

Silly updates. The computer shut down, and now I’m stuck trying to rewrite a paragraph that I just wrote. And I saved it too! Grrrr… silly Vista. That’s the problem; it’s a pc, not a mac. So I guess I didn’t actually save it. Flashback to that college paper that got lost because the control key on a pc and the apple key on a mac are not in the same place!

New Zealand is a wonderful case study demonstrating the damage that humans can inflict on the natural world. Nearly all of the native vegetation has been cleared, mammals and birds have been introduced, and native birds have met a nasty fate. Let’s not forget the cat of the light house keeper that drove the Stephans Island Wren to extinction. But all is not lost! There is a movement in New Zealand to try to undo the damage done by European settlers. Not to fix the environment, because is that possible? But to repair the damage done so the environment can go on being what it is; a dynamic, ever changing force that controls our well-being.

This week, we’re staying with people of the help the environment help itself mindset. Along with replanting native vegetation and completing pollen surveys, they have also hosted researchers doing bird surveys, among other things. Their bookshelves contain a library of information on New Zealand conservation efforts with which they are involved. As well as bird and plant books to keep me quite content. Yesterday, I was treated to a hands -on lesson regarding fucia reproductive strategy. By the way, an amazing plant, they are either hermaphrodites, with both stigma and anthers, or females, with stigma and vestigial anthers. No males for this species. I have to do my research to determine the reproductive benefits gained by this gender distribution. There are many possible explanations… but what is the chance that it just happens to be that way? But I think it’s safe to say, everything in nature has a purpose, even pretty flowers.

And pretty flowers are what keep Kate and I occupied all day, or at least all of our working days. In order to feed their conservation passions our hosts, two former vets, also have a peonies operation. They are Peonies suppliers and early summer is prime picking season. In the morning, we go out to collect pretty pink peonies from the rows of plants. But we try to get them before they're pretty! We want to get the plant just before it blooms, so that it can be kept cold and shipped so that it’s in full blossom for the bouquet of flowers that it will join.

Kate and I have the lovely job of holding gigantic bundles of peonies
and then trying to load them onto the trailer to be brought to the house for processing. After 2-3 hours in the fields, we return home for lunch. Then Phase 2 begins. Kate and I make boxes to place the peonies in for shipment. Then we join Waka and John in “The Chiller!” (I feel like this is the name of a D scary movie).

The Chiller is probably what you imagine, a giant refrigerator kept slightly above freezing at 2 C! The Chiller provides the backdrop for the real work. Waka and John sort the flowers by grade (size of the flower) and cut the stems to 60 cm. Then Kate and I have the joy of bundling. We take 5 flowers, make sure all of their stems line up so they can all get a drink of water, then wrap a rubber band around the bottom of the stem and another just below the leaves. The painful snap of a rubber band against your skin confirms that your fingers are still alive with blood coursing through the veins. A good test to make sure you’re not getting frostbite. I prefer to avoid the snaps and find out too late that I have frostbite. So far, we both still have all of our fingers and toes.

After we bundle them, we stick them in crates, separated by grade (like eggs, they’re either AAA, AA, or A). This job is the one that brings your fingers closest to frostbite. The crates are filled with water and packing flowers into a crate doesn’t provide much opportunity for wiggling one fingers. When you go finish packing a crate and return to rubber banding, you tend to get a few more healthy reminders that your fingers, thankfully?, still have blood flowing through them. Your fingers have lost some dexterity, so you’re more likely to snap your fingers, and they’re colder, so it hurts a lot more. While the chiller is a nice escape from the midday heat, when all the bundles are done and you have to wait for more flowers, the midday heat provides a nice escape from the nearly freezing chiller. So you’re happy whether you’re going in or coming out of the chiller!
And that pretty much describes our daily routine!

So what about the not daily routine? Yesterday, Kate and I had a nice surprise. The woofers who like to call themselves “The French Connection” came to visit us in Akaroa, “The French Connection.” Along with a pleasant catch up in the sun, we went to explore Akaroa, famous for Hector Dolphins. These dolphins are small compared to the more common bottle-nosed dolphin, and are endemic to the region. Unfortunately, we got to town too late to take a cruise to see the marine life for which Banks Peninsula is famous. But we did get to see a model Hector dolphin and see the pretty harbor. So it wasn’t a wasted journey!

And sorry, Kate’s asleep, so I can’t get the pictures to document our livelihood. (They really are entertaining!)