A Sweet Christmas

For Christmas (and two weeks around the holidays), I was back with bees, and another lovely family, down at the very southern coast of the South Island, outside of a small town called Tuatapere. It was perfect to be with a fun and friendly family over the holidays—Peter, Uli (originally from Germany), their three boys, and Mirjam (another German woman who helps with the bees and has been adopted into the family).

Miri with a comb of bees

The stay with them was one of my best so far—helping with and learning about beekeeping and honey extraction; joining in on family time and hanging out with the boys; and exploring the nearby beach, river, and farmland in my free time.

The estuary and beach behind the family's house

Now that Summer's in full swing, the family has started extracting honey and can use extra help. To get the honey off the hives, first the honey boxes are taken from the different hive sites (called apiaries) and brought back to the "honey house." Then, the combs are scraped to take off the cappings that the bees make and the combs are put through a spinning machine that takes the honey off. There are other tasks involved, but that's the basic idea. It can be a hot, sticky job on sunny days, but quite interesting to learn and enjoyable when in good company.

Pete and Sam extracting honey

Sam watching the level of honey

The family lives right on a rocky, windy beach, so while not good for swimming, in my free time it was fun to explore the coastline, go trout fishing with the boys, join in on floundering (flounder fishing) with the family, or run along the nearby river. It was also fun to join in on holiday festivities with the family, with the boys putting on their own funny little skit one night for family and friends, and another day, competing in a New Years highland dance competition. The youngest, Oli, who is seven, won several of the dances at the competition and won the overall competition with the most points for the day.

Christmas skit by the boys

Fishing with Tassi and Oli at the river mouth

Oli

Tassi

Oli competing in a jig

Oli taking home first at the highland dance competition

The family was extremely generous and made me feel like part of the family. They even gave me a Christmas gift (a beautiful greenstone necklace that they had carved when they did that for a living in the past) and lent me their car one day to take a day off and explore a beautiful area an hour or two away. Their trust is all the more telling given I had never driven on the left side of the road before staying with them! All in all, my Christmas was a sweet one in more ways than one.

View while taking a hike on a day off