Author: Hope Herrington
The last few days we have been ono a farm called Heart Family Farm. I have lived in the middle of the city my entire life s this is a new experience for me. On the first day, we arrived, each of us signed up for a morning shift on the farm for chores. Today was my day. I was not really sure what to expect. Besides for me, Siena, Aislinn, and Suzannah, were also on the morning shift. The only thing I knew was that we were going to get picked up by Greg, one of the farm owners, at 8am. We got picked up in an ATV that had no doors or windows. It was really cold out and this car did not provide a lot of warmth. Pippy the dog also came to pick us up. Pippy is this little wirey-haired dog that likes to chase after small animals. He kind of looks like my dog Felix so I really like him.
Our first stop for the day was the pigs. There were two giant pigs. One of the pigs had a bunch of piglets and they were super tiny and adorable. The other pig is about to have piglets so we are all very excited. The next stop was the chickens. The chickens could sense our arrival because when we came close, they came in a giant wave. I have never seen so many chickens run toward me at one moment. With the chickens, we got to feed the chickens our of our hand and collect their eggs. One of the eggs was tiny so pippy got to eat it. It seemed gross, but Pippy seemed to enjoy it.
The next stop we went to the cows. As we drove, Pippy ran alongside the car. This was my favorite part because we got to heard them. As we got closer to the cows, they all turned in our direction. There were a lot of cows. Greg said to heard the cows, we had to run with our hands above our head and yell. Susanna and I got out of the car and gave it a try. Cows are a lot faster than I expected. They are also not the smartest animal alive. As soon as I started heading in their direction, they ran the wrong way. When cows run, it feels like the entire earth is shaking. I quickly realized I was not going to out run them so we got back into the car and tried again. This time Sienna got out of the car and I was in charge of holding the eggs. This is a stressful job because the eggs do not stay in the carton easily. Greg drives really fast and the ground is incredibly uneven. Since this car has no windows or doors, I needed to hang on to the side of the car and the eggs for dear life. Thankfully, both the eggs and I lived through this experience and the cows made it to the right spot. While it was very tiring, the morning on the farm turned out to be a lot more fun than expected. After our farm chores were done for the morning, we headed back to the lodge to collect everyone else.
With the rest of the group, we picked up pine cones and removed Scottish thistles.
After, we went for a walk. I have learned on this trip that whenever we are told that we are going for a walk, that usually means a long hike. This one was no different. Like all of the other hikes in the past, it was mostly uphill, but the view at the top was completely worth it. On the hike, Greg talked a lot about what they were doing to get rid of the invasive species. New Zealand is having a big problem now because a lot of their native species are going extinct. This is because New Zealand does not have any native mammals. Once these animals were brought over, they started attacking the native animals and the native animals had no way of fighting back.
After, we came back and had lunch. For the rest of the day, we had a break. During our break, Shannon, Harrison, and I played giant janga. Unfortunately, I lost; however, this game lasted a lot longer than I expected.