Traveling halfway across the world and
planning to spend four days with people you have never met before
is certainly an act of faith! I met Anne Grassham via the Internet.
She answered a query of mine asking for wool samples for our
spinning guild. Turned out I like them so much I bought a couple
fleeces. Then I was so pleased I decided to stock her wool in
the shop when we opened. From vendor/customer to friends. Now
we regularly have "tea" via e-mail and keep up on our
lives. Anne is a single mom to Mary (left) and Abby (center).
Together they run Fleecewood farm and produce very lovely wool
and woolcrafts. Here the girls are strapped in and ready to go
tramping.
The
hiking (tramping) system in New Zealand is very well developed.
There are mountain huts for staying in and many, many backpacker
hotels (low rates, no bedding, facilities for cooking your own
food). We didn't have the luxury of entering the backpack world,
but we did take a short hike by the lake. Here Anne poses with
all three girls.
When we arrived
in early February, schools had just resumed after summer break.
Anne made arrangements with Mary's teacher for Mariah to attend
school for a day. Not only did that give her a great experience,
it allowed the mom's to go shopping and have tea. Here the school
bus drops off the kids about half a kilometer from home. Although
the islands are small, they are also not densely populated, often
making schools far from home. Mary and Abby have about 30 to
40 minutes each way to get to school (a fairly short commute,
actually). Few homes in New Zealand have central heating or air conditioning. Instead they have doors! To keep heat from portable heaters contained, rooms are isolated. I know Anne has commented more than once that she had to quit typing because her fingers were too cold to continue (her computer is upstairs, away from the heat). Another thing Mariah and I noticed is that just about every electrical outlet (they are 220V) had an on/off switch. Seems to make sense!
Fleecewood Farm is located in the foothills and is about 80 acres. Mostly all grass when they moved to the property 12 years ago, now there are stands of young trees and flax. The Fleecewood flock is about 120 or so strong and is comprised of English Leicesters and New Zealand Half Breeds which she has bred to produce the Fleecewood Leicester (my favorite for spinning). The top photo shows the farm house and the rest the fields (paddocks) and views from the fields.
