This is our original gander, with one of the geese and her three (so far) goslings.

Barry and Larry (the ganders we inherited from some neighbors) have stolen two of the five geese, and one of those geese has another two goslings. The two geese and the two ganders in that group travel in a protective huddle around their two little goslings.

That leaves two more geese still on nests.

Hob is four. His previous owner was hoping he’d be stud material, but he grew up too short.

Opa is sixteen, and was a working stud until four years ago. He came along because he’s best friends with Hob.

Yay ! We have llamas !

The Birthday Girl!

Isn’t this a great photo of Stephen?

Canon at Ft. Delaware:

Some scenery from the trip south:

Kudzu (plus Stephen and my mother. The kudzu ate Joel already.):

One of the skillion photos I took at the Museum of Appalachia:

He has had a heart condition much of his life, and finally went on medications about 8 or 9 years ago (at age 7 or so). More recently his kidneys started to go, so we raised to dosage of his Fortekor, which also helps kidney function. He gets a check up at the vet every 6 months now. On the latest check we discovered a bit of arthritis in the hindquarters, and he is getting hyperthyroid problems. (swollen thyroid, weight loss, plus the blood work came back with elevated thyroid hormones)
Let the parade of drugs commence!

He still gets the Fortekor once a day (which has helped his kidneys, which are now back in the normal range).

Added to that we have the “cat-pep” pills, which are a combination of green-lipped mussel extract, Thiamine, and Taurine. Being made of seafood, there is not problem to get Slow to eat those (twice a day). Those should help with the arthritis.

And then there is the Neomercazole for the thyroid. These pills are “fun”, as you must handle them with gloves! Yikes. Thankfully mixing the pill in a bit of jelly-meat works well, and we have Slow gobbling them down (twice a day).

Yes, Slow now gets 5 pills a day! The Neomercazole is only for a month, then he will get his thyroid tested again, so we can work out if that is the right dosage.

We are going to need to get better presents for our cat sitters in the future!

Open the tap- nothing comes out. Walk up to the 22,000 L tank behind the house- completely empty! Walk further up the hill to the 750L header tank which feeds the troughs and house tank- mostly empty, with no flow coming in from the spring. Ack! (This also meant no hot shower after the long international flight!)
So I spent Friday trudging back and forth across the property, somewhat incoherent as I was not yet really recovered. I found a leaking seal in the pipe (probably steppped on by a horse), and after much futzing around, got it fixed. Some water started to flow through.

Saturday we had water flowing into the main tank, but the tank was not filling. There was some water for the house, but not much. We thought the water loss was from a running toilet, but after switching off all the toilets the tank was still not filling.

Sunday morning I discovered the cause of the water loss- the solar water panel on the roof had burst, and our gravity-fed system had flushed 22 tons of water out the panel and down the drains. We cut the panel out of the system, and the tank started to slowly fill. We had water! Yay!

But no hot water. Seems when the system went dry, it killed the hot water cylinder.

So Monday I called and got a new cylinder arranged for installation Tuesday (Thankfully we were due to have it replaced anyway, and a new one had been built and was ready to go). I also went up and worked on the spring to try and improve flow. Thursday I hammered a pip into the bank to see if I could get direct water flow (as opposed to our “catch basin” that was made decades ago from plasic sheeting and piled rocks). After an hour of vigorous hammering with a sledge hammer- no water came out. Drat! So I spent time and worked on repairing the catch system of the spring, and managed to get much better water flow into the system.

And then the next week the water cylinder died. At least that turned out to be a failed element. This apparently happens occasionally with new cylinders- if there is a pinhole in the element a drop of water gets in. When the 3kW element turns on the water flashes to steam and bursts the element open, destroying it. At least it was only day or two before that was fixed. We were very glad that our friend Kerry lent us her shower during these hot-waterless times, so that we could occasionaly de-stink.
So, once again we have water, and hot water. This is a good thing. Now we just need to get the panel replaced. It is covered under warrantly (yay!), I just need to keep poking the manufacturer.

Two days was not enough time to really explore the back roads of West Virginia. We saw some lovely covered bridges. We accidentally stumbled across the first battlefield of the Civil War (300 confederates vs 2000 union troops, fighting for a ridgetop farm).

We were struck by the lack of sheep. We saw a few small mobs, but all that lovely landscape NOT covered in sheep is a bit weird after living in NZ. But considering how many wandering dogs there are in the area, I can see why people would want to stick with cattle.

The final push down to Knoxville was a bit of a death march. Since we had not covered ground as quickly as planned in WV, the last bit of driving was quite long, and we did not arrive until late. Carol and Joel have a lovely new house. The AC was appreciated, as we had driven out of the unseasonable cool weather in Delaware, and into a southern heat-and-humidity filled “normal” summer. Our poor little antipodean bodies were not ready!

Some highlights of this part of the trip included a trip to the Museum of Appalacia- which is all of 5 minutes from their house. The poverty of the region led to a great deal of ingenuity. The hand-carved rifling-jig in the gun workshop was especially nifty. (as was the specialized “gun anvil”)

We also visited an alpaca farm. While Tam and I had a perfectly reasonable conversation with the retired husband, Carol and Joel were talked at by the seriously crazy wife. You see, she had helped her brother co-author a series of books (The Arc of Millions of Years). Apparently they had “cracked the Mayan callender”, and this led to a revelation about the truth of 2012, the book of revelations, how all the animals fit on the arc, magnetic tetrahedrons, the dead sea scrolls, and a bunch of other stuff. AND she and her borther are apparently the last living people who saw the Roswell crash. Boy-howdy, you meet some interesting people in this world.

One other weird thing we noticed- lots of people in that exurb of Knoxville had what we would call “lifestyle blocks”- a nice house sitting on 3-5 acres of land. In NZ this would be fenced off, and there would be stock grazing it. In the US, there was not a fence to be seen, and the entire vast expanse of lawn was mown. Yee Gods, what a waste of time and money mowing that much grass mechanically. It does explain why the market for pet-alpaca is worse in American than it is in NZ- people with 5-acre blocks are the perfect sales target for selling alpacas. But when they don’t have fences (and don’t even consider having stock!), it makes it more difficult.

Packing for the trip was a bit stressful. Thankfully all the stuff made it through fine. We wre bringing back my kilograms of books and had carefully backed the bags to limit the danger of (a) theft by the TSA, or (b) having the luggage “searched” by the TSA in such a way that ends up damaging most or all of the contents.

The flight across the pacific was going well, and then I fell ill. After the fact I realized this was one of my classic “24 hour bugs” which lays me out flat, and then I am fine the next day. Not surprising I picked up a bug, what with all the travel, eating-out, lots of strangers, etc. Having this bug hit half way across the pacific was not fun. Headache, nausea. Bleach. By the time we reached Auckland I was a serious zombie. I have vague memories of Tam collecting the luggage and keeping things organized. I was lying on the floor, drifitng in and out, most of the time when we were not actively moving from point to point. I must say all the Customs/Biosecurity/Border agents were brilliant. When they saw Tam escorting one of the restless dead, they quickly moved us along. We jumped to the front of lines. This was good.
At biosecurity we had them spray all our shoes. We had been on that alpaca farm three days earlier- and after the owner told me of the dieases they have to test for I wanted to be VERY SURE we were clean. Some of those diseases are on the “OMG- nuke it from orbit” list MAF maintains. In the same category as foot and mouth. Sometimes I forget how lucky we are in terms of many animal diseases down here.

Anyway, just as we finished biosecurity and were free to go- I felt trouble coming. I ran out into the terminal looking for a bathroom. NOTE FOR AUCKLAND AIRPORT- YOU NEED BETTER SIGNS SO DISTRESSED PEOPLE CAN FIND A LOO QUICKLY!!! Knowing I only I had moments, and since no bathroom was in sight, I ran out the front doors– and prompty chundered all over the street. At least that made me feel a bit better.

The flight to Wellington was also a blur, with a bit more chundering. First time I ever used an air-sick bag. The ones provided were well suited to the task. We then retrieved the car from Steve and Jennifer’s place, and drove home.

We returned to find our that the house had no water. Not a drop. Let the fun begin!

Sunday morning we hopped the Amtrak to NYC. A quick transfer onto the Long Island RR got us out to Valley Stream and Judith. Plus Marshall (AKA Mars Hallifax, AKA Serial killer). Plus the kids. Tam had never met Marshall before, and the kids were new for both of us. Holly made it down later that afternoon, and we managed to convince her (and eventually even Judith!) to try out the slack-line Marshall had set up. Much fun! Being blind does not slow the kids down, and Bradon plays a mean game of Wii boxing.

After an overnight in a local hotel, we said goodbye to Holly, and hopped the train south. It was a day of Mucho public transport. Long Island RR to Penn Station where we rushed to the NJ Transit (3 minute window!) to catch the train to Trenton. There we had a 45 minute wait (enough for lunch) then caught SEPTA down to center city Philly. We stopped off for shopping in Chinatown and the Reading Terminal market, then got back on the train to Rose Valley to spend the evening with the Clarks’. Plus of course a quick stop by the comic shop to restock on Girl Genius, BRPD, and a variety of graphic novels. Much to our (and his!) surprise we ran into Trent who was working at the shop. It’s fun to meet someone unexpectedly after 11 years! Nice gobsmacked look, too. :)

Tuesday morning we took the train back down to WIlmington, though the train we were on only made it as far as Marcus Hook, so my parents had to drive an extra 10 minutes to pick us up. We decided to stay and extra day at my parents place. This allowed us more time with them and my Grandmother, plus time with my Uncle, plus a dinner at the classic Itallian resaurant of Wilmington- Mrs Rabinos.

Thursday morning we picked up our rental car (a nice white Chevy Cobalt), and started the drive. Trying to go around the middle of town at rush hour, I ended up putting us on a nice scenic route along the Brandwine river. I don’t know if I had ever been on the road before, and I grew up in Wilmington. It was a lovely drive. One great thing about the car was the radio. XM. Best. thing. ever. Well, for long car trips at least. Once you find a station you like, you don’t have to worry about losing it as you drive along.  We took the scenic back roads across Maryland and into West Viginia. Thoughts and observations of that ride in the next post.

The start- Wednesday August 20th.

It was a long, long Wednesday. We had a 6:40AM international flight from Wellington. Which meant being there 2 hours early. Which meant getting up at 3:30. Ugh. We then flew to… Sydney- yes, kinda going backwards there- for a 5 hours layover. As we don’t have NZ passports yet and had not arranged visas we were not allowed out of the airport. We went over to Customs and asked if we could just get out for a few hours to get some non-airport food. Now, to their great credit, they seriously considered letting us out, but we only had 3 hours until the next check-in. That is not much time to escape an airport and eat. I am pretty sure if we had been looking at an 8-hour layover they would have probably let us through. I do respect officials who are willing to be flexible and helpful!

After that was the long-haul to SanFran. The United 747 flet rather old and dingy. No in-seat entertainment, there were only ceiling-mounted flickering CRT televisions to watch- if you paid for the headsets. Thankfully we managed some sleep. I must give credit to all the various federal employees in SanFran, they were uniformly polite, friendly, and efficient. We got through all he border procedures without difficulty, and made our way to the US Air terminal for the final leg. Once again, a full flight (every plane the whole trip was packed). This was also our first exerience at “now you buy your food and drink.” Thankfully we managed to get soem snack-boxes before they ran out, and they contained enough nutrients to prevent any unfortunate cannibalism incidents. We made it to Philly, met my parents, and got driven to their place for much-needed sleep.

Time of transit- 32 hours. Uggh. Long trip. And due to the magic of the international date line that was all on Wednesday.

Thursday the 21st and Friday the 22nd-

A bit of rest, recovery, and shopping. The Delaware weather was very un-August-like, we were getting lovely cool non-humid weather. Walks were taken along rivers and in local parks. We went to BJs Price Club for some shopping (and we regret not bringing the camera, properly explaining the horror of a 20L tub of pork rinds to really requires photo evidence). These relaxing days really helped us get over the jet-lag quickly, and prepare for the main event on Friday- my grandmothers 88th birthday!

Although down is a bit trickier:

In a similar vein, this is Blaze:

It’s not as obvious in that photo, but Blaze, who is 16 (getting on for an alpaca), has collapsed hocks — her ankles are nearly on the ground, leading to that bent-kneed look in the front. She’s not so good on the hills, and not very spry or active — when the rest of the herd is running around the paddock, she tends to find a hill to stand on and just watch. So we were thoroughly startled yesterday when she sprang gracefully over the door of the chute when we tried to weigh her. Granted, the door is only about a meter high, but she did it from a standing start and cleared it with several inches to spare.

For now we are going off to see a movie. Then this evening we are going to a “sweet-off”, a desert making competition. My pancreas quivers in anticipatory delight.