morning on the farm.....

Michael was heading into Richmond for a Council meetin, when the truck arrived to take cattle to the freezing works/slaughter house. It was too slippery to get up to the ramp, so Michael gets his digger and pushes it up.

Lucas would be having a field day.....he loves diggers.

...end of the line for these guys...

Michael, dressed in Sunday best

NZ number plate..

I am officially feeling the cold..

its morning on my brothers farm.....it used to belong to my Dad. On the left of the picture, in a distance, you can see the Church building that we went to growing up.

heavy frosts overnight

Brother,Michael and his wife, Jan built this house and raised 4 children here. Sarah, Ryan, Toni and John. Great memories for all my kids of family times with cousins.

Daytime temps are in the high 50'sF, but night time getting as low as 32F. Yay....


Perfect Nelson days that begin with a white frost and become sunny with blue blue skies during the day.

moving on to the South Island

A 50 seater plane took me across to the Nelson, which is the top of the South Island. 40 minute flight to Wellington and then 25 minutes across to Nelson.

First stop after getting to Nelson was to hear my nephew, Michael, (on the right) in the music room at Waimea College, high school)rehearsing for competitions in Christchurch next week. He plays bass guitar. His 2 friends Nathan and Ryan are also in the band. Good luck guys.

Waimea Intermediate School-the Jr high school I went to in Richmond.

school bus

on the way to the airport I saw a.............

.....pig going to the market..!!!

back in California....

Zach is getting his first passport photo taken.....what country will stamp it first?

a favorite cafe.....in a garden center

outdoor tables with red blankets to wrap up in when its chilly...

camellias are in bloom at this time of year....

Matt has a worm farm.....

you put kitchen scraps in to feed the worms everyday.

The worms eat it then poop and make this brown stuff

the best fertilizer EVER...... Go Matt..!!