Organic Dairy Farming with Dorothy and Ray

Larger and larger dairy farms are evidence of New Zealand's economic commitment to growing their already multi million dollar dairy industry. The news down on the farm is that if people cannot expand they must specialise in order to survive.
Ray and Dorothy Higgins made the switch to Organic Dairy Farming in response to the changing market and we spent a lovely home hosted lunch with this passionate and informative couple of farmers.

After a delicious home cooked lunch by the poolside and other nooks in their home, we were given a talk about the dairy industry of New Zealand and their role within that.

The mood in their garden was something like that of a garden party as we walked and talked gardening and farming after lunch before visiting the business end of their farm, the milking shed.

New Zealand is the world's eighth largest milk producer, with about 2.2% of world production.Total production was 1.3 billion kg of milk solids, and NZ$8.38 billion of dairy products were exported in the year ending 30 September 2007.

Traditional Dairy production areas are the wetter areas of the country: Waikato, Taranaki, Southland, Northland, Horowhenua, Manawatu and Westland. Before the advent of refrigerated shipping in the 1880s, dairy production was entirely for local consumption, with butter and cheese usually being produced on the farm, with the surplus being sold to the community via the local store. Small dairy factories began to be established in the 1880s, and soon there was one in almost every village in dairying regions.

There are approximately 4.2 million dairy milking cows in New Zealand, and 5.26 million dairy cattle in total at 30 June 2007, an increase from 3 million in 1982.  In mid-2005, there were 12,786 dairy farms, with a total area of 2.1 million hectares.

Ingredients
12 slices of bread
4 eggs
1/2 pint milk
Salt & pepper
Parsley (finely chopped)
3 rashers bacon (rind removed and chopped)
3 Tbsp spring onion (finely chopped)
6 Tbsp cheese (grated)
Method
Cut the crusts off the bread - taking care to remove them all as any crust on the bread will affect the overall success of the cases.
Roll out the bread with a rolling pin. Butter one side and place butter side down into muffin pan.
Mix together in a jug the eggs, milk, salt and pepper, and parsley. Place this to one side.
Into the bread cases divide up the following and place in the muffin trays: bacon, spring onion, cheese, sundried tomato.
Pour the egg custard over the filling and bake 160C for 25 mins or until golden.

WASPS (Sweets from Dorothy and Ray's Organic Dairy Farm)
5 oz butter melt in a pan over a low heat
Add
1 cup chopped dates
1 teaspsoon vanilla essence
In a bowl beat
1 egg with
1 cup of sugar, beat well and add to date mixture in pan.
Cook over a low heat for 3 mins.
Add
3 cups of rice bubbles
Cool.
Shape and roll in shredded coconut.

Hamilton Gardens

A stop at the Hamilton City gardens on the shores of the Waikato River

Polynesia Pasifika

Auckland city boasts the largest Polynesian population in the world and we are blessed to have timed our visit to the city in time for the Pasifika Festival.

The two-day party features a concert of the Pacific’s songs, dances and stories, followed by the festival day which sees Auckland’s Western Springs Park transformed into 11 villages – Aotearoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, Hawaii, Kiribati, Nuie, Samoa, Tahiti, Tokelau, Tonga and Tuvalu. 

The streets of Auckland were awash with crowds of people returning from an annual Fun Run known as Round the Bays, so the bus ride out to Western Springs saw us getting up close and personal with some of the locals.

The object was to experience the vibrant hospitality of Auckland’s Pacific culture and revel in the coming together of the Pacific communities as they celebrate their unity and diversity.
The park was set out into villages where the Pacific Island Nations shaared food and song and dance and more food!

Korero Maori!

HOW TO PRONOUNCE THE VOWELS

A note on pronunciation
The following English equivalents are a rough guide to pronouncing vowels in Māori:

a as in far
e as in desk and the first ‘e’ in where; it should be short and sharp
i as in fee, me, see
o as in awe (not ‘oh!’)
u as in sue, boot
There are fewer consonants, and only a few are different from English:

r should not be rolled. It is pronounced quite close to the sound of ‘l’ in English, with the tongue near the front of the mouth.
t is pronounced more like ‘d’ than ‘t’, with the tip of the tongue slightly further back from the teeth
wh counts as a consonant; the standard modern pronunciation is close to the ‘f’ sound. In some districts it is more like an ‘h’; in others more like a ‘w’ without the ‘h’; in others again more like the old aspirated English pronunciation of ‘wh’ (‘huence’ for whence)
ng counts as a consonant and is pronounced like the ‘ng’ in ‘singer’. It is not pronounced like the ‘ng’ in ‘finger’, i.e., Whāngārei is pronounced Far-n(g)ah-ray (not Fong-gah-ray); Tauranga is pronounced Tow- (to rhyme with sew) rah-n(g)ah (not Tow-rang-gah).

The macron – a little line above some vowels – indicates vowel length. Some words spelled the same have different meanings according to their vowel length. For example, anā means ‘here is’ or ‘behold’: Anā te tangata! (Here is the man!) Ana, with no macron, means a cave. Some writers of modern Māori double the vowel instead of using macrons when indicating a long vowel; the first example would be Anaa te tangata!

GREETINGS AND MORE
Kia ora - A wish of good health encompassing physical, spiritual and emotional health. Used to greet people, to agree with people, to encourage people and as thanks.
Chur Chur - (colloquial)How the rangatahi greet or thank or encourage each other.
Rangatahi -  Youth, teenager or those younger than a kaumatua. Maori are considered Rangatahi throughout their adulthood until they reach the status of elder.
Kaumatua - Respected elder. Elders are considered the holders of knowlege and wisdom. It is the role of the elder as teacher that is paramount in the development of Maori society.
Tamaariki - Literally means  child of or from the gods. Children.
Whanau - family
Whakapapa - ancestry, genealogy, blood lines. The practise of studying and learning  your blood lines.
Hapu - tribe

Nau Mai Haere Mai! Welcome to New Zealand, Auckland

Welcome Dinner at Neptunes

Tamaki Makaurau, the place of a hundred lovers on the shores of the sparkling waters of Waitemata harbour is otherwise known as Auckland.

Prince introduces us to the living landscape of his mother land, the home of his ancestors. Together we walk the story of his history on this land.
Tamaki Makaurau, Auckland city has modern day population of more than 1 million people which represents one quarter of the population of New Zealand. Tamaki Makaurau can also be translated to mean the "place desired by many". Prince shares with us the stories of those many lovers of this land, of men and women whose stories merged with the landscape and became part of the whakapapa that is often undiscovered by travelers.

Strolling on the grass at the Auckland Domain, its difficult to realise that we are  perched on a volcano. Along with Albert Park, this was the site of one of Auckland's first eruptions. The largest, and most recent, eruption was around 600 years ago at Rangitoto. During this time the region was dotted with 48 volcanic cones. You can still spot these cones today –they are visibe in the tell-tale green pastures in an otherwise densely built-up city.

Uniquely, Auckland is one of the few cities in the world to have two harbours on two separate major bodies of water. known as the City of Sails, Auckland is a major sailing destination. More than 135,000 yachts are moored in this harbour city.

In the Beginning ......

Before there was any light there was only darkness, all was night. Before there was even darkness there was nothing. Of these things it is spoken in our karakia, those that were given down from ancient time that name all the ancestors of Maori People. It is said in the karakia, at the beginning of time there stood Te Kore, the Nothingness. Then was Te Po, the Night, which was immensely long and immensely dark:
Te Po nui,
Te Po roa,
Te Po uriuri,
Te Po kerekere,
Te Po tiwha,
Te Po te kitea,
Te Po tangotango...
meaning the Great Night, the Long Night, the Dark Night, the Intensely Dark Night, the Gloom-laden Night, the Night Unseen, the Night to be Felt. The first light that existed was no more than the glowing of a worm, and when sun and moon were made there were no eyes, there was none to see them, not even kaitiaki. The beginning was made from the nothing.

Then Ranginui, the sky, dwelt with Papatuanuku, the earth, and was joined to her, and land was made. But the children of Ranginui and Papatuanuku, who were very numerous, were not of the shape of men, and they lived in the darkness, for their parents were not yet parted. They sky still lay upon the earth, no light had come between them. The heavens were 12 in number, and the lowest layer, lying on the earth, made her unfruitful. Her covering was creeping plants and rank low weed, and the sea was all dark water, dark as night. The time when these things were seemed without end.

At length the offspring of Ranginui and Papatuanuku, worn out with continual darkness, met together to decide what should be done about their parents, that man might arise. "Shall we kill our parents, shall we slay them, our father and our mother, or shall we separate them?" they asked. And long did they consider in the darkness.
At last Tumatauenga, the fiercest of the offspring and the guardian of war, spoke out. "It is well. Let us kill them," stated Tumatauenga.
But Tanemahuta, guardian of the forest, answered, "No, not so. It is better to seperate them, and to let the sky stand far above us and the earth lie below here. Let the sky be a stranger to us, but let earth remain close to us as our nursing mother."

Some of the other sons, and Tumatauenga among them, saw wisdom in this and agreed with Tanemahuta. Others did not agree, and one, now and forever has always disagreed with his brothers, and this is Tawhirimatea, the guardian of winds and storms. For Tawhirimatea, fearing that his kingdom would be overthrown, did not wish his parents to be torn apart. So while some agreed, Tawhirimatea would not and was silent, he held his breath. And long did they consider further. At the end of a time no man can measure they decided that Ranginui and Papatuanuku must be forced apart, and they began by turns to attempt this deed.

First Rongomatane, guardian of the cultivated food of men, rose up and strove to force the heavens from the earth. When Rongomatane failed, next Tangaroa, guardian of all things that live in the sea, rose up. He struggled mightily, but had no luck. And next Haumiatiketike, guardian of uncultivated food, rose up and tried, without success. So then Tumatauenga, guardian of war, leapt up. Tumatauenga hacked at the sinews that bound the Earth and Sky, and made them bleed, and this gave rise to ochre, or red clay, the sacred colour. Yet even Tumatauenga, the fiercest of the children, could not with all his strength sever Ranginui from Papatuanuku. So then it became the turn of Tanemahuta.

Slowly, slowly as the kauri tree did Tanemahuta rise between the Earth and Sky. At first he strove with his arms to move them, but with no success. And so he paused, and the pause was an immense period of time. Then he placed his shoulders against the Earth, his mother, and his feet against the Sky. Soon, and yet not soon, for the time was vast, the Sky and Earth began to yield.
The parents of the children cried out and asked them, "why are you doing this crime, why do you wish to slay your parents?"
Great Tanemahuta thrust with all his strength, which was the strength of growth. Far beneath him he pressed the Earth. Far above he thrust the Sky, and held him there. The sinews that bound them were stretched, taunt. Tumatauenga sprang up and slashed at the bonds that bound his parents and the blood spilt read on the earth. Today this is the kokowai, the sacred red earth that was created when the first blood was spilt at the dawn of time. As soon as Tanemahuta work was finished the multitude of creatures were uncovered whom Ranginui and Papatuanuku had begotten, and who had never known light.

te Ao Marama by Sofia Minson

Spikking Kiwi - Learning the Language

Yeah so kia ora bro and welcome to New Zealand!“Nau Mai Haere mai ki te wai o Aotearoa”

Aotearoa (New Zealand) is a bi cultural (some would argue that it is also bi polar) island nation consisting of TWO PEOPLE, TWO ISLANDS and TWO VERSIONS of HISTORY. We have THREE OFFICIAL LANGUAGES -            

• English which is widely used by the majority of the poplualion,                                           
• Te Reo Maori - a language revived and reviving although it’s mostly spoken by Tangata Whenua (Maori) and cheerfully mispronounced by Non Maori. (Pakeha)

With a set up like that you would imagine that the third official language of this country is the lawyers language but in fact its more ironic than that, our third official language is Sign Language!

The fourth and unofficial language of New Zealand is the colloquial, the poetic, the slang that has arisen from a dispirit bunch of people floating on an island in the heart of the South Pacific. But first some pronunciation lessons.

 Lesson 1: Intonation

The first thing to change when speaking like a kiwi is your intonation: end every sentence as if you’re asking a question. Fullstops are very final in New Zealand, and often give the impression of End Of Conversation, rather than End of Sentence. (Making every sentence sound like a question makes you sound cheerful)
Lesson 2: Accent for English Speakers

Now that you have the basics of intonation, we can start to focus on your accent. Don’t be intimidated by the Kiwi accent, it’s pretty easy to pick up. The trick is in your vowels.
A becomes E: “Now thet I hev your ettention, lets get beck to the lesson, ay?“
E becomes EE: “I’ll be there in teen meenuts”
I becomes U: “Lets go get some fush and chups bro”
*UNLESS it’s pronounce ‘I’ as in ‘Ice’, the it becomes ‘OI’ as in, “Oi’ll just pop down to the dairy and puk us up some fush end chups.” I is a tricky letter mate.
O stays the same and so does U

Lesson 3 : How to pronounce Maori Vowels

 The following English equivalents are a rough guide to pronouncing vowels in Māori:

a as in far
e as in desk and the first ‘e’ in where; it should be short and sharp
i as in fee, me, see
o as in awe (not ‘oh!’)
u as in sue, boot
There are fewer consonants, and only a few are different from English:
r should not be rolled. It is pronounced quite close to the sound of ‘l’ in English, with the tongue near the front of the mouth.
t is pronounced more like ‘d’ than ‘t’, with the tip of the tongue slightly further back from the teeth
wh counts as a consonant; the standard modern pronunciation is close to the ‘f’ sound. In some districts it is more like an ‘h’; in others more like a ‘w’ without the ‘h’; in others again more like the old aspirated English pronunciation of ‘wh’ (‘huence’ for whence)
ng counts as a consonant and is pronounced like the ‘ng’ in ‘singer’. It is not pronounced like the ‘ng’ in ‘finger’, i.e., Whāngārei is pronounced Far-n(g)ah-ray (not Fong-gah-ray); Tauranga is pronounced Tow- (to rhyme with sew) rah-n(g)ah (not Tow-rang-gah).

 A LIST OF WORDS YOU WILL COMMONLY HEAR

BRO                            Maori and some Non Maori greet each other in this manner. Often                                                used when you have forgotten the name of the person being addressed.                  
CHOICE                     means awesome or good
CHUR                         Chur can be used as thanks, as in “Chur Bro” or as a greeting “Chur Bro”                                     or to describe an event, person or feed as in “Yeah Nah, it was                                      pretty chur”. If you want to sound really cool to a Maori person say                                           “Chur Chur bro” and top it off with a lift of the eyebrows, Maori Styles.

CUZ                             Maori like to do a lot of whakapapa which means we are always                                           searching out cousins all over the islands and often find them!
DAIRY                         A local store selling milk and newspapers, etc
HAKA                         (M) War dance, a dance that describes a battle
HONGI                        (M) A greeting whereby the breath of life is shared
HARD CASE              A unique and or amusing person
JANDALS                  Flip Flops
KIA ORA                    (M) a greeting
KAI                             (M) Maori are very keen to feed their guests and will often invite                                              for a kai as in “Come home for a FEED BRO.”
KORERO                   (M) To talk, discuss
KAPAI                        (M). very good!
MOKOPUNA             (M) Grandchild.
PAKEHA                    (M) Non Maori, white people

PUKANA                    (M) A greeting when a Maori person pokes his tongue at you and                                            makes their eyeballs bulge
SAUCE                       Ketchup
SWEET AS                 Means NO WORRIES MATE
TANGI                        (M) Funeral, to cry
TAMAARIKI              (M) Chilldren
TREKKING                Hiking
YEAH NAH                Means yes.

WHANAU                   Immediate family members, extending out to first cousins
HAPU                         Tribe consisting of extended family members
IWI                              A coalition of tribes who all share one eponymous ancestor.
WHAKAPAPA             Ancestral lines, the art of discovering you are related to half the country