babies
Dan and Hayley pose for a picture, but don’t let their smiles fool you (or Dan’s attempt to seem like he was from anywhere but the mean streets of Williams College, for that matter). The van trip proved quite hazardous to Dan, who was hosed down with water bottles for the cardinal sin of falling asleep in the company of people who were perfectly comfortable doing something quite cruel to him. I had no part in it. Honest. Anyways, several hours and several laughs later, we pulled onto a dusty gravel road, and finally, in front of the place that Hayley calls home. We were greeted by her father, who epitomizes almost everything I expected a sheep farmer to be, rounded out with a razor-sharp wit that showed the rest of us precisely from where Hayley gets her sense of humor.
Before long, we were feeding some orphaned lambs, which I thought was pretty cool, but at the same time, I could understand how it might get old, having to do it three or four times a day, in addition to other farming duties.
Christa went into transports of delight at the sight of the one- to three-week old lambs, and was positively elated at the prospect of holding one. Lambing season has just ended here in New Zealand, which means that there are a lot of these tiny little guys running around at the moment.
Dan was unsure while holding his lamb, but the lamb must have been equally confused, as it tried to suckle Dan while he was holding it. His right (our left) pocket flap is still damp in this picture with the lamb’s futile attempts to feed.
Hey, what can I say? The lambs are cute, or adorable, or whatever other word I find incredibly awkward to use. They were very friendly towards us, and once they had all gotten their fill, Mr. Baird showed us his current side hobby.
He’s building his very own airplane. Here is the main body, with the wings already assembled in another shed. If you look in the corner of this shed, you can see a wooden board with some of the 974 packets (packets, not pieces) that will go into completing his project, which he’s been working on for nearly a year. While Hayley and her brother had heard it all before, and likely several dozen times, Marco, Dan, and I were deeply impressed, and I hope that he’s able to take to the skies soon. Following that, the residents of 10c Moat joined the residents of the Baird farm and had a fantastic lunch, which was (ahem) lamb. I know, I know, but it was just too delicious to turn down.
After lunch we took a grand tour of the farm, in which Mr. Baird showed us some of his more than 3000 sheep and lambs, as well as his crops. When we arrived at the “hill” on their land, Hayley reminisced about rolling down the hill with her siblings in times past, until Marco challenged me to a rolling-down-the-hill competition. Unfortunately, the entire event is on camera, but suffice it to say that Marco rolled right into a concrete post while I was stabbed with a thousand tiny needles from a thorn patch that happened to be in my parabolic path.
We toured the farm, peppering Mr. Baird with questions about farm life in New Zealand, and he answered them all with the comfortable ease of someone who has spent his life working on a farm, and had gotten quite good with his work. All save Hayley were as awed as we could have hoped for when anticipating the trip, and we saw how much the country really relies on sheep and agriculture as primary exports, even how the Baird farm interacts on a regional scale, trading with Asian countries as part of a collective of farmers. All in all, it was a brilliant day, in which I was able to see what some call the real New Zealand.
This picture was taken purely for reasons of amusement. I snapped the picture at a rest stop—honestly, who wouldn’t want to be Bruce, the King of Woollens?
