Okuku Farm Stay
Trip Start
Jul 20, 2004
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39
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Trip End
Jul 20, 2012
Okuku,
New Zealand
Wednesday, March 9, 2005
In March, the family received an environment enhancement fund from the government to subsidize work on a small wild-life sanctuary for birds on their farm. Work began in fall 2004 with bulldozonmg improvements to a pond created several years earlier. here, native trees and plants will be planted over the next three years to encourage wild-life to breed here
All my little hens
. Some of the native plants planted included manuka and cabbage trees, ribbon wood, toe toe, flax grass, broadleaf, lace bark and kowhai. My job was to take care of the dogs, exercising them twice a day and feeding them and feeding and collecting the hens. I got to use the motorbike to drive around the farm and run the dogs. I helped Carolyn with the garden and the wild-life sanctuary or worked with Andy rounding up and moving sheep. One of the biggest jobs was rounding up over 1000 sheep and getting them through the "dipping machine". The dipping machine is a powerful weapon in the war against flystrike and external parasites that can cause harm to sheep. Each and every sheep had to go through a kind of small car washing machine except that they were doused and hosed with chemicals that kills lice and flies. This was quite an exercise for both humans and dogs. And I was happy that i was not a sheep. I stayed a week at the farm which provided me great insight into farming and gardening operations of the farm. I will have one more farm stay before joining the fruit pickers for 1.5 months. 
