HelpX #3: I Keep Bleating Love

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In November of 2019, Stefan and I spent hours reading through HelpX hosts’ profiles to find the perfect stay in New Zealand. One day I found a profile in which the hosts owned a place with farm animals (pigs, chicks, ducklings, horses) and, most importantly, 4 dogs (!). The photos of little piglets on the profile sparked my imagination of my future self feeding baby animals with a bottle, and that was the number 1 thing I was excited about for our trip to New Zealand (you can ask any of my coworkers).

So on January 20th, we were picked up by our new farm host, Jim, in a truck with one of his dogs in the back. We were pretty embarrassed as this was the third time someone commented on how much luggage we had as he said something like “You have about three times as much luggage as many of our helpers!” And indeed we did bring too much luggage, but at this point we couldn’t do anything about it (little did we know that they would eventually let us leave half of our baggage at their place).

I of course sat in the back with instant best friend, Dottie, caressing her soft fur and fat lumps while Stefan asked his usual hundred questions to Jim in the front. We spoke about our plans in New Zealand and our backgrounds and Jim told us how he and his wife, Melanie, had decided on having a farm in New Zealand.

When we entered through the gate to their property, we passed by a barn, horses, a couple of paddocks with different animals, and a gorgeous white house overlooking everything. We were greeted by the rest of the dogs, including Stan, a shar pei and the farm’s resident bouncer. He can apparently be somewhat hostile to outsiders, but Jim and Melanie had a whole ritual set up where we sat down at the dinner table under strict orders to ignore him when he came bounding into the room so we could convince him we belonged there. The ritual worked like a charm, because we had no issues with him or any of the other dogs, all of which were great fun to have around for the duration of our stay.

As Jim showed us around their property, we were amazed by all the different bird calls we could hear—this was definitely the New Zealand nature experience we were after! But as much as our excitement was building about being around all this natural beauty, our accommodations showed that we were definitely not going to be lacking any creature comforts: we got our own separate space in a little apartment attached to the house. Jim said they jokingly would call the apartment “the south wing” when they wanted to put on airs, but we thought the title was well-deserved, as the two-story apartment had a huge upstairs bedroom, a living room with two couches and a TV, a dining area that could seat six, and a fully stocked kitchen—we’re talking crepe maker and air fryer fully stocked. And to top things off, right in our backyard we had two adorable little lambs who we’d quickly become best buds with.

Yeah. This was going to be a good couple of weeks.

Like we’ve done in our first two HelpX locations (which you can find here and here), we’re going to break this post down into four categories: the hosts, the property, the work, and what we learned. Then we’ll wrap things up with an interview with Jim. Read on!

The Hosts

Jim (from Ireland) and Melanie (from the UK) moved to New Zealand after a company that Jim had worked for relocated him from Australia. As luck would have it, he had just retired a couple of weeks before we arrived, but he joked that the word “retired” would be taboo as long as Melanie was around! He couldn’t have her thinking he was taking it easy, and we could see why! Melanie was a jack-of-all-trades, master of all: her days would often start around 4 am and wouldn’t end until late at night, as she kicked butt working at the university, taking care of her colony of chickens, and even going to some extreme hula-hooping fitness workouts. I was thrilled to discover that she works in biostatistics, which is what I studied in graduate school, and we had fun talking about R and research methods. Also, big shout out to her for getting us delicious groceries and driving us to and from the train station!

Because Melanie was on the go so often, we spent most of our time with Jim. He was honestly one of the most kind-hearted, relaxed, patient people we have ever met, and this didn’t change even when he was seriously injured (more on that below) or when we seriously screwed up (more on that as well). He gave us all the extremely detailed directions we needed to get our jobs done well, tolerating the never-ending barrage of questions we’d throw at him without batting an eye. He also was a great testament to the effectiveness of positive reinforcement, routinely talking about how happy he was with the quality of our work and thereby making us want to work even harder. Finally, he just had a terrific sense of humor—as two people who don’t take life particularly seriously ourselves, Stefan and I are always happy to find other people who can crack jokes about the joys of wading knee-deep in chicken poo.

The Property

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This HelpX, like the first two we did, was within a 30 minute drive to Auckland. The nearest town of Clevedon was fairly small at a population of 2,500 people, but it had easy train access straight into downtown Auckland.

Most of our exploration of the Clevedon area was on a pair of bikes which Jim and Melanie lent us: we went into town a couple of times to pick up drinks from the dairy (the name Kiwis give to small, 7-Eleven style convenience stores), spent a gorgeous summer evening eating dinner at a local farmer’s market and took a 45 minute ride to the beach where we relaxed in a hammock.

Jim and Melanie’s place itself is what the Kiwis call a “lifestyle block.” This is probably best described as a farm maintained as a hobby rather than as a principal source of income. Essentially, they raise a variety of animals and plants around their country home, but, as Jim explained when Stefan asked what the cost/profit differential was for the chickens they raise, they would be extremely lucky if they so much as break even.

The animals they took care of included 2 horses, 4 “kunekune” pigs, 6 cows, 12 ducks, 19 geese, 28 sheep, and over 100 chickens, turkeys, and guinea fowl. They also had various gardens and fruit trees scattered all throughout the property; one of our favorite things about working there was being able to stroll by and grab a handful of strawberries or cherry tomatoes as we were doing our work. Which brings me to the next section…

The Work

Because we stayed at this HelpX for close to a month, we were involved in many tasks and projects on the farm. Here is an outline of our work on a day by day basis:

Days 1-2

Tour of the farm and instructions on feeding the animals. Jim led us through the feeding routine twice and then quizzed us on everything to make sure we got it all right. I had taken videos of him showing us the work and took extensive notes on the specifics which included the tasks, type of food, and the quantity of animals in each section. It was a lot to remember! 

Because the feeding times could vary a lot depending on the day (and on how long we cuddled the animals), Jim said it would always count for 1 of our 4 daily hours of work, regardless of whether it took more or less time. With so many details to keep track of, our first few days took us up to 3 hours, as we took our time trying to make sure we fed everyone, counted them, and locked every gate behind us. We slowly got faster as time went on, and eventually found we could pretty reliably do it in about 1.5 hours between the two of us. 

“Feeding up” was our first task every day the rest of the time we were here, but our other 3 hours varied depending on the day:

Days 3-5

After feeding, we used a “power washer” (basically a high-pressure, motorized water hose) to clean the exterior of Jim and Melanie’s house. Jim’s great instructions and patience really shined here, as he took us through the process step-by-step and answered all of our millions of questions. We might have gone overboard on the questions, but we were really eager to do a great job. 

This eagerness was motivated partially by a need to reinvigorate our own self-esteem after our rocky performance reviews at HelpX #2, partially by really wanting to earn our keep at a place which had immediately seemed like paradise, and partially by Jim’s saying that he would assign more or less complex tasks depending on what we seemed capable of handling our first couple days. While we had enjoyed our HelpXing until now, we were ready to graduate from weeding to slightly more intellectually stimulating projects, and with Jim mentioning that he would potentially need a fence built, we really wanted to show him we were competent enough for the job!

Power washing the house ended up fitting the bill nicely since we were able to do it decently and we had a tangible end product of bright white walls. We were off to a great beginning!

Buoyed by our positive start in a beautiful new location with friendly hosts, I felt so energized during our first week here–so much so that I was even working out for 30 minutes every day in addition to the tough farm work. I was unstoppable! A superhuman!! In reality, I was probably just hopped up on black tea and the dangerously unlimited supply of delicious sugar cookies unsuccessfully hiding in the pantry. That energy quickly disappeared after the first week, especially after the following incident:

Holey cow!

On day 5, Stefan had a job interview in the morning, so Jim offered to do the feeding for both of us. I took it nice and easy, enjoying a late start after multiple consecutive 7:30 am starts and making myself some crepes. My state of French trance was interrupted when Jim knocked on our door with an emergency: a cow had fallen down a hole and he needed my help! No, this wasn’t an episode of Lassie, this was #akiaoratravel! So I sprang into action, throwing on my work clothes and running out to meet him on the bottom of the field. Sure enough, there was a giant hole, and in that giant hole was a giant cow. 

My first thought was “How in the world are we going to get this cow out of there?!” Do you know that cows weigh about 1500 lbs?! That’s almost 10 Stefans! Maybe even more if that toothpick isn’t fully fed!

From the cow’s responses to our coaxing–or more accurately, her lack of response–it looked as if she had fallen in the hole in the middle of the night and had tried for hours to lift herself out. The churned-up inside of the hole was slick with mud and cow waste, and it turns out that a cow’s anatomy is not particularly well-engineered for getting out of giant holes.

So there I was, looking at the cow, then looking at Jim as he told me his two plans of getting her out: Plan A, trying to dig a bigger hole so the cow could get out and Plan B, lifting her up using a rope. 

We started with Plan A. He had two shovels, one of which he was using, but I quickly realized that there wasn’t enough room for both of us to dig and also the shovel was too heavy for me to use it effectively, so I started to dig with my hands. Looking back, I can see how silly I must have looked pawing at the dirt with my two tiny hands while Jim was putting all of his strength into digging with a giant shovel.

After digging for about 10 minutes and trying to lift the cow out with our bare hands, we realized she looked like she didn’t have enough strength to get out on her own. Plan B: initialize!

I was instructed to climb into the hole and to wrap the rope around the cow’s bum or belly so we could try to pull her up. I wasn’t able to lift her up enough to get the rope under her belly, but I was able to loop it under her tail. We pulled on the rope with all of our strength, Jim and I trying to win this game of tug-of-war against the cow and gravity. Even if it was 2 vs. 2, we lost pretty pathetically. 

After two or three tries, things got worse: Jim calmly let me know that, with our pulling, he’d overexerted himself and injured his back fairly severely. I was left in a state of panic. Instead of just having just a cow in a hole, I now had a cow in a hole and an injured host. I raced back to the house to find Stefan, who was closing out his interview and mistakenly thinking the major stress of the day was over. Having convinced his interviewers he was a well-organized, tie-wearing erudite, he exited Skype just as his mud- and poop-covered girlfriend burst through the door, out of breath and panicked, babbling about cows and holes and injured backs.

Without waiting to explain as Stefan asked his usual million questions, I ran back to the kitchen. I grabbed my water bottle and some ibuprofen for Jim, along with an apple for the cow. I thought to myself “Jim is going to think I’m so considerate for thinking of the cow!” 

I was absolutely right. Jim beamed, telling me I had gotten exactly the right thing for the cow as he gave it a drink from my water bottle and started munching on the apple himself 😐 Apparently cows don’t eat apples. But Jim doesn’t need to know that I didn’t know that!

After another 5 minutes, Stefan came over and with Jim directing, the two of us lifted the cow up just enough so we could get the rope under her belly. Then we pulled and pulled and pulled until she finally was out of the hole enough that she could slowly get up and stumble her way out. I just want to end this story saying that although Stefan looks like the hero here, it really was ME who helped from start to finish on this endeavor! [Editor’s note: Stefan was, in fact, the hero. ] [[Author’s note: No, he wasn’t]]

Day 6

We had this day off and were lucky enough to visit my cousin in Auckland! See our January 2020 update for the full story.

Day 7

Last day of power washing the back of the house. This was a really exciting day for me because we had to move the two lambs from our backyard to the fenced area on the other side of the farm. I know what you’re thinking: “Why is she excited about getting the lambs out of her backyard?!” But it wasn’t that I was excited to be away from the lambs, it was that I was able to CARRY them — which meant HOLD THEM TIGHT for like 5 whole minutes while I transferred them. And let me tell you — sheep are really dumb and not very strong so I really didn’t have any trouble with them trying to escape from my arms <3. 

Day 8

Cleaned a couple of the baby chick cages. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that chickens poop A LOT. I’d write more but I don’t want to throw up all over my laptop.

Day 9

Half-day off. Since we had been working hard on the farm and feeding every morning, our hosts were gracious enough to let us have the day off to go to the beach after we fed the animals. We fed the animals, and then quickly packed a lunch to go and were on our way to get the bikes in the garage when all of a sudden…we see that Dottie looked like she was chewing on some type of bird…and then we see some white feathers by the peach tree…and then some other ones by the door of the garage…DUN DUN DUN 

This was the day we found out we were MURDERERS. 

Stefan and I had been feeding the animals for 9 days in a row now and had been taking longer than what we thought we should be, so we tried to speed it up by splitting up the tasks. This was a big mistake! Somehow in our alternation between changing the food and water of each cage, we must have left one of the baby silkies’ cages open. Feeling absolutely terrible, we brought the news of our humongous mistake to Jim, closed the garage door, and then realized that the silkies had fallen from the cage to the ground, walked out of the garage and right into Dottie’s belly. Fortunately, we were able to save three more that had fallen from the cage and were hiding somewhere in the garage. But all the way to the beach and back we were just feeling so awful about the horrendous mistake that cost these animals’ lives.

Even though this was the lowest moment of our trip, it again showcased Jim’s outstanding character. He was very calm and accepting of the ordeal, but didn’t get angry with us and simply told us that we would just have to be really, really careful about locking all the doors in the future. That sort of unemotional crisis management is something Stefan and I really admire. You’ve got to look past the heat of the moment and realize that getting angry won’t unspill the milk; all you can do is your best not to spill the milk again the next time. Jim and Melanie were both just as hospitable to us afterwards, and their handling of the situation really solidified in our minds that they are genuinely good, admirable people.

Day 10

About 6 hours of cleaning all of the bird coops and cages. This was probably my least favorite day on the farm, but I felt like this was the punishment we rightly deserved for being MURDERERS!

Days 11-13

Digging holes and tamping posts. So you remember when I told you that Jim was considering building a fence? And remember when I told you that a cow fell into a giant hole on the farm? Well, it turns out those two facts were connected. 

Rainwater had eroded away a little gully on the back side of their farm, and a hole had opened up at the very bottom where it all collected. Jim had decided to build a fence to keep the animals out of that area. Unfortunately, when his injured back had still not improved to the point where he felt comfortable helping, even after multiple days of rest, we were afraid we wouldn’t get the opportunity to help out with the fence. On Day 11, however, Jim finally decided that we could get started. 

After hauling some fence posts down from the barn, we were put in charge of drilling the holes. The first step was to use some plastic stakes to delineate the fencing area, then we tied some wire tape between the stakes to make straight lines. 

Stefan was put on the weed-whacker to chop out the grass under those lines, a task he was hesitant about because of his weed-whacking troubles at HelpX #2: there, he had been put on weed-whacker duty without any instructions on how to use it. He had some trouble figuring out the right setting for the engine choke, but even after asking two days in a row for specifics on its operation, he kept getting responses along the lines of “Oh, you’ll figure it out.” Well, on day 3, the weed-whacker finally stopped working and had to be taken into town for repairs. So Stefan was leery of having to revisit his nemesis.

Sure enough, the first thing he did was get the cutting wire caught and nearly break the equipment in half. Again though, Jim was calm about the whole situation and fortunately no permanent damage was done. After that, Stefan managed the rest of the cutting without a problem. He’s not convinced this is a success story so much it is a testament to his running out of unique ways to fail.

While Stefan was trimming down the grass, Dagmar and Jim came in behind him and spraypainted marks at regular intervals for drilling. That’s when the true fun began! We were put in charge of using an auger, a sort of motorized drill that must weigh more than 5 cows (that’s 50 Stefans, for anyone who’s counting). Our first day of using it was pretty rough, as we got the bit stuck in the ground and Stefan nearly pulled his back himself trying to deadlift it out. It ended up getting easier, but he and I and his back were all very grateful to have the next day off.

Day 14

Off day — Visited the War Memorial museum and did some shopping in Auckland. Here’s some photos!

Day 15

We continued digging fence posts and finally got on a roll. Jim joked that we had earned our merit badge in auger proficiency, to go along with our water blaster and poo-scraping certifications. To “bore” you with more details (ha!), we did the drilling with one or two bits, sometimes using a narrower diameter to make the wider diameter drilling easier. Once we’d drilled down about 2-3 feet, we put in the post, made sure everything was straight before using a tamping rod (basically a steel rod with a heavy, flared end) to pack the soil down around the sides of the post.

Days 16-18

Jim and Melanie went on vacation so our only job while they were gone was feeding the animals twice a day. This sounds good in theory, but since our average record of feeding the animals was around two hours, this took as much time as normal working days! It is amazing how much work taking care of that many animals takes. I can’t believe how two people with full time jobs ever did all of that. Starting at 7:30 each day and not ending until after 9 pm is rough, even if you do have breaks in between! Even so, we had a good time doing it and being able to recuperate with crepes and air-fried food made it worth every bit of labor.

Days 19-22

The remainder of our days were spent trying to dig holes with the auger and tamping, which even though it got increasingly difficult because of hard soil and worn-down drill bits, was all completed in the end! We had a couple other events, including herding and vaccinating sheep and making arepas for Jim and Melanie, but this section is already way too long so we’ll leave it here!

What We Learned

Since we were at this HelpX for about a month and managed to complete several projects in that time frame, we were able to learn a lot of practical skills like feeding animals, using a power washer, and drilling holes with an auger. But because we listed all of that in “The Work” section above, I will only list the overarching lessons that we learned throughout our stay:

1. Good instruction and positive encouragement go a long way. From day 1, Jim gave very thorough instructions on all the tasks that needed to be completed, especially when it came to our safety. He was patient with all of our questions and frequently praised us on our work or told us what we were doing wrong in an encouraging way. This made us feel confident in the work that we were doing and at ease knowing that we could ask him anything if we weren’t sure of something.
2. Working on a farm is stinky and exhausting. I would say that I am “fit” — I exercise almost daily and eat fairly healthy. But even with my “Insanity” workout experience, I felt a crash around the end of the second week at the farm when my calves cramped up. I found that being petite is a major disadvantage when doing farm work (unless you’re crawling into chicken cages to scrape out poop…then it’s unfortunately an advantage) because you’re constantly having to carry big things and walk up big hills and sometimes my little body just couldn’t handle it (as much as I hate to admit it). Oh and yeah, animal poop is stinky. 
3. Finding ways of being efficient without being careless. After our disastrous chicken murdering incident, which happened because we were trying to cut our time but not really realizing that something could have easily been overlooked, we reassessed afterwards and found a way in which we weren’t doing double work, but also double-checking each other. In any future job we do, we can always come back to this moment and reflect on what will be affected by our actions if we try to find ways to do our work more quickly. 
4. Cows don’t eat apples. Just remember that for the next time you find a cow in a hole.

Interview with the Host

*Note: these answers have been edited for brevity and clarity

Were there any culture shocks when arriving in New Zealand?

Yes and no. Before moving from the England to Australia, we thought Australia was going to be similar, just with better weather. But Australians are completely different. And then when we moved here we thought that New Zealand was going to be similar to Australia but with worse weather. But it wasn’t. New Zealanders are different from Australians in that they’re more serious, they’re harder working, and don’t kind of have as much fun, but they’re good people. I always say the difference between New Zealanders and Australians, is that if you give a New Zealander $20, they’ll spend $2 and save $18. If you give an Australian $20, they’ll spend $50.

The biggest difference is the Maori culture which is very unique to New Zealand. The European settlers like to take part in the culture.

Do you have any book or movie recommendations for travelers to read or see before coming to New Zealand?

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

The Dead Lands – miniseries about history of Maori culture

Boy – movie on modern Maori culture

Once Were Warriors – also a movie about modern Maori culture which is also confrontational

For newcomers, are there any NZ tips or culture etiquette that they should be aware of?

First thing you should do is learn some te reo, which is the Maori language. I know about five words, one of which is “Kia Ora” – which is used for “hello”, “goodbye”, “hey that’s cool”, and in most situations!

Do you have any advice for anyone wanting to do HelpX?

Be flexible, have initiative, and be prepared to ask good questions. HelpX is not a company where everything is structured — it’s more informal and less process-driven so you have to be flexible and you have to use your initiative. You will often get some vague instruction on what needs to get done. If you need further instruction – ask. Some people don’t want to ask because they’re too shy or sometimes they don’t have good English. Do good quality work and be friendly — those are the things that go down well with HelpXs.

What is your favorite and least favorite job on the farm?

Least favorite: fencing — that’s why you’re doing it! Cleaning out the chicken poo.

Most favorite: grooming the horses or doing anything with the animals, really!

What are your favorite things about NZ?

Landscape and environment. It’s really nice to be able to go take the campervan and take a tour out to the beach or the mountains. It’s the most amazing country on the planet for that type of tourism and travel.

Is there anything you would change about NZ?

Nothing. There’s really nothing I dislike. I’m pretty happy about where I’m at!

For people not living in New Zealand, how can they live a more kiwi life?

Woah that’s a tricky question!

1. Spend more time outdoors.

2. Eat fresher foods and eat seafood.

Those are two features of kiwi life. Spend lots of time outside with your family – cycling, walking your dog, etc. Get outside! And here, where they can afford it – they like to eat good food and lots of seafood!

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Thanks for reading! We know this post was long, but we would like to reward those that have made it this far if they can answer this question:

*Name the four lambs we had to feed milk on a daily basis during this HelpX.

Send an e-mail to [email protected] with the answer by April 5th, 2020 and 3 lucky winners will get a personalized postcard from us 🙂

If you enjoyed this post, let us know in the comments below!

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About Dagmar and Stefan: We are a couple in love with traveling, meeting new people, learning about different cultures, eating good food, and sharing our experiences with others. Currently, we are spending the year 2020 traveling across New Zealand with a Working Holiday Visa!