The Last of the Top 10

Finally, here are the last of Chase's model shots. As a brief update, we've spent the past few weeks split between different organic farms, the two largest we've worked at by fair, which has been an interesting glimpse into the operation of a large-scale, commercial organic farm. Splitting up those two stints, we spent four days camping, hiking and exploring in Fiordland National Park, a beautiful part of southern New Zealand filled with glacier-carved fiords, mountain ranges, and river valleys. We then spent a few days in the city of Dunedin, catching up with our good friend Alex Duckles, as well as a new Japanese friend (and fellow wwoofer) named Akie! It was a blast. The days were filled with frisbee-playing, surfing, exploring the city, and watching Lord of the Rings (on a rainy day), and our nights out were eventful, to say the least. We saw our first rugby game, and hit up some fun bars. Anyways, our time here is winding down (only two weeks left to go), so we finish up at this farm on the weekend and will spend our last bit of time hiking and catching a few more good sights before flying home and seeing many of you! We'll be sure to post again before then, but for now enjoy the pictures.

3. This one brings back memories of another Chase and Sam photo shoot not too long ago. We can only wish there'd been another button undone.

4. I'm not sure this one was supposed to end up in here....whoops!

5. Inspired by Troy and Reading Rainbow.

6. Inquisitive, charming, and always down for a good laugh.

7. Looking rugged in this old-timey blast from the past.

8. Chase's pensive side, reflecting during a walk on the west coast.

9. Showing off some fine legs in a mountain stream.

10. A classic Chase look, from the early days.

Honorable Mentions: Chase's "Blue Steel" cannot be stopped, even when faced with the distraction of his many admirers...

...or even at the risk of his own personal safety.

The Top 10 (or more) reasons why Chase is a model

1. Stealing the show in this Pillowforte album cover shot

2 Looks great in a wetsuit

These ones will have to keep you entertained for now, we can't upload any more pictures at this library. Numbers 3-10 will be worth it, though.

New Zealand: The Top Tens

Hey friends and family! To keep you entertained, here is a "top ten" list for each of us. Without further ado:

"Dallis doesn't like to make decisions, here are the top 10 things she would rather make:"

1. A cake
2. A snowball
3. A child educated
4. Someone happy
5. A new friend
6. It rain
7. A good mother
8. Macaroni picture frames!
9. Everyone amazed that she and her sister Ashley deliberated for 15 minutes about which kind of half sausage was left on their plate after they had already avoided making a decision about which kind of sausage to eat by splitting two of them in half and sharing, which had been an earlier 15 minute discussion.
1o. Amends

"Top 10 reasons Alex was born in the 1950's"

1. He was part of Glen's Falls (named in TIME magazine as "Hometown USA") High School's homecoming court
2. Wore a varsity letter jacket in High School, unironically
3. Sang the national anthem at a local minor league baseball game
4. Uses the word "directionals"
5. Took his high school sweetheart to a drive-in movie theater
6. Uses a swiss army knife given to him by his father
7. Went to a Young Men's Christian Association summer camp for 10 summers
8. Makes apple pie from his Grandma's recipe
9. Used to meet his friends at the corner store to get ice cream
1o. Played concerts with his high school band in the town gazeebo on Sundays during the summer

"Top 10 (or more) reasons Sam is a hippie"
1. Once tried to get a certifiable hippie to put a hairwrap and bead on his rattail.
2. Once bartered a beer for a digital camera
3. Wants to "chia" our car
4. Wants to mural our car with pictures of hummingbirds and volcanoes
5. Lived in a tent and showered in a river with all purpose biodegradable soap for six months
6. Doesn't have a job and needs a haircut
7. When he does have a job, he trades work for food and accomodation early
8. Uses a rag that came free with shoe insoles as his towel
9. Has 6 handmaid bracelets, including one which is just a pink rag tied around his wrist
10. Favorite outfit is capri pants and crocs
11. Has had a large wart colony growing on his foot for over 5 years
12. Plays ultimate frisbee
13. Often in a floral skirt
14. Wears a homemade necklace
15. Bought shampoo twice in four years of college
16. Stores all of his clothing in trashbags
17. Eats food off of strangers' plates in restaurants after they leave
18. Doesn't think it's strange that he had a conversation with a naked hoola-hooper at Bonnaroo
19. Many other reasons...we ran out of time

"Top 10 reasons Chase is a model"
Pictures coming...check back soon

Here are those pictures...

We told you we'd add. They are: the boys with scenery at the Tongariro Crossing, Sam getting down at the orchard we worked at, and the geodesic dome we built. Enjoy, and check out the post below for words!

Oh hey, Internet! Long time no blog.

Dear readers,

Since the idea of updating you on the past month is overwhelming to both us and you (and the bandwidth at this incredibly slow cafe), we have instead decided to give a brief description of how we have spent beloved American holidays in New Zealand kiwi-style.

1. January 29th, 2012. The day in which to celebrate the birth of one Alexander "All-American" Taylor. Normally there are parades, autographs, and songs, oh no wait that's the party that Glens Falls is going to throw for Alex when he's back home (true story.) In New Zealand, we worked in the orchard in the morning and played frisbee at the beach. In the evening, we supped upon a feast of lamb steaks, mac&cheese (homemade, just like his mom always made for his birthday!), salad, and surprise birthday cake and ice cream. We also drank a lot of homemade pear cider and wine, while listening to the divine musical stylings of Eiffel 65's "Blue." For. 3. Hours. On. Repeat.

2. February 2nd. Some of you may know February 2nd as Groundhog Day. What many of you may not know is that February 2nd is celebrated in New Zealand as Shakira's Birthday. Welcome to the party. You'll never experience Groundhog Day the same again. We celebrated this holiday by digging a trench for the geodesic dome that we helped build. Mixing and pouring concrete, the gentlemen exuded their masculinity in a way that is only fit for Shakira (and Dal looked great, exuding femininity in a way only fit for Rafa Nadal). Tired and covered in concrete dust, we finished Shakira Day by sharing a six-pack with our host, Duncan, in the middle of our concrete foundation.

3. Superbowl Sunday. We were shocked to hear that this year's Super Bowl match up was between two teams, the New England "Patriots" and the New York Football Giants, that did not have star passer Rex Grossman as their starting quarterback. We were even more surprised to find that the team that DID have football legend Rex Grossman as the starting quarterback, the Washington Redskins,were not in the Superbowl...or the playoffs...or within 2 games of .500. Coupling this with the fact that we literally couldn't stomach the thought of rooting for either team, we decided to skip watching the game altogether. We ended up deciding it would be more enjoyable to climb a barren volcanic mountain that served as Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings, rather than look at close ups of Eli and Tom make pouty faces for 3 hours. You can judge for yourselves, but I think we made a good choice.

4. February 12th, 2012. This day shall forever go down in history as Ashley Day. Dallis' sister, Ashley, came to visit for a 10-day whirlwind sisterventure. We drove down from Napier, got an itrip and finally had music for our roadtripping, tasted wine and chocolate for free, and met Ashley in Wellington. We ate delicious Malaysian food and walked around the wharf at sunset. What a great day.

5. Valentine's Day. This more or less began Dallis and Ashley's "sisterventure," which coincided with the beginning of Bro Week (or Yes Week). What could be more romantic! In the states, we may have spent Valentine's Day buying roses for girls (cooties, amirite?), going out to dinner, or trying to meet the high expectations universally held by all women for this holiday. Instead, the three boys spent what is probably the most romantic Valentine's Day on record, consisting of: a daylong biking tour of Marlborough vineyards, free wine tasting, a picnic lunch of bread, cheese, veggies, and vineyard-bought wine, and a tipsy, giggly ride back to the hostel. Then? Kayaking along the river to watch the sunset, homemade dinner and more wine, and watching Lord of the Rings before bed...where we had to take care of our pukey Dutch roommate. Not exactly the end game we were hoping for.

6. President's Day. Nobody knows when this day actually is or how it's celebrated in the states. In New Zealand, we celebrated by reuniting our fearless foursome at the rainy Franz Josef Glacier, after our respective weeks of hiking, boating, and adventuring throughout the south island's many national parks. Result? Rainbows, unicorns, and this blog post.

We're back to wwoofing tomorrow, so enjoy this one and a few pictures of our travels! And look forward to a few more top 10 lists in the coming week or two.

New Zealand's Bottom 10

So far, we’ve written a lot this blog about how wonderful New Zealand is. Lest our loyal readers begin to think this fair island is all sunshine, puppies and hobbits, here is a perspective on some of the struggles, trials, and tribulations of life in the southern hemisphere. Without further ado…

New Zealand’s Not Top 10:

1.       The direction money flows - All of it out of our wallets, none of it in.

2.       Sam’s rat tail – We were very disappointed to learn that Sam’s rat tail is too short to attach a bead to or braid. This unfortunate information was delivered to us by a woman at a surf commune selling friendship bracelets for the exorbitant price of “whatever you feel like giving”. If this registered hippy was unable to braid Sam’s hair, it’s officially too short still.

3.       Chase’s pants pocket – Hid Chase’s winning raffle ticket from him when his number was called at a bar event, preventing us from winning a teapot full of alcohol or a MYSTERY BOX! (he would have chosen the teapot).

4.       Dallis’s pants pocket – Their small size prevented this trip’s first (and best) prank from happening. Chase eventually found his winning raffle ticking hidden in the abyss of his pocket, and tried to prank Dallis by planting the ticket in her pocket. Over the course of a couple days, he continually mentioned that he thought he gave the ticket to one of us at the bar and got everyone to agree on horrible punishments for someone if the raffle ticket was found in their possession. Unfortunately, Dallis’s tiny pockets somehow lost the ticket and Chase’s prank masterpiece never unfolded.

5.       The price of gas – A pretty normal gas price here is $2.11 (New Zealand dollars) per liter. For those of you (all of you) who don’t think in New Zealand dollars or metric volume units, let me put this price in terms you can understand. A NZ dollar is approximately 0.8 US dollars, and a liter is 0.264 gallons. The price in US dollars per gallon we are paying is $6.39. Given that we have a 50 liter fuel tank, this also means that it can often take over NZ$100 (US$80) to fill our tank.

6.       The state of the Washington Wizards –  Man, I know it was supposed to be a rebuilding year, but COME ON. This is pathetic. Has John Wall really regressed that much? Does Andray Blatche have any trade value left, or are we stuck with him? Is resigning JaVale McGee going to be worth the money? Was firing Flip Saunders the right move? Why is old man Lewis still getting PT? Will the draft lottery be the highlight of the season?

7.       The fact that we have been mistaken for Canadians twice and Germans once – Really New Zealand?

8.       The chemical toilets in our housebus – So apparently there is a dial on the side of our chemical toilet that tells you when it is close to full. In retrospect, this is a better method than our previous one of “whoops the toilet is too full to close”

9.       The hole in the ozone layer – It’s real folks, and situated nicely over New Zealand. SPF 60 here we come!

10.   The weather – There have been scattered showers lots of days. Ok, so this probably isn’t bad compared to weather back home, but I’m pretty much out of bad things.

We're still in the Shire

Kia Ora!

There have been a lot of exciting happenings since we last wrote. We just arrived at our second farm today, after spending a week with our last hosts, Maria (the owner) and Molly (the absurdly adorable dog). Sorry Lily and Bailey, Chase and I were kind of cheating on you. Dal and Sam mentioned a bit in the last post, but we spent most of our time there working in the garden and orchard weeding/picking/mulching things (including the odd possum), feeding the chickens, chopping wood, and generally doing things that are fun, outside, and make you really appreciate how fulfilling a lifestyle farming must be. It's pretty cool to eat a meal mostly out of things you grew in your own backyard. (And yes, Dad, I did just say that mulching was kind of fun. I might regret that one.) Maria's "lifestyle block" also had its own water and septic system, and they were making efforts to live as self-sufficiently as possible, which is a pretty cool idea that is actually really popular in New Zealand, which I guess isn't that surprising considering how much beautiful, fertile land is all over this country. But anyways!

The farm we're at now is looking like the makings of a fantastic week. We're living in an 11-meter long "housebus," which is kind of a combination between an RV and a camper, and is 100% superfly. Pictures will definitely be attached once we have fast enough internet to deal with photos. Amanda and Alistair, the parents here, are really sweet and accomodating, and they have two boys (4 and 7), that are adorable wildmen who spent today alternating between "helping" us mulch around sapling citrus trees and running/climbing/jumping on and off the roof of their garage. Hilarious. We finished the evening by cooking some chicken korma (hey Lars!), drinking homemade pear hard cider from the orchard, and admiring the view (of the sunset, surrounding hills, and Sam's mousetail) from the hilltop. Not too shabby.

Anyways, I'll try to keep this one brief (we have internet at this farm, unlike the last one), but here are a few other highlights from the past little while:

- Generally, the weather has improved, but we did spend a really wet day last week doing "indoor wwoofing" at Maria's, which turned out to be really fun and delicious. We learned how to make preserves, which is now one of the only things on our list of farming hard skills , and ended up with a bunch of jars of plum jam, blueberry and red currant preserves, and fantastic homemade relish, in addition to some banana bread and blueberry muffins.

- On our last day in Taranaki, we went to Egmont National Park to hike Mt. Taranaki. Although Dallis unfortunately had to turn back because of her knee, the three boys summited the 8,000 ft. ACTIVE volcano, complete with crazy steep trail over volcanic sand and shale (between 30 and 45 degrees), intense bouldering, a crater filled with an ice and snow field, and a fantastic view of the ocean and countryside from the top. Though we've had some good hikes before, I think we all agree that Taranaki is one of the hardest mountains we've ever climbed.

- The following day, we made our way to the Waitomo Caves, one of the many "don't miss this" recommendations we received before leaving for New Zealand. They definitely didn't disappoint. We had guided tours through two separate caves, which are famous not just for being really cool, beautiful limestone caves, but also for the glowworms (actually larvae of a specific gnat species) that hang like constellations scattered across the ceiling of the caves. They're really interesting creatures, and there were lots of cool things to see and learn about, including a big cavern in one of the caves which is reputed for having nearly perfect acoustics, and has hosted a lot of famous groups for concerts, including the Vienna Boys Choir. Pretty neat stuff. One of the best quotes from our guide: "The glowworm adult male, which only lives about 2 or 3 days, copulates for about 12-24 hours...which is pretty standard for the average Kiwi male. He then keels over and dies, which is also pretty standard for the average Kiwi male."

- The Ascot has proven to be quite a trooper ('94 was a good year for cars, apparently). While New Zealand is known for many things, "gas-stations-open-after-7PM-on-a-Sunday" apparently are not one of them. On our way from Waitomo to Wanganui, where we spent the night last night before arriving at the Vickers' farm, we were running seriously low on gas, with over 100 kilometers to go. After passing many closed gas stations (one with a painted over "24 hour gas' sign), we knocked on a strangers door to ask if he knew where the nearest open gas station was. Unfortunately, it was in Wanganui. But after glancing at our car and and VERY generously estimating that we had a quarter tank of gas left, he assured us we could make it there without running out of gas, so... we went for it. There wasn't any gas, cell phone service (for AA), or really a town to be seen for the entire twisting, rainy drive, but we just made it into town on fumes.

That's it for now, we're headed to the beach to swim. Hope you're all doing well, and let us know what you're up to!