Who - What and Where

We have been here on our little block for just over seven years now. Sometimes it feels like yesterday, sometimes it feel like forever
We spent many years living in small town Kawerau ( of 'trouble at mill' fame) dreaming about the day we would live on a 'block'.
We dreamed of the 'block'while we struggled to bring our composite family of seven kids ( two of his, four of mine and one of ours) through the trials and tribulations of growing up. We planned what we would do and how we would live on the 'block, practising our skills on a 1/4 acre town section, keeping ducks,chooks, growing trees and growing our own fruit and vegies.We eventually found our little jewel in the Manawahe hills, with a little old soldier/settler house that, like Topsy, had grown, and that was pronounced 'habitable' by the authorities.
Since then we have learned much and done much and although all our 'practising' in town has often stood us in good stead, we were still sadly lacking at times. The house is rather more than habitable now although the plans we make are added to faster than they are crossed of the list! We have learned about livestock, deadstock, droughts, floods, how to fix the pump, how to join the water pipe you just cut and how to survive on nothing because all your money is paying the mortgage!! We have learned that Manawahe can often have deep frosts, -8 or -9 c, we have learned to fill buckets the night before! We have learned that despite the fact you have built beautiful pig houses that the farrowing sow will build a nest at the top of the hill, in a gale or in a rain storm and call it good. We have learned that the aforementioned sow ( or sows) will also farrow down right where the flood comes through and then go sit in her house! We have learned that if you cant find your heavily pregnant animals they are busy labouring in the most inaccessable part of the farm and that if they give birth at the top of a slope, then baby will most likely end up at the bottom of said slope! Oh yeah, we have learned an awful lot!!
The 11 acre paddock that we started with is now divided into four large paddocks, 3 medium sized, and 3 small paddocks, with electric fencing thoughout. We have cows and sheep and ducks but best of all we have the Kune pigs :-)
We started with a black and white sow that was a gift from my husband's parents and then, after the freezer pig got lucky and she produced a litter of Saddleback/Kune cross piglets, we ended up with a beautiful boar that was swapped for one of our crossbreeds.
He was registered with the Kunekune Association, with a traceable bloodline and from there we have not looked back. You will meet our Kune 'family', now numbering five breeding animals, as this diary progresses, along with all the other critters and their stories.
You are about to enter the wilds of Manawahe...be afraid..be very very afraid!!!