Krumm-Jury farm conclusion.

Holy smokes! I can't believe how quickly the time has flown during my stay with the Krumm-Jury family. It's the first fully properly organic place that I've come across (makes you wonder about who's running this wwoof organization, don't it). I've had the opportunity to do all sorts of different tasks and I believe I've learned a lots of new skills and gained a lot of insight into how much work goes into keeping a place like this going (and why macadamia nuts are so goddamn expensive).

Misty morning on the farm

They are mostly macadamia, avocado and sheep farmers. The farm is 120 acres, and there are over 400 heads of sheep. I arrived in the summer after my quick visit to Australia and was in time to help with sheep shearing (I was sorting the wool and putting it into the shipping bags with a team of German lads) and harvesting the various fruits and veg. Early in the week my job was sorting macadamia nuts and shells (separating the shells, mouldy, un-cracked and good nuts), then I would help with various tasks around the gardens (weeding/harvesting), later in the week I got produce ready to sell at the markets. Chris gets a large load of avocados ready to take to the markets in Cambridge and Hamilton (Saturday and Sunday mornings, respectively), along with the various nut products (chocolate bars, bulk nuts and spreads).

Birdie hiding in a WWOOFer's shoe

I arrived at their farm January 8th, and left April 12th. Summer was in full swing when I got there, and the lads were harvesting macadamia nuts. Initially I was helping Daniela in 'the factory', sorting nuts, helping to make chocolate bars. The nut sorting is pretty mindless, while I was doing it alone, I would try and catch up on my podcasts. Thankfully I didn't have to do this every day, day in, day out. I also helped Daniela in the gardens, or pick fruit from the various types of trees. When they were in season, I picked, sorted and bagged plums, watered and picked cucumbers and gathered fallen grapefruit, oranges, apples for us to eat at the house (they are harder to keep looking nice to sell at the farmer's markets). Saturdays were spent picking and washing carrots and beetroot in preparation for New Plymouth farmer's market Sunday morning. I helped Daniela set up and take down the stall, but outside of that, I had the morning free to explore the city. To be honest, it seemed to rain most of the times I was there, so I spent a good deal of time at the library catching up with folks online, as I didn't have access to the internet on the farm. Previous wwoofers would spend all their free time online, and the family got tired of watching them stare at their devices.

My usual morning & coffee break view of the garden.

Chris' family has owned the farmland for several generations, stretching back to the original pioneers in the area. They were the first folks to legally bring macadamia trees to New Zealand. It's in the last 30 years that Chris has switched it to a completely organic farm, and he and Daniela planted all the trees on the property, favouring native varieties. There is a creek that runs through the property where all the water comes from, and some wetlands set up in the paddocks farthest away from the house. These are encouraging the return of waterfowl and freshwater critters to the farm. In the last few years crayfish have showed up in the creek, which is an indication of a healthy and clean water supply.

As there is so much land and only the one family (plus any wwoofers passing through) to work it, there are sometimes outside folks and animals which help to keep things going. On one of the macadamia nut orchard paddocks, there is a small apiary. The bees help with pollinating the trees, and the trees provide the organic pollen for the bees. The resulting macadamia nut honey is delicious. There is also a herd of cattle which grazes the land behind the lambs, ewes and rams keeping the grass under control. Unfortunately the cattle drink HEAPS of water on hot summer days, which, combined with the drought this summer, meant that there was about a month where we had to really conserve water to make sure there was enough to go around. I never went thirsty, but sometimes laundry day got pushed back a few days and 'showers' were more like bird baths.

Dehydrated nuts ready for the freezer.

Both macadamia nut and avocado trees require about a decade to mature, and it takes about another year after they flower for one to get fruit from the trees. After they're harvested, the macadamia nut husks are removed and the nuts are graded 1-6 (1 = smallest, 6 = largest), then packed away in mesh bags and stored in a dryer for 6 weeks, they are dehydrated to about 10% moisture. Next, they are sorted (any cracked/growing ones are removed) and bagged, then stored in a freezer until they can be cracked and sorted to remove the shells. Unblemished nuts are sold as shelled bulk nuts, while others are made into spreads or chopped up to be put into chocolate bars.

While the avocado trees take a similar length of time to mature into a fruit-bearing tree, they don't require quite so much work to become ready for sale. The farm has 3 varieties, haas (pear shaped, typical grocery store variety, ripe in summer), hayes (teardrop shaped, we pruned back a tree which had grown too large to harvest from and got some HUGE fruit) and reed (spherical, ripe in winter and tastes like butter). Since leaving the farm, I have only eaten one haas, and it was nothing compared to the farm-fresh ones. Fingers crossed that, wherever I end up sticking around for a while, has a good organic farmer's market I can afford to buy produce from.

I lived in a van down by the horse race
track once a week.

Early into my stay, Chris injured himself, so I was offered a job (after a trial weekend under his supervision) working the Cambridge and Hamilton farmer's markets on the weekend. I drove the big Mac Snack van over 3 hours to sell my wares between 8-12 until Chris had recovered enough to work the markets himself again. I stuck around a couple extra weeks so he could attend the annual surfing weekend (his one weekend off a year, I was told). Sadly, I never got the chance to see him ride the waves, but was informed he's quite an accomplished surfer. I was encouraged to sightsee while on these trips. I stopped by the Hamilton Gardens, The Kiwi House at Otorohanga, two of the caves at Waitomo and even made it to Hobbiton over easter weekend.

Waitomo cave formation

Bag End

the Party Tree

Bag End

see? I really was there.

It wasn't all work all the time, while young Cassia was on summer vacation from school, there were trips to the various beaches in the area, horseback rides on the property (and riding lessons), the New Plymouth Festival of Lights, Daneila, Cassia and I went to WOMAD after the Sunday market in New Plymouth, and there was a trip to Rotokare, a protected park south of Inglewood with a pest-proof fence around the perimeter (stimulating the return of native birds and plant-life) during the last week of my stay. There were also plenty of sunny morning and afternoon coffee breaks with Daniela punctuated with laughs and stories.

Festival of Lights display

Urenui beach

Daniela, Cassia on her pony in the back garden

All in all I had a great time with the family, but felt it was time to move on and continue with my adventure at the end of the three months. WWOOFing is strange, some people want you to be a member of the family, others want you to just entertain yourself (one couple I stayed with, I really only saw them at dinner aside from when they would give me instructions), one lady I stayed with would continuously interrupt and check up on me, another kinda just wanted me to do housework. I wanted to try and fit in with them as best I could, but I always ended up feeling like it was time to go. The fates hooked me up with a travel companion, and we headed south early one April morning.

Urenui beach