Giggles the kunekune pig Our three scruffy pigs stared through the paddock gate, transfixed by a vision of loveliness: Giggles the majestic polka-dotted kunekune pig. She was above them, standing on the back of a trailer. She clearly wanted nothing...
Category: Stories
These are blog posts I wrote as short stories.
The duck who came to dinner
Rolling out the welcome mat It was the height of summer when I found a brown duck swimming around our goldfish pond like it owned the place. It stared me down fearlessly as if to say, “I was here first....
Carrot cake everyone wants
Dave’s Carrot Cake This is just one of the recipes that appears in my olive farming memoir, ‘An Olive Grove at the Edge of the World’. ___________________ “Why won’t you share it?” I asked CJ. We were standing in the kitchen,...
Getting intimate with a cast sheep
“There’s a sheep down in your paddock,” our neighbor Jim said over the phone. He’d been working along the fenceline when he saw the sheep. “It looks pretty sick,” he said. I immediately called Hamish. The sheep belong to him....
Pinot speed dating in Martinborough
Ata Rangi 2008 Crimson The room was dimly lit. There were candles glowing everywhere, red and white heart-shaped helium balloons across the ceiling, and an inviting fire burning in the nearby fireplace. I stood talking to an energetic, grey-haired woman...
Tsunami of the lost purse
Lucy noticed her purse was missing just as the tsunami warnings came across the kitchen radio. A horrible earthquake in Chile meant we expecting a giant tsunami. We’d planned to go to the coast that day. Should we still go?...
Dad never saw this place
Misty morning in the olive grove Back in 2003, my sister called from Michigan and left me a voice message that I’ll never forget. “I have something to tell you,” she said. “I think you know what it is.” She...
Life and death outside our door
Sheep in our stockyard It all started with a ram. At the end of last summer, in late February, Hamish said, “I’m going to bring over a ram.” Hamish is the stock agent who grazes his sheep and cattle in...
Old Man Henry and the chook house race wars
Old Man Henry Old Man Henry is our geriatric rooster. He is mangy and decrepit. The feathers on his head are just quill stubble. He’s half blind, bow-legged, and he pauses strangely after every step. On certain misty mornings, when...