It's July at River Valley, New Zealand, and the snow has just started to fall. The lodge and stables are looking magical blanketed in snow, but it's not so good for the vegetable garden. At Pukeokahu Janey, Melissa and the kids are making the most of the snow and finding another use for a duckie.

One of our Winter projects this year is to build some new walking tracks. The old tracks were destroyed by slips when we had very heavy rain a couple of years ago.

The school holidays seemed like the perfect time to scope out a new track, as the kids were keen to get outside and enjoy the unexpected Winter sunshine!

There is still a lot of work to do to make the track accessible, but hopefully it will be ready by Summer.

Thanks to everyone who came out for our Mid-Winter Christmas feast last weekend. It was great to see so many familiar faces. If you didn't make it here's a short video of what you missed out on - so much delicious paddock to plate food!

Brian has been out planting some new Thornless Honeylocust trees (from Kahikatea Farm) in the paddock. The trees fix nitrogen and also have an edible pod which the animals can eat.

River Valley check and bait around 120 stoat traps, both overground and along the Rangitikei River. During the Summer the traps usually get checked on a monthly basis. Due to covid-19 this is the first time we have been able to get out on the river and check the traps for a while.

Time for some duck wrangling. The newest residents up at the homestead are getting out and about.

Melissa and Brian have been busy in the vegetable gardens testing out the new seeder and planting Spring veggies - broccoli, carrots, kale, onions, lettuces and cabbages. And Mavis has been helping to plant some fejoa trees in the bottom garden.

This year for our staff Christmas trip we decided to get on the river and take a 2 day Lodge to Lodge trip downstream, staying at Tarata Lodge for the night.

2 days on the Rangitikei river in rafts and duckies, passing through the beautiful Mokai Canyon section that most of the staff have rarely (or never) had the chance to experience, except those who have been on our multi-day trips. A fun trip for everyone, especially the kids!