Littlejohn. Photo: Hamish McNeilly
I think we need some good news.
A few weeks ago I wrote a story about a man who lives in a cave.
He called himself ‘Littlejohn’, and unlike many people I come across, he seemed happy with his lot.
I was happy too. I had wanted to track down, and talk with, Littlejohn for years.
A few days after that story I received an email from a family member of Littlejohn, who was grateful to know he was alive.
Another family member had also contacted Cr Mike Lord, who was a vital link in tracking the Outram-based Littlejohn down.
I won’t delve into their situation, but this is a family who had no idea if their loved one was alive or dead.
I hope they get the chance to meet again.
And on Sunday I got a text from an unknown number.
And cheers to you!
It is a hard time for small business owners, the streets around Dunedin’s CBD are becoming increasingly emptied as people self-isolate/work from home.
But things can also get tough for those working on the outskirts of our city.
This next story is about Holy Milk.
Port Chalmers couple Merrall and Alex MacNeille are the dynamic duo behind the company, which largely supplies fresh milk in glass bottles, as well as cheese, yoghurt and cream, to its loyal customer base.
Merrall and Alex MacNeille. Photo Rob Tipa/Stuff
In addition to selling at shops and the Otago Farmer's Market, the company uses a vending machine as well as the farm honesty box system.
The honesty system, which accepts either cash or via an IOU book had run for 19-years, but now Holy Cow was forced to end it, Merrall MacNeille said.
‘‘It hasn’t been perfect . . . but it has been a decent, workable system.
“But our honour system is now breaking down,.”
The couple used to operate a small farm in Massachusetts, before emigrating to New Zealand in 2003.
They operated a similar system back on their farm in the United States in 1985.
“It is something we have done for years and years and years.’’
Since December the farm had been ripped-off at least three times “and I imagine there are more’’.
Thieves. Photo: Holy Cow
MacNeille, who turns 69 next month, told me he regularly works 12-hour days, and it was hard that people were stealing from him.
‘‘I’m not going belly-up tomorrow, but it’s discouraging.’’
The couple made the decision to not resupply the farm’s honesty store, and will now lock it up at night.
But he noted the last people to steal from the store came during the late afternoon.
Thieves had targeted a range of products, including milk, eggs, honey ‘‘a bit of this and a bit of that’’.
One man took four trays of eggs, albeit one he dropped at the scene.
Another shot of a thief. Photo: Holy Cow
MacNeille said he would like to talk to each of the men, to understand their motives, and maybe receive an apology.
‘‘If someone had no money for groceries I’d probably give them something anyway.
“I just don't know why they are doing it.’’
He was going to take the CCTV footage to police but believed ‘‘getting in trouble for stealing eggs is moronic’’.
He had noticed roadside stands starting to disappear from Dunedin’s streets and that was a ‘‘shame’’.
‘‘I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, and in their heart people are good.’’
And another one. Photo: Holy Cow
MacNeille said the farm, which overlooks Otago Harbour, was currently milking 21 cows.
Sounds like a good local business to support.
This afternoon I had a chat with Dr Susan Jack, Southern District Health Board medical officer of heath.
It appears that Dunedin’s crap summer coupled with the return of thousands of students has resulted in the city becoming a ‘Covid hotspot’.
Once the Omicron variant entered a “socially active community you are going to have spread . . . Omicron is very infectious and we are seeing that play out,” Jack explained.
While the DHB experienced an initial outbreak in the tourism resort of Queenstown, Dunedin was now accounting for the majority of southern cases.
It is likely to get worse, much worse.
The true numbers won’t be known, one flaw is that those students who were registered outside of Dunedin may not be recorded as a positive case in the city.
That should change as of today.
Meanwhile, Jack noted the younger person demographic was ‘socially active’, and the outbreak coincided with the return of thousands of students to Dunedin for tertiary studies.
While those young people tended to be highly vaccinated, many had not received a booster shot, and they tended to get ‘‘mild infections and nothing more than that’’.
‘‘At the moment the outbreak is among that population, but as time goes on – as we look at other countries – it will spread into the wider community, and then it will be concerning if it gets into older aged groups, or more vulnerable communities.’’
On another matter. I got stung by a wasp recently and found a nest on my property.
I left behind a scene looking like a Bruce Willis movie.
I was pleased to hear that the council, alongside members from all of the Dunedin Rotary clubs, would enter the town belt to place bait to wage war on the wasps.
The wasps take the bait back to their hive and feed it to the Queen.
Queen dies along with the nest.
Now that’s uplifting news.
My Tweet of the Week is a nod to former Dunedin band being in Berlin when the wall came down. It is a great read:
Here’s a song to get over your midweek slump.
And if the poor weather has got you down, and the negative headlines. Check out this bad boy.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Anyway, as always, email me your tips on hamish.mcneilly@stuff.co.nz