The Moa Dig

This is part two of A Visit from Gretel and Jeanette

The next morning Gretel and Jeanette go to visit  Ruby’s Bird Sanctuary .  Ruby hears her dogs barking so knows they have arrived. Ruby invites Gretel and Jeanette to come inside to have  lunch.

 

While they are eating lunch Gretel tells Ruby about their visit to Kowhai Corner to visit their sister, Gretchen. She also adds that they had a meeting t with the Sunshine brothers last night and asked if they could do a moa dig at the back of the farm near the river. The Sunshine brothers turned down their request.  Gretel and Jeanette are very disappointed about being turned down because they have done research and they have discovered that moa bones were found in that area in 1874.

Ruby tells them that Selena Sunshine is their sister and she is her best friend. Ruby offers to ring Selena and see if Selena can get her brothers to change their minds. Gretel and Jeanette exclaim that would be wonderful if she would do that. Ruby rings Selena and explains the situation to her.

Selena replies that she is going to Kowhai Tree Farm this weekend and will speak to her brothers then. Selena works as a typists in the city and rents a flat in the city. She comes home to the family farm most weekends. At the weekend Ruby gets a phone call from Harold Sunshine giving Gretel and Jeanette permission for a dig. Gretel and Jeanette will be allowed to camp at the back of Kowhai Tree Farm for seven days only and they are not to go to an area Harold specifies (where K. C. Bunnyborough is established).

They leave Ruby’s house the next morning and go to Kowhai Tree Farm. They put their tent up in the area where they want to dig.

                                        

The next morning they get up early to study their map before they start digging. They dig for three hours before they stop for something to eat and drink.

They continue digging all day. After they have dug in an area they put the dirt back and dig in another area.

                                  

It is now the late afternoon of the fourth day of digging when Jeanette calls out to Gretel that she has hit something hard and it looks like a bone! Gretel comes over and very carefully they dig a bit more and it does look like a bone and it is a big one too! What excitement they both feel. It is now getting dark and it hard to see so they decide to stop and they will continue in the morning.




                                       

They are back at the site early the next morning both keen to continue digging. They had been digging for about four hours when the length of the exposed bone could be seen. It is the length of them!

“How are we going to move the bone?” asks Jeanette.

“I will go back to Harold’s house and ask him if we can use the pony, Greylegs and a cart,” replies Gretel.

Gretel comes back with  with a cart attached to Greylegs. Harold and John have also come to help them put the bone in the cart. They have all agreed to take the bone to Ruby’s house. Harold has asked them not to tell anyone that they dug the bone up from Kowhai Tree Farm. Gretel will send a sample of the bone to the laboratory to get it tested to see if it is a moa bone.

 Ruby can’t believe it when they arrive at her house with the big bone.

 

They carefully take the bone off the cart and put it on the ground and cover it with a cloth to protect it until they know if it is a moa bone.

 

The sample test result is positive!!! It is a moa leg bone. Reporters start ringing Ruby’s house wanting more information and want to take photos. Articles appear in newspapers and magazines.  People can  visit and pay to see the moa leg bone.  The money that will be received will be used to help maintain Ruby’s Bird Rescue Sanctuary.

 Two days later… Ruby, Gretel and Jeanette have changed their mind. They have decided to donate the moa leg bone to a museum because Ruby’s phone is ringing all day and night and people are outside her property each day waiting to get in to have a look at the moa bone.

John has built a bone shape  table top in memory of the moa bone find and gives it to Ruby's Bird Rescue Sanctuary. Gretel and Jeanette have left Kowhai Tree Farm with a very happy memory.