Ok, so I'm gonna post a lot of cool stuff about Wellington now that I've arrived here, and things ARE super cool, but I have to take a quick break to freak out, so bear with me.
I don't know what I'm going to do with my life when I get back to the States.
Yeah, I know I'm repeating myself with this "what am I doing with my life" stuff, but I just feel so lost sometimes. I was walking around at the zoo today and enjoying the animals and thinking about how I wanted to be a zookeeper for a while, and that got be thinking about all the things I've wanted to "be" in my life.
The first time I remember answering that "what do you want to be when you grow up?" question, I answered that I wanted to be a part-time veterinarian and part-time player for the WNBA. I couldn't settle on just one thing even then. Over time I've thought seriously about being a vet, a fiction writer, a zookeeper, a museum curator, a journalist, a farmer, etc, etc.
I know my career isn't ME, and I think as a whole people are too focused on defining themselves by the job they have, but I DO need to figure out how I'm going to earn money, and how I'm going to afford a place to live, and WHERE I want to live, among other things.
While I'm here in New Zealand I'm living on borrowed time. I'm learning tons, and making enough money to travel around and see things. Kerouac would be proud. I'm making it as a vagabond, and I'm proud of it. BUT, people are already asking me about what I'm going to do when I get home, and I don't have an answer. There are so many possibilities, and yet everytime I try to follow one possibility I seem to hit a brick wall.
If I want to go and be a vet, I'd have to go back to school for a year or two to qualify for vet school, and then do that. Another 6 years in school. If I wanted to be a vet tech, which would be pretty cool, I'd have to go back to school for two years, but then my bachelor's would pretty much be wasted.
If I wanted to be a zookeeper I'd need to go back to school for between 1 and 4 years and then find an internship. Starting my way from the bottom, again.
If I wanted to be a writer, I'd have to get something published. Ditto being a journalist. So far this is looking the most likely, haha.
If I wanted to be a museum curator I'd have to get an internship at a museum. This is fairly possible, but I'm not sure I want to work in a museum, as that usually means living in a city.
If I wanted to be a farmer, I'd need to get a position on a farm (working my way into a management position) while I make money for land or a farm of my own. I could be working at that for at least ten years before seeing anything come of it.
I don't know, guys. Everything just seems so impossible, sometimes. I'm a go-getter, and if I really felt passionately about one thing, I'd work for it even though it DID seem impossible, but I'm pulled in different directions with no clear sign saying "THIS IS YOUR CALLING."
I need some direction. Anyone got any ideas?
"If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present."
-Lao Tzu
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Onward!
I’m done with my dairy job now, after two and a half weeks working for Hennie and Kerri Verwaayen, and I’m on to the next thing. Basically, here’s minor plan in outline form, as I want this post to be mostly photos.
-It’s now Sunday. I’ll be staying in town with Ann and Murray until Wednesday or Thursday, when I’ll take a bus down to Wellington.
-I’ll spend somewhere around a week in Wellington, exploring NZ’s capitol, seeing the museums, and if I’m lucky, stumbling onto some of the work being done for The Hobbit, which started filming last week!!
-While in Wellington I’ll catch up with the Stray bus and then ride over to the South Island with them and continue on in their route, which, I think, goes to Abel Tasman national park next!
And after that I have no idea. The footloose and fancy-free life of the road is calling.
But here’s what’s happened on the farm while I was around, and I’ll hopefully have some pictures of Ann and Murray and their place in my next post.
P.S. Some of these photos are blurry because they were taken through a plastic bag, as I didn’t want my camera to be covered in manure and other viscous fluids.
Here’s the milking shed at the farm:
A pen full of my charges. That bunch in the back is the mob of Fresian heifer calves.
Taking the four-wheeler and walking the in-calf cows out to their paddock:
One of the numerous paddocks on the farm. Pretty, though!
Bringing in the milking herd. You can’t see it here, but there are cows as far as the eye can see all lined up. I’m tempted to re-write that Cake song and call it “Long Line of Cows.”
Hennie and Lucy helping deliver a breech calf:
A couple of pics of me and my calves!
My white board, outlining the different pens, and who’s where:
Me in my coveralls in front of the milking shed:
My calf bite (ok, she didn’t really bite me, she was just sucking on my arm and then butted upwards like she’d do if she were really drinking, and happened to graze me with her baby teeth):
So yeah! Here are a couple more points of note from the last week:
-I was apparently in my first earthquake, even though I didn’t feel it. I was milking with Hayden and there was a squeaking noise that I thought was the milk pump, but Hayden froze and looked at the ceiling. I said “what’s up?” and he said “didn’t you feel that?” and I said no, and he said “that was an earthquake! A tiny one. It moved the shed a bit.” And I said “oh!” And that was that!
- I got cut with a rusty wire a couple of days ago. As I was measuring it Hayden walked by and tripped over it, pulling it through my hands, and it was all rusted and frayed and it ripped my right hand up a bit. So the next day I checked my immunization records and found that I hadn’t had a tetanus booster since 2000, so I called the clinic in town, and after getting my name, birthday and permanent address they told me to come in the next day. The next morning I went in, got my shot, waited the 20 minutes to make sure I wasn’t allergic to it, and got out of the office in half an hour! And the shot was free! Under some accident insurance scheme in New Zealand, if you’re injured on the job you get most medical treatment for free, even if you’re not a resident! They didn’t ask for my visa or passport or anything! It was amazingly efficient and pain free. Except for the shot itself, of course.
-This isn’t really news, but I’m super in love with Brandi Carlile and her music. I posted a song of hers in the last post, and I hope you all listened to it. She’s all I’ve been listening to lately.
I’ve been feeling homesick lately, as well. I guess this happens whenever I’m in between things. But I really miss the people and places back home. More than ever, I wish there was a way to transport back and forth seamlessly, but then life would be too easy. I was saying to Kerri on the way into town today that I think people are constantly torn between their desire for adventure and new-ness, and their need for comfort and routine. When I’m home I want to be out, and when I’m out I want to be home. It’s part of the human condition, I reckon.
Also, I’m picking up Kiwi phrases like “I reckon,” “I’m knackered,” “I’m gonna go have a feed,” “I haven’t heard that in yonks,” and “pardon?” when you haven’t heard someone. We’ll see if I can bring them back to the States. :-)
And lastly, here’s a video of birdsong in the morning on the farm. This one’s for you, Dita!
-It’s now Sunday. I’ll be staying in town with Ann and Murray until Wednesday or Thursday, when I’ll take a bus down to Wellington.
-I’ll spend somewhere around a week in Wellington, exploring NZ’s capitol, seeing the museums, and if I’m lucky, stumbling onto some of the work being done for The Hobbit, which started filming last week!!
-While in Wellington I’ll catch up with the Stray bus and then ride over to the South Island with them and continue on in their route, which, I think, goes to Abel Tasman national park next!
And after that I have no idea. The footloose and fancy-free life of the road is calling.
But here’s what’s happened on the farm while I was around, and I’ll hopefully have some pictures of Ann and Murray and their place in my next post.
P.S. Some of these photos are blurry because they were taken through a plastic bag, as I didn’t want my camera to be covered in manure and other viscous fluids.
Here’s the milking shed at the farm:
A pen full of my charges. That bunch in the back is the mob of Fresian heifer calves.
Taking the four-wheeler and walking the in-calf cows out to their paddock:
One of the numerous paddocks on the farm. Pretty, though!
Bringing in the milking herd. You can’t see it here, but there are cows as far as the eye can see all lined up. I’m tempted to re-write that Cake song and call it “Long Line of Cows.”
Hennie and Lucy helping deliver a breech calf:
A couple of pics of me and my calves!
My white board, outlining the different pens, and who’s where:
Me in my coveralls in front of the milking shed:
My calf bite (ok, she didn’t really bite me, she was just sucking on my arm and then butted upwards like she’d do if she were really drinking, and happened to graze me with her baby teeth):
So yeah! Here are a couple more points of note from the last week:
-I was apparently in my first earthquake, even though I didn’t feel it. I was milking with Hayden and there was a squeaking noise that I thought was the milk pump, but Hayden froze and looked at the ceiling. I said “what’s up?” and he said “didn’t you feel that?” and I said no, and he said “that was an earthquake! A tiny one. It moved the shed a bit.” And I said “oh!” And that was that!
- I got cut with a rusty wire a couple of days ago. As I was measuring it Hayden walked by and tripped over it, pulling it through my hands, and it was all rusted and frayed and it ripped my right hand up a bit. So the next day I checked my immunization records and found that I hadn’t had a tetanus booster since 2000, so I called the clinic in town, and after getting my name, birthday and permanent address they told me to come in the next day. The next morning I went in, got my shot, waited the 20 minutes to make sure I wasn’t allergic to it, and got out of the office in half an hour! And the shot was free! Under some accident insurance scheme in New Zealand, if you’re injured on the job you get most medical treatment for free, even if you’re not a resident! They didn’t ask for my visa or passport or anything! It was amazingly efficient and pain free. Except for the shot itself, of course.
-This isn’t really news, but I’m super in love with Brandi Carlile and her music. I posted a song of hers in the last post, and I hope you all listened to it. She’s all I’ve been listening to lately.
I’ve been feeling homesick lately, as well. I guess this happens whenever I’m in between things. But I really miss the people and places back home. More than ever, I wish there was a way to transport back and forth seamlessly, but then life would be too easy. I was saying to Kerri on the way into town today that I think people are constantly torn between their desire for adventure and new-ness, and their need for comfort and routine. When I’m home I want to be out, and when I’m out I want to be home. It’s part of the human condition, I reckon.
Also, I’m picking up Kiwi phrases like “I reckon,” “I’m knackered,” “I’m gonna go have a feed,” “I haven’t heard that in yonks,” and “pardon?” when you haven’t heard someone. We’ll see if I can bring them back to the States. :-)
And lastly, here’s a video of birdsong in the morning on the farm. This one’s for you, Dita!
Music Break
Guys, this song makes me so homesick. Don't worry, this isn't the news post I promised; that's still coming. I just had to share this.
"I left home a long, long time ago
In a tin can for the road
With a suitcase and some songs
Chasing miles through the night time
Making tracks
With no time for looking back
To the place where I belong..."
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Sunrise to Sunset
Well, it’s the Ides of March today. This day has always fascinated me a bit. It makes me want to read Julius Caesar and run around speaking in Latin, but as I don’t have my complete works of Shakespeare with me, nor do I know Latin, I’m making due with watching the episode of Xena which shares the day’s name. Awesome.
I’ve been working on the farm here for six days now, minus my Sunday off, and I’m pretty well settled into the rhythm. Usually I wake up at 6:30 and am out at the milking shed by 7 to start feeding the calves (which we now have tons of; somewhere around 35 with more being born every day), but yesterday was the last day for the farm manager at Hennie and Kerri’s second farm, so Hennie and I went over there to do the morning milking while Kerri and Hayden did the milking here. Hayden and I will be helping with morning milking for the rest of the week until a new relief milker starts in to handle the Woodville (second) farm on Saturday.
So I get up for morning milking at 4:45 and am out at 5:15 to bring the cows in (or head to Woodville if I’m helping Hennie), and we’re done milking by between 8:30 and 9:30, and then we do any last minute chores and come home for breakfast around 10. After an hour for breakfast (we always have oatmeal with raisins, nuts, seeds and yogurt-covered peanuts) I go back out to the shed and help Hayden with whatever he’s doing for two hours until lunch, unless I have a special task from Hennie.
I suppose I should do some sort of introduction for Hayden, so here goes: first of all, I have to say he’s the cutest Kiwi farm boy I’ve ever seen, and he’s my age. BUT, before y’all start with the raised eyebrows and grins, I’ve gotta tell you that he’s married, and has three kids, who are very cute. He’s the farm manager here at the main farm, and he pretty much takes care of all the day-to-day things that need doing unless Hennie feels the need to do something himself (which happens a lot; he’s a huge believer in the “if you want something done right…” philosophy). Hayden’s a nice guy with a love for his work and his family, and never looks at me like I’m a complete dummy when I ask questions like “when Hennie says to cut out the white face calves, which ones does he mean?”
And for those of you that don’t know, white faces have, you guessed it, white faces. They can be red or black and white, and their breed is actually called Hereford.
We have mostly Holstein cows here at the farm, though they are called Fresians here in NZ. Fresians are bred for their milk production ability, but are sometimes crossed with Herefords because of the Hereford’s genes for easy calving and a few other things. Herefords themselves are actually a meat breed, so Hennie only keeps the crossed calves that have conformation (shape) and coloring like the Fresians and sells the ones that have Hereford conformation as meat animals. We’ve also got Airshire cows (bred for milk production) in the milking mob (herds, or big groups of anything in NZ and Australia, are always called mobs), and they cross with the Fresians as well, and we keep all the heifers born from them. There’s one more kind of cow that Hennie keeps in the mob, which is from Holland (where Hennie and Kerri are from) and it’s breed name is long, and in Dutch, so I’m not going to try to get it right. Anyway, they’re pretty cute cows, and Hennie keeps them more for nostalgia than anything else, as they’re a pretty rare breed.
Anyway, back to the day-to-day. At 12pm I go back to the house for lunch for an hour, or sometimes an hour and a half if there’s nothing pressing to do, and I have a sandwich and a nap. Then around 1 or 1:30 I’m back out to the farm to do more chores until 3. These mid-afternoon chores are usually things like mucking out new stalls for the calves, or throwing tires up on top of the silage hills to keep oxygen from getting in and spoiling it. Sometimes I go out with Hennie or Hayden to some of the rented land and move the mobs of dry cows to new paddocks.
Then around 3pm I go out on the four-wheeler, sometimes with Hayden and sometimes on my own, to collect the milking herd and bring them back to the shed. Afternoon milking starts at 4 and we milk until we get done around 5:30. Then I feed the calves their dinner, and then we clean up and head back to the house for dinner around 6:30 or 7.
And then I flop down on my bed and read until 9:30, when I get too tired to keep my eyes open and listen to music until I fall sleep.
It’s a good life, really! It’s good exercise, good for the soul to be outside and with animals all day (unless the calves are particularly trying; then it’s just a lesson in patience), and it’s nice to know at the end of the day that you’ve helped provide part of the country with the milk for their breakfast in the morning. Even so, I don’t think I want to be a dairy farmer. There’s pretty much no way of taking a break or vacation, ever, unless you hire someone to do milking for you. Being a dairy farmer means being tied to your farm every morning and evening, 360 days a year.
But for now I’m enjoying it a lot. And by the time I finish here I think I’ll have made back most of the money I’ve spent since I got to New Zealand, which is icing on the cake.
I’ve been working on the farm here for six days now, minus my Sunday off, and I’m pretty well settled into the rhythm. Usually I wake up at 6:30 and am out at the milking shed by 7 to start feeding the calves (which we now have tons of; somewhere around 35 with more being born every day), but yesterday was the last day for the farm manager at Hennie and Kerri’s second farm, so Hennie and I went over there to do the morning milking while Kerri and Hayden did the milking here. Hayden and I will be helping with morning milking for the rest of the week until a new relief milker starts in to handle the Woodville (second) farm on Saturday.
So I get up for morning milking at 4:45 and am out at 5:15 to bring the cows in (or head to Woodville if I’m helping Hennie), and we’re done milking by between 8:30 and 9:30, and then we do any last minute chores and come home for breakfast around 10. After an hour for breakfast (we always have oatmeal with raisins, nuts, seeds and yogurt-covered peanuts) I go back out to the shed and help Hayden with whatever he’s doing for two hours until lunch, unless I have a special task from Hennie.
I suppose I should do some sort of introduction for Hayden, so here goes: first of all, I have to say he’s the cutest Kiwi farm boy I’ve ever seen, and he’s my age. BUT, before y’all start with the raised eyebrows and grins, I’ve gotta tell you that he’s married, and has three kids, who are very cute. He’s the farm manager here at the main farm, and he pretty much takes care of all the day-to-day things that need doing unless Hennie feels the need to do something himself (which happens a lot; he’s a huge believer in the “if you want something done right…” philosophy). Hayden’s a nice guy with a love for his work and his family, and never looks at me like I’m a complete dummy when I ask questions like “when Hennie says to cut out the white face calves, which ones does he mean?”
And for those of you that don’t know, white faces have, you guessed it, white faces. They can be red or black and white, and their breed is actually called Hereford.
We have mostly Holstein cows here at the farm, though they are called Fresians here in NZ. Fresians are bred for their milk production ability, but are sometimes crossed with Herefords because of the Hereford’s genes for easy calving and a few other things. Herefords themselves are actually a meat breed, so Hennie only keeps the crossed calves that have conformation (shape) and coloring like the Fresians and sells the ones that have Hereford conformation as meat animals. We’ve also got Airshire cows (bred for milk production) in the milking mob (herds, or big groups of anything in NZ and Australia, are always called mobs), and they cross with the Fresians as well, and we keep all the heifers born from them. There’s one more kind of cow that Hennie keeps in the mob, which is from Holland (where Hennie and Kerri are from) and it’s breed name is long, and in Dutch, so I’m not going to try to get it right. Anyway, they’re pretty cute cows, and Hennie keeps them more for nostalgia than anything else, as they’re a pretty rare breed.
Anyway, back to the day-to-day. At 12pm I go back to the house for lunch for an hour, or sometimes an hour and a half if there’s nothing pressing to do, and I have a sandwich and a nap. Then around 1 or 1:30 I’m back out to the farm to do more chores until 3. These mid-afternoon chores are usually things like mucking out new stalls for the calves, or throwing tires up on top of the silage hills to keep oxygen from getting in and spoiling it. Sometimes I go out with Hennie or Hayden to some of the rented land and move the mobs of dry cows to new paddocks.
Then around 3pm I go out on the four-wheeler, sometimes with Hayden and sometimes on my own, to collect the milking herd and bring them back to the shed. Afternoon milking starts at 4 and we milk until we get done around 5:30. Then I feed the calves their dinner, and then we clean up and head back to the house for dinner around 6:30 or 7.
And then I flop down on my bed and read until 9:30, when I get too tired to keep my eyes open and listen to music until I fall sleep.
It’s a good life, really! It’s good exercise, good for the soul to be outside and with animals all day (unless the calves are particularly trying; then it’s just a lesson in patience), and it’s nice to know at the end of the day that you’ve helped provide part of the country with the milk for their breakfast in the morning. Even so, I don’t think I want to be a dairy farmer. There’s pretty much no way of taking a break or vacation, ever, unless you hire someone to do milking for you. Being a dairy farmer means being tied to your farm every morning and evening, 360 days a year.
But for now I’m enjoying it a lot. And by the time I finish here I think I’ll have made back most of the money I’ve spent since I got to New Zealand, which is icing on the cake.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Cow Nanny
Well, I just finished my first full day at Hennie and Kerri’s dairy farm, and I’m bushed. I suppose I’ll just write down a few things, ‘cause I feel like I should.
I got here yesterday evening in time to learn how to feed the calves their dinner. Hennie usually lets the calves stay with their mothers for a day or so after they’re born, but if they stay with them longer than that they get attached and it’s harder to wean the calves later when they’re sent to another farm. The upshot of this is that I’m the one who helps out (if any help is needed) with calves being born, and then I cart them over to the calf shed once they’ve had a bit of time to get used to the outside world. I feed them all once in the morning and once at night while the other cows are being milked. The older ones I feed with a neat little invention called a “calf-eteria,” which has a bunch of nipples attached to a large container that holds milk. This only works if the calves have a sucking reflex, however, and some of the ones that are only a few hours or a day or so old don’t have it yet, so I tube feed those guys until they’re strong enough to deal with the regular feeder.
They’re pretty darn cute, and the ones that were born today (two born over night, two born this afternoon) already think I’m their mom and follow me around, butting my legs and sucking on my fingers. It’s pretty adorable, when they’re not splashing fermented milk all over me. I helped with the births of the two born this afternoon because they were in weird positions en utero. I’ve never helped anything be born before, and I was partially amazed, partially grossed out, and partially feeling totally clueless and incompetent. As with all new jobs, I spend the first day learning how much I need to learn. But both calves made it through alright (one bull and one heifer), though the bull had a narrow squeak because his mom laid down right at the end and he couldn’t get any air. We had to hang him upside-down by his heels for a bit, and then he came right.
Let’s see, other things I helped with today…
I helped with afternoon milking a bit, and found out that I don’t remember as much as I thought I did. They do things differently here than at Cedar Summit, and they have different equipment, so there’s that to consider as well. For instance, they have milkers that automatically come off the cow when the milk flow stops, which I’ve never used before! If a milker came off at Cedar Summit, it just meant that the cow had kicked it off and you had to go down the line putting them all on again.
I helped move a bunch of cows to new paddocks, so they were pretty happy about having new grass.
I helped bring in a herd that was made up of yearlings and spring calves and we had to sort them out so only the yearlings were taken by truck to another paddock (Hennie and Kerri rent land in different places in the area). While we were sorting I realized the importance of always looking at the number of the cow you’re working with. If the Boss asks you ten minutes later which numbers you put into a pen, you should be able to rattle them off, and this means trouble for me as I have NO head for numbers whatsoever. Hennie asked me the number of the first cow that calved today, and I hadn’t even looked. Gotta remember to do that. Anyone have any tricks for memorizing numbers?
Oh, and I got my right foot stepped on by a mother cow at some point, and it hurts when I flex it. “So don’t flex it!” I can hear mom saying from across the Pacific. :-)
No idea what I’m going to be doing tomorrow, aside from nannying the calves, but I’m looking forward to learning more, and feeling a bit nervous about it as well. I hate doing a poor job of something, and I always feel like I’m messing things up until I get a few days of experience under my belt. Hopefully Hennie and Hayden (the main hired guy) will bear with me for a bit.
As for domestic life, the food is good (I eat with the family, and it’s delish), the bed is warm (even though my room is pretty cold), the showers are hot, I look positively picturesque in my blue milking jumpsuit and big boots (before they get covered in gunk), and the family is really nice. Hennie and Kerri have a daughter, Lucy, who’s in 9th grade and is pretty funny, and I hear rumors of a son who’s off at college and comes home on the weekends, but I haven’t met him yet.
I’ll be working here tomorrow and Saturday, and then Saturday night Kerri’s dropping me off back at Murray and Ann’s for the rest of the weekend, so I’m excited to see them again, and stay in their deliciously clean house. Somehow, living on a farm, you start to feel after a while that you’ll never really be clean again. Of all the good things in my life that I take for granted, good, clean, hot showers are never one of them.
I got here yesterday evening in time to learn how to feed the calves their dinner. Hennie usually lets the calves stay with their mothers for a day or so after they’re born, but if they stay with them longer than that they get attached and it’s harder to wean the calves later when they’re sent to another farm. The upshot of this is that I’m the one who helps out (if any help is needed) with calves being born, and then I cart them over to the calf shed once they’ve had a bit of time to get used to the outside world. I feed them all once in the morning and once at night while the other cows are being milked. The older ones I feed with a neat little invention called a “calf-eteria,” which has a bunch of nipples attached to a large container that holds milk. This only works if the calves have a sucking reflex, however, and some of the ones that are only a few hours or a day or so old don’t have it yet, so I tube feed those guys until they’re strong enough to deal with the regular feeder.
They’re pretty darn cute, and the ones that were born today (two born over night, two born this afternoon) already think I’m their mom and follow me around, butting my legs and sucking on my fingers. It’s pretty adorable, when they’re not splashing fermented milk all over me. I helped with the births of the two born this afternoon because they were in weird positions en utero. I’ve never helped anything be born before, and I was partially amazed, partially grossed out, and partially feeling totally clueless and incompetent. As with all new jobs, I spend the first day learning how much I need to learn. But both calves made it through alright (one bull and one heifer), though the bull had a narrow squeak because his mom laid down right at the end and he couldn’t get any air. We had to hang him upside-down by his heels for a bit, and then he came right.
Let’s see, other things I helped with today…
I helped with afternoon milking a bit, and found out that I don’t remember as much as I thought I did. They do things differently here than at Cedar Summit, and they have different equipment, so there’s that to consider as well. For instance, they have milkers that automatically come off the cow when the milk flow stops, which I’ve never used before! If a milker came off at Cedar Summit, it just meant that the cow had kicked it off and you had to go down the line putting them all on again.
I helped move a bunch of cows to new paddocks, so they were pretty happy about having new grass.
I helped bring in a herd that was made up of yearlings and spring calves and we had to sort them out so only the yearlings were taken by truck to another paddock (Hennie and Kerri rent land in different places in the area). While we were sorting I realized the importance of always looking at the number of the cow you’re working with. If the Boss asks you ten minutes later which numbers you put into a pen, you should be able to rattle them off, and this means trouble for me as I have NO head for numbers whatsoever. Hennie asked me the number of the first cow that calved today, and I hadn’t even looked. Gotta remember to do that. Anyone have any tricks for memorizing numbers?
Oh, and I got my right foot stepped on by a mother cow at some point, and it hurts when I flex it. “So don’t flex it!” I can hear mom saying from across the Pacific. :-)
No idea what I’m going to be doing tomorrow, aside from nannying the calves, but I’m looking forward to learning more, and feeling a bit nervous about it as well. I hate doing a poor job of something, and I always feel like I’m messing things up until I get a few days of experience under my belt. Hopefully Hennie and Hayden (the main hired guy) will bear with me for a bit.
As for domestic life, the food is good (I eat with the family, and it’s delish), the bed is warm (even though my room is pretty cold), the showers are hot, I look positively picturesque in my blue milking jumpsuit and big boots (before they get covered in gunk), and the family is really nice. Hennie and Kerri have a daughter, Lucy, who’s in 9th grade and is pretty funny, and I hear rumors of a son who’s off at college and comes home on the weekends, but I haven’t met him yet.
I’ll be working here tomorrow and Saturday, and then Saturday night Kerri’s dropping me off back at Murray and Ann’s for the rest of the weekend, so I’m excited to see them again, and stay in their deliciously clean house. Somehow, living on a farm, you start to feel after a while that you’ll never really be clean again. Of all the good things in my life that I take for granted, good, clean, hot showers are never one of them.
Monday, March 7, 2011
News + Recap
3-7
Well, let’s get the news out of the way first, shall we? This morning I had my meeting with Kerri, the woman who owns the dairy farm with her husband Hennie, and we got to talk a bit about the job. Here’s the gist:
They need someone for a couple of weeks to do fill-in milking, but mostly they need someone to take care of the calves, as the cows start calving on the 10th of this month. My job will be to fill in at morning milking whenever it’s needed, and then to spend the rest of the day out with a four-wheeler and a cart taking care of the calves, making sure they’re feeding, chucking them into the right pastures and buildings, checking on the heifers about to calve, and possibly giving Hennie a hand with the actual calving itself it the heifers need it. I’m all for this, as working with baby animals is the best part of the whole farming gig, in my book!
For this work I’ll be paid hourly (we’re going to figure out a good salary in the first two days when they see how much I know, but the base rate is 12.25NZD per hour) and I’ll be living with Hennie and Kerri in their farmhouse about 10km outside of Dannevirke. It sounds like I’ll also have access to a “ute,” which is short for “utility vehicle,” and is what they call a pickup truck, so that’ll be my ride into town when I want it as I found out that my Minnesota driver’s license is good in New Zealand for 12 months. Now I just have to learn to drive on the other side of the road, and on the other side of the car!
All around, I think this job will work out nicely for two weeks or so to make some more money before I hope to head on down to the South Island. I’ll be starting with them on the 9th.
AND, my birthday’s a month from today, and I’m a bit excited about that, even though I’ll be far from home, and 23 isn’t an especially exciting number.
I feel like writing a bit about my insight into the world of shearing and Maori life (not that they’re the same, it’s just that the people I’ve been working with happen to be both) now that I’m done working with PMS, but I’m not sure quite what to say. I guess I’ll just say that people are people all over the world, and that you can’t make generalizations about anything. Having said that, though, here are some bullet points:
- All the people I met and worked with, all of whom are Maori except for two Pakeha guys who sheared occasionally, were heavy drinkers. The lightest was Tina, who would only really indulge about twice a week, and the heaviest of which was Lewis, who was drunk almost every night and had to be taken to hospital the night before I left. It makes me wonder, from an anthropological viewpoint, if this drinking is at all related to their genetic aptitude for addiction like that of many Native peoples all over the world, or if it has more to do with the hard life they live which pushes them toward anything that can make them forget.
- Everyone at PMS seemed pretty disposed toward using violence to settle arguments. Abby, who I mentioned before as being pretty rough and tough to begin with, had a fight with old Uncle Ben the second night I was there, which began over nothing, escalated into name calling, and ended with punches being thrown. The idea seems to be that you have to be able to put up your fists and protect yourself at the slightest provocation or insult, and I wonder again if this has to do with the old Maori challenge customs, or is something just inherent in blue color lifestyle here in NZ.
- It seems that, in the rural areas, whether Maori or Pakeha, there’s a taught deference to the males. Women will argue with their husbands or brothers, but when it comes down to brass tacks the women just have to shut up and take whatever ruling is given. I may be exaggerating a bit here, but that’s honestly what it seems like to me. Even Ann scolded her daughter Emma when she told Scott, her husband, to do something instead of doing it herself, and Emma rolled her eyes a bit. That makes me think that the younger generation may be changing this a bit. Either way, it bothers me to no end, even though I’m in a situation where I haven’t got any guy to have to answer to anyway. Just a burr under my saddle when it comes to this issue, I guess.
- There seems to be a fairly large divide between social mores in rural areas and urban areas. The people who I met in Auckland and even Rotorua had different ideas about life and food and how to do things than the people out in Taupo and down here in Dannevirke. I know this is true to an extent in the US as well, so possibly my being in a new country and seeing with new eyes, as it were, is making these things jump out at me.
- I love the way people talk in New Zealand! First of all, most questions are phrased like a statement, with the inflection coming down at the end, but then you add “eh?” at the end to signal that it IS, in fact, a question. For instance, instead of saying “would you like to go to town with me?” they say “how would you like to go into town with me, eh?” Also, verbs are turned into phrases in an interesting way, so instead of saying “I’m chatting” you say “I’m having a chat.” The same is said for “having a feed,” “having a sleep,” “having a listen,” etc. I dig it.
That’s enough for anthropological talk, I think! I’m having dinner with the pastor and his wife tonight, and it makes me feel like Anne of Green Gables having dinner at the Manse.
And now, two pictures! One of the gang, and one of the shearing sheds.
From left to right above: Tina, Abby, Uncle Ben, Lewis, and one of Abby's brothers who I don't remember, and his son down at the table.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Meanwhile...
Well, it’s been a while since I wrote anything, and that has mostly to do with the fact that I haven’t felt very well the last couple of days. Laziness can pretty much cover the excuse department up until that point!
Let’s see, last Sunday I went back to the same church I went to the week before for their “potluck service,” which was fun. Everyone brings food, and they do some singing and reading and such before the meal, and then discuss the readings while eating brunch, and then finish up with communion afterward. I haven’t seen anything like it before, but I liked it! I got to talk a lot with Pete and Shelley, two residents who I’d met the week before, and then was invited to Ann and Murray’s (another super wonderful couple from last week) for lunch. Of course, we were all still pretty full from the potluck, so I think inviting me for lunch was just an excuse to be their friendly selves and have me over to their house. So I spent the afternoon with them and their daughter and her husband (who’s from Canada, and who’s accent put me right at home) and their two kids, all very nice. Ann assured me that if I ever needed a place to crash, or if I wanted to move out of the shearing complex, I could stay in their spare room rent free, which was so generous and out of the blue that I almost couldn’t believe it. She’s the sweetest sort of grandmotherly-type lady, and I think she misses having her daughters at home to fuss over. I told her a bit about how I thought we Americans are sort of naturally suspicious of people’s intentions, and how I’d been caught off guard a bit by the Kiwi’s “I’ll go ten miles out of my way to lend a hand” attitude, and she laughed and said that she thought it had more to do with living in Dannevirke out in the backwoods of the North Island, as it were, and that everyone just knew everyone else, so when a stranger popped in it was pretty exciting. But they dropped me off at the complex that afternoon with a repeat offer of a room if I wanted one, and I said I’d be in touch.
Oh, and another thing about Sunday; the reading was the bit about not worrying about what you’ll eat or wear, and the birds of the air and the grass of the field etcetera, which made me smile because the verse at the end, “do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself” had been running around in my head all week as I worried about where my next job would be. Thanks for the heads up, Big Guy.
So Monday was rainy, which meant no work, as the shearers won’t shear wet sheep because the lanolin in the wool combined with moisture can give you boils, which, I gather, aren’t too much fun. Still, I think I would have taken the boils over the work we did from 6am to 5pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, which was crutching (shearing the wool around the back end of the sheep to clean them up before the REAL shear) about 4000 lambs, seventy-five percent of which had flystryke, which means they were covered in maggots. My stomach’s turning now just thinking about the smell. Sufficed to say, it was not pleasant, and combined with my once-monthly superhuman sense of smell, I thought I’d really have to call it quits by noon on the second day. I made it through, though, and that night I dreamt about maggots and didn’t get a whole lot of sleep.
Thursday, or rather, yesterday, dawned rainy again, so no work, which was just as well as I was laid up in bed most of the day with a stomach ache. I figured it was the aftereffects of the day before, but it kept getting worse and worse until by 9pm I couldn’t stand for more than a few minutes without feeling like I was gonna keel over. This meant I missed out on the only opportunity to go with the guys to the Golden Shears competition, which is the grand nationals of shearing competitions, and I was pretty bummed out. I felt a bit more lucky, though, when the van that had left came back at 10:30pm with Lewis having driven pretty darn drunk the whole way back, so I’m nudged into believing my stomach ache had a bit of purpose to it.
I woke up this morning still not feeling top notch, but my stomach’s a lot better now, and I even went for a short walk this afternoon and had two small bowls of oatmeal. No work today, tomorrow or Sunday, it seems, while the Golden Shears is going on, so Wednesday turned out to be my last day of work without my even knowing it! Good thing I got a couple of pictures, which I’ll try to put up soon.
Tomorrow is the last day of the Golden Shears, and I’d really like to go, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to swing a ride there, and a ride back with someone who isn’t “pissed” as the expression is here, is even less likely, and so I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll be able to see it at all. I really want to, but I guess this may be something that I’ll have to miss and hope that I’ll have another opportunity someday.
And now for future plans: On Sunday Ann and Murray are picking me up for church, along with all my stuff, and I’m moving out of the complex into their place in town for a few days now that my stint at PMS is over. I’m meeting with the owners of that dairy farm I mentioned on Monday to talk things over, so we’ll see where that goes, and if it doesn’t go anywhere I’ve already had two offers from people at church with possible positions, so there’ll be that to check into as well.
Part of me is itching to get on the road again (I know, I know, wasn’t I just saying I was tired of living out of bags?) and head down to the South Island, but hey, I have all the time I want for that, so I may as well just cool my wanderlust for a bit. In the meantime, I have to recuperate from this stomach virus, so I’m glad to have a nice place like Dannevirke to rest up.
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