Allana Minchau: Latest from New Zealand
Allana Minchau, from a cow-calf ranch in Alberta, is working at a large dairy near Culverden, New Zealand for six months. She's there on an Agriventure through the International Agriculture Exchange Association (IAEA). She is writing regular reports for Grainews. Below is her latest, which she tried to send a few weeks ago. It finally got through to me last week.
In the photo are Allana in the back row at the right. Beside her is another Agriventure traveler, Mette Andersen from Denmark. The others are Allana’s host family: Emlyn and Hilary Francis and their three children, Isaac, Annie, and Lewys, in front.
Allana writes:
As the temperature continues to illuminate the New Zealand summer, I can only think of how differently the New Zealand Christmas is compared to a Canadian one. the Instead of winter parkas, toques, gloves, scarves and of course the cold of home, New Zealand Christmases include shorts, t-shirts, baseball caps, sunglasses, and sunscreen. Oh yeah, and gum boots. One constant on a New Zealand dairy farm is the gum boots. In rain or shine, when you are milking 1,200 cows, you will not want to be stepping in their feces with your shoes.
To celebrate the Christmas season with their staff, Hilary and Emlyn hosted a barbeque and clay bird shooting in between the morning and afternoon milkings. I needed the target practice and it created a good competitive spirit. It was indeed rewarding the first time I saw the flying orange disk burst into bits!
As all rancher and farmers know, livestock do not take the holidays off therefore milking continued as usual, although we started later in the afternoon. In addition, many farms around us were silaging up to Christmas day as we are in the middle of their summer here. In New Zealand, everyone has their large meal in the afternoon, and then for evening tea they have cold meats. Spuds, strawberries, cherries and peas are the tastes of a New Zealand Christmas as they are all fresh for the season.
Although Christmas didn’t feel the same as a Canadian one, it was still fantastic to experience Christmas in Kiwi style. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone back home! Till next time, Allana.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Allana Minchau: Latest from New Zealand.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://bloggn.grainews.ca/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/355
Leave a comment