Happytrails

[per]

How was the tour of NZ?

[Happytrails]

Hey Per, you must have some insider info. But yes we got home about 2:30 this morning from the Cook Islands. 9 1/2 hrs to LA, 3 to Calgary and 3 home. Modern transportation is truly amazing. 8 flights without a bobble. Hard to believe that they can fuel a 747 to stay in the air for 12 hours.

New Zealand seems to be having a cool dry spring with slow grass growth. That is trouble in a country that grazes so intensively (a polite way to put it). The dairy industry is the big thing in NZ ag right now. I think 75 to 80% of it goes for export as powdered milk or cheese. The domestic price seems to be kept even higher than ours tho. Otherwise the country is very beautiful, the people very friendly and our group from Foothill Forage Assn was very compatible.

Two things surprised me besides the cool weather. The first was the amount of irrigation (mostly centre pivot). The country is mostly pretty well watered with between 35 and 60 inches of annual rainfall so I wonder the economics of irrigation. The other I probably shouldn't mention but will. The Maori are apparently the second peoples to inhabit NZ. That was bad news for the first because before long the Maori's were the only humans. Had something to do with hunger for land and just plain hunger. Anyway a couple hundred years later Europeans showed up and built a country. Now it seems that the Maori's are getting top billing in tourism and government perks. Maybe not much different from our aboriginal issue. Anyway it doesn't seem to sit well with a lot of kiwi's I talked to and I have to say me too. We of European heritage need to stand up for our kind. If not for ourselves for our kids and grandkids.

We also visited a fellow who stayed with my family as an exchange trainee the summer of 1983. He and his brother own a historical station near Omarama in central south island. His great grandfather was the manager for the Scot owners when it was 240,000 acres. It got broke up in 1916 for returning veterans and his grandfather got a part. It was great to see him and his family. They were offered irrigation water 6 years ago and took it. 1800 acres worth. Needless to say he is a busy boy. He said it increased his grazing capacity 2 1/2 times. They sheared 22,000 sheep this year and will finish close to 1000 cattle on grass. I admire their operation but don't wish for a workload like that. And you won't really grasp the dedication involved until you see the operator of that kind of an outfit put his dogs away for the night. We go over to a small shed beside a walk in cooler and a big chopping block. He takes a side of mutton from the shed and chops off about 10 fair sized pieces with an axe. They go into a bucket and then we take the truck with 4 dogs to the kennels. The dogs are released with 4 others for a short run (they have been in the box or kennel all day). Right away they are back, each gets a piece of mutton in their kennel and the door is closed. Good til tomorrow morning. I didn't see the dogs work but Bill says that for mustering cattle or sheep he will have 4 dogs behind his horse and send them out one at a time.

So there you have it. The NZ sheep and dairy guys work hard. Real hard. The Maori's and city folk work hard at not working. Sound familiar? Anyway it is good to be home. The cows and calves are doing OK on bale grazing and my Aussie girls PM'd the only calf that died while we were gone and ate it. I guess it just seemed like the thing to do after they discovered it had died of a twisted gut. Cheers.