Where were you on New Year's Day?

Happy New Years!! *Pop* goes the udders around and everyone dances in poop. That's about how our celebrations went, listening to 80's soft rock as the morning broke over the herd. A new challenge in being comfortble around animals...standing below a large and tempered beast who isn't so concerned if you happen to be right under when it goes.....meanwhile you are up to your elbows in udders and moving down the line of 80 cows tangled up in a mess of vacuum hoses and sucking cups. This became our morning (4:30am) and afternoon (3:00pm) routine for about 3 weeks. Our hands so soiled we dared not use a computer! We have a lot of respect for those who can manage a dairy farm. Each 24 days the grass in one of the 35 paddocks needs to be grazed, and the herd moved after each milking...this doesn't factor in what coordination is needed to figure out irrigation routes and fertilizing. We often picked up the responsiblity of spraying thistles in the paddocks, with a small 4x4 truck and trailer, which in the time we were there took quite a beating. James managed to flip it into an embankment, Benjamin lost the gas cap, Justin broke the window out, it's points wore down, the transfer case drive shaft came loose, and somehow 20 liters of water ended up in the gas tank. After all these complications started to impair our work, Dave and Phillipa awarded us another vehicle! Same truck, different color...only this one had no winshield wiper, no lights, no seatbelts, and...oh yeah no brakes. When would you ever find yourself driving at 5 in the morning, foggy windshield, head out the window, going 80Kph with no brakes? Sorry mom and dad...
Inbetween work and milking shifts, we took the Bill Pile "I own the whole damn place" tour. Which included a VIP drive up to the Moeraki Boulders (unique geological spheres eroding out of the beach), old seal chasing beaches, yellow eyed penguin colony invasion, historical family fishing stories (dating back to the 1830's), seagull erradication, night time eel spearing, and shooting rabbits by spotlight - Yeeehaww!
The end of James' stay had come and we reluctantly brought him to Christchurch Airport. His presence in New Zealand has connected our memories to a place we love back home, making us feel not so far away. You're welcome back anytime James, NZ misses you.

If your car's gonna break down anywhere, it may as well be the most inconvenient place on the southern hemisphere. (Ben had to walk 6K to the next farm, cursing to himself and various farm animals along the way.)

Being rescued by Phillipa in a big rig with her 5 month old baby in the passenger seat and 2 dogs in the cab. She dropped me off with a tractor to get home. Rustic convertable.

Halfway through the shift, sun's up.

like Willy Wonka, only not as tasty.

Black? Sugar?

Fun Fact: Each cow produces about 10 gallons of milk each day...eating about 200lbs of grass! (50lbs of which ends up on us.)

4 guys on a tuesday night.. 2 1950's double barrel shotguns...$200, 30 hi power shells...$15, eel spear...$0, 2 rabbits, 5 eels, and 4 seagulls...$0, staying up until 1:30 am with a growly old southern man chasing through fields on the back of a pickup.....well, you get the idea.

The infamous Bill Pile, King of Moeraki, professional fisherman of 35 yrs shows us the proper way to fillet. "Cut 'em up like this you dreamy bastards!"

off to battle cattle

no window, no gas cap, no problem! ...these things happen.

cattle drive