While traveling in New Zealand, I searched for Lord of the Rings filming locations and found some of my favorites. Today, I present a special edition of “Five Fave Photos.” These are five photos from Lord of the Rings scenes.
Can you figure out what Middle Earth action happened in these locations?
1. 
Continue reading “Five Fave Photos: Lord of the Rings Edition”
This is me.
I’m in the barn on the farm where I grew up, holding the first lamb to be born there in seven years. She’s one of the realizations of a tightly held dream: to be a farmer and shepherd when I grow up.
Ten minutes after this picture was taken, I nearly fell, my knees giving out, suddenly becoming desperate to lie down.
That was nothing new, though. That sort of thing had been happening for several weeks because of weird health issues. Those challenges have continued, but we’re getting closer to an answer. Continue reading “This Is Me”
While I was in New Zealand, I wrote a piece for a byline in Indiana Prairie Farmer about the similarities and differences … Continue reading “Hoosiers v. New Zealanders”: A Published Story
To celebrate Thanksgiving, I wrote a list of 35 things I appreciate about America.
Then, I started writing another list in my head: Things I Appreciate About New Zealand.
So, in the spirit of American Thanksgiving, in no particular order, here are 35 things I appreciate about New Zealand:
Continue reading “35 Things I Appreciate About New Zealand”
As a journalism geek, I like reading through agriculture news. Here are some recent New Zealand agriculture news stories, their openings, and notes from my experiences here:
“The next big thing for dairying in the South Island looks like it might be – indeed it may have to be – cows in barns.
“Cue the sharp intake of breath, but Jeff Gould, a dairy farmer who runs 1100 cows by the Rangitata River near Ealing in mid-Canterbury, agrees.
“Yes, he knows. Putting cows indoors? That is what other countries do. New Zealand prides itself in being all natural. Animals grazing free range in a field.
“And it is regarded as the lower cost production model too. Our competitive advantage. Elsewhere they truck in grain for the cows, as well as having to pay for their housing.”
For me, this has been a story of high intrigue as I observe the differences between New Zealand and American dairy farming. A major difference is the use of barns as shelter for the cows. New Zealanders plant shelter belts around large blocks of land and plan the paddocks within them. Continue reading “Fenceless Farming to Water Concerns: Current Events in New Zealand Agriculture”
I’m back in Christchurch, which means I will have spent a third of my year in New Zealand in this city and the vicinity. My working holiday visa expires in a little over two weeks, so I’m working to sell my car and wrap everything up here. But it’s not quite time to return home–I’m taking the scenic route. I’ll first fly to Sydney and visit Australia, then I’ll visit Southeast Asia, Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland. I’ll return home in October and revel in my second autumn of the year.
So for this blog post, here is some
For this story, keep in mind I’d been working and living almost exclusively with Kiwis for the four and a half months prior.
All year, I’ve been told Americans are loud, and I’d felt that, too, often speaking more quietly by a few notches when talking with a Kiwi. I thought it was just the volume at which we speak (and how slow we speak) that people noticed.
But when I visited a sheep station in Queenstown during a week of touristy activities, there was a group of Americans who sat in front of me during the sheep shearing demonstration. Continue reading “Shorts from New Zealand”
While I lived in Dunedin, I loved driving out to the peninsula. In less than five minutes, I was back in the country life with the added joy of an ocean breeze.
Here are some photos from a trip to the Peninsula in May.
Several fortunate things happened on Thursday.
First (and what turned out to be the most important), I decided to wear my glasses. Grey clouds dominated when I looked out the window in the morning. Surprisingly, it’s easier for me to see on grey days when I wear my glasses with transitional lenses — there’s not as much squinting, as contacts make greys more intense and sunglasses are no help.
Some color and light appeared when I stepped through the doorway with all my gear (a change of clothes, second pair of shoes, lunch, notebooks, laptop, and camera) for my work after I was finished as a teacher’s assistant at the school. The sun lit up the hills near Otago Harbour. A small blue patch showed sky’s attempt to break through the colorless clouds.
Otherwise, Dunedin and the Pacific Ocean were grey and flat. Continue reading “Four Seasons in One Day”
It’s a beautiful May Saturday, full of autumn colors. I have several photos from my recent trip to Oamaru and my drive from the dairy farm where I worked in April to Dunedin, where I will be for the month of May as a teacher’s assistant at a primary school.
So here are seven of my favorite photos: Continue reading “Seven Favorite Photos”
The Kiwi Hoosier 