{"id":28389,"date":"2016-09-15T03:25:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-15T01:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peregrinusmundi.com\/vivre-dans-une-famille-neo-zelandaise\/"},"modified":"2020-12-01T07:41:24","modified_gmt":"2020-12-01T06:41:24","slug":"life-with-new-zealand-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peregrinusmundi.com\/en\/life-with-new-zealand-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Life with a New Zealand family"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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After more than a month walking the streets of Dunedin<\/strong><\/a>, here I am in Southland. The southernmost region of the South Island of New Zealand. I am going to work for two months on a dairy farm near Invercargill. A morning in the bus, watching the landscapes of the rolling meadows pass by, wondering a little about how the work will unfold. An express passage through Gore, the New Zealand capital of country music and brown trout and I disembarks at Invercargill. Julie, the young woman from the farm where I am going to work came to get me. We sympathize in the car and Julie explains her family to me. She and Jeremy are the parents of three young children: Isla (soon to be five), Carter (two) and Chloe (seven months). The house is therefore lively. We drive through the countryside and I can quickly make out the contours of the farm in the falling night. Presentation and installation in the guest bedroom.<\/p>

Jeremy, 27 and Julie, 24 are born and raised New Zealanders. Jeremy’s family is from Drummond, a small village forty minutes from the farm. His parents, Jill and Murray are also farmers. Jill also works for a dairy farm and Murray manages a hundred sheep that live on the farmland. Julie is from Te Anau, a village in Fiordland (southwest of the South Island, two hours from the farm). Her parents, Jill (yes, Jill is a popular first name in New Zealand) and Alan still live there in a pretty house with great views of the lake and the snow-capped mountains. Her mom works at the village supermarket. Her dad, Alan, was a seaplane pilot and then a chef on cruise ships doing expedition in Fiordland fjords. Today he works for Tracknet, a transport company belonging to the Lakeview Holiday Park in Te Anau.<\/p>

Before becoming a farmer, Jeremy worked in construction. But it’s the farm work that really interests him. He would like to have his own farm but apparently unless being very wealthy or\u00a0bequeath the family farm, buying land for farming is very difficult today in the land of Kiwis. Julie, in addition to looking after children and helping the farm, is also finishing up her midwife studies. In addition to the three children mentioned above, the house is home to an indomitable young dog named Fergus, who likes to jump in your face to say hello, and Mr. Perkins, a domestic cat who prefers chicken flavored cat food rather than fish flavored. Living immersed in the family is an extraordinary opportunity and allows me to meet a large part of the members of the two families and to discover the life of New Zealanders from the inside.<\/p>

Jeremy and Julie are \u201ccontractors milkers\u201d. Meaning, they take care of cows, calving, calves and milking. But the farmland and the cows do not belong to them. These, belong to Graham and Severna, a couple of New Zealanders in their fifties, also very friendly. They live in a superb house about ten minutes from the farm. Graham and Severna have been farmers for almost thirty years and have recently decided to partner with\u00a0contractors milkers\u00a0in order to have more time for them. Today Graham continues to take care of the farm work while helping Jeremy while Severna takes care of feeding the calves.<\/p>

The house where Jeremy, Julie and the children live is located on the edge of the meadows where the cows graze. It is a nice house on one floor (like many New Zealand homes). The living rooms and kitchen are located on one side of the house and have the morning sun. While the bedrooms are located on the other side and therefore have the sun in the late afternoon. A pretty garden surrounds the building. Large picture windows offer a lovely view of the fields, the milking shed and the calf barn. Behind the house, at the end of the fields lies a hill with a small nature reserve. It is one of the only places in Southland with some relief, the area being mostly flat.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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