The Mongol boy liked playing banjo …

Nothing epitomizes change in the small redneck town I grew up in better than this:
I went there in the weekend and I saw black people. Two of them. They were smiling and happy. No-one threw rocks at them.My hometown isn’t a White Town. It’s a pretty even mix between Pakeha (European descendants) and Maori. But I can’t remember seeing a black person (as in Of African Descent) ever passing through while I was growing up.
We did get some Asians move in while I was living there though. They started up the Chinese Takeaways. When we wanted to experience cultural cuisine we went there. I had won-tons. They were nice.
It was weird being back home. I spent a couple of hours in town and didn’t see anyone that I knew at all. It's almost like everyone I went to school with just up and Got The Hell Out Of Dodge.
Or they were at home with their 12 kids.
I went into the supermarket to see if any old friends were working there.
As I was waiting to go through the checkout, I noticed this pack of VIBRATING CONDOMS.
WTF?! I’ve never heard of such things in my life, and to find them in this small hick town was a bit of a head rush.
I called out to D-Missus, who was on the other side of the store, and then threw them at her to see whether she would freak out when she realised what they were.
She didn’t. Because she is crap at catching things, and the packet of VIBRATING CONDOMS instead hit the ground and skidded along the shop floor. It was picked up by an old lady with blue-rinse hair. She had a heart attack when she realised what they were, so we had to make a quick escape out of town and back to the farm my parents are share-milking on.
I loved being back in the country again. I took about a 300 photos.
None of them look good reproduced small on this site, but here’s a sample:
I don't know why, but this makes me think of Goldylocks and the Three Bears:

I've titled this one: Cow.

"Cow Snot."

This one's called "Hey, we don't have fingers! Leave us alone!"

I got my first electric fence shock in more than 20 years getting this next shot. But it was nowhere near as bad as the time I told my cousin Daniel that the electric fence was off. He only found out I was a "lying bastard, who should never be trusted" after he had a leg either side of the electric fence.

I like powerlines:



Others:







D-Girl also likes farm animals:

I don’t want to leave you with the impression that I am some sort of inbred country hick.
But my paternal grandmother was a Hick. That was her maiden name.
Also, my mother married my father. And my mother’s brother married my father’s sister. And one of my father’s sisters married a cousin. And my two grandmothers were related somewhere along the line.
And I’m also related to the Woodcocks.
Stop laughing.
Just a quick update on the whole Being Psychic thing.I told my wife of my newfound powers while driving to the farm. And, unsurprisingly, the first feat she asked me to perform was to predict the weekend’s winning Lotto numbers.
So I rattled off the numbers.
Which my wife did not write down.
Later, she asked me “what were those numbers again?” so we could buy a ticket.
“Goddamn Woman! I have Amazing Psychic Powers, NOT Amazing Powers of Recall! You know I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday, let alone a bunch of bloody numbers! You just cost us a million bucks! I. Hope. You’re. Happy”.
So we got a lucky-dip ticket instead.
Breaking News: NZer Michael Campbell just won the US Golf open. He beat Tiger Woods. This will get massive treatment in the media here.But, as one of my colleagues just pointed out: "This doesn't mean we all have to follow golf now, does it?".