Two examples of how I am a changed woman and one important plea for advice:

1. I was a vegetarian when I came here. Well, a vegetarian-ish. I hardly ever ate meat and probably hadn’t eaten red meat in 6 years. Now, not only do I load up my plate with Mr. Rankin sausages (even though I used to feed that pig!) and venison that Carolyn’s family killed, but I crave meat when I don’t have it. We laugh at the leg of venison wrapped up in the freezer labeled, “Bambi,“ because it was accidentally a casualty before its time. Maggie and I want steak all the time. What?

2. The other day Thomas was telling us about how you can get $100 a kilo for possom fur because possoms are problems here and their fur mixes well with merino wool. He sets traps and collects their fur, and when we were asking him about how it works, he invited us to join in on the action. The traps are leg traps and when asked how he kills them he said he used to beat them to death, but that “got a bit dodgy,” so now he shoots them. The next night Mags and I were walking down our driveway at night when our headlamps illuminated a possom on a tree right in front of us. These possoms are cute, y’all. These aren’t the Rodents of Unusual Size o’possums of home. These are more like rodent-ish koala bears. Months ago I would have seen one and ooo-ed and ahh-ed about how cute it was and maybe tried to touch it. Now, my immediate response was, “how do I kill it?” I looked at that possum and saw the money I could make if I could just figure out a way to end its life with my bare hands. Before I’d even spoken aloud Maggie spoke up about how we should catch it. Who are we?

1 plea for advice: Maggie and I need money. We are in the process of getting jobs, and we just picked grapes, so we’ll be fine. It isn’t exactly life or death, but it needs to be had. Yesterday I found an ad on the NZ version of Craig’s List asking for 2 women with long hair who would be willing to shave their heads and take part in a photo shoot. Something about how women can still be beautiful without hair. The pay? $1000 cash. One thousand dollars. So, if you were in our shoes, would you do it?