With this postcard, I'm breaking the rule of only using postcards of things that I've seen for 2 reasons. The first is that it shows Mt. Cook, which together with the glaciers (Franz Josef and Fox) behind it is the major thing I didn't get to see while here. The other reason is that it shows sheep, which I did see, and this permits a small discourse (not datcourse) on livestock in New Zealand. It's everywhere! Is that small enough? New Zealand has 3 million people and 70 million sheep. Along the motorway between any two cities, you'll see countless flocks of sheep. As you can see from the notation on this card, they refer to what we call a ranch as a station (Glentanner Station). I talked to a guy in the Hostel in Christchurch who has been driving through the hills doing surveying. He was at 11,000 ft. and saw a huge flock of sheep coming over the ridge. He stopped and talked to one of the shepherds. He said that there were 3 shepherds, 20 sheep dogs, and 7000 sheep. Must have been an impressive sight! Not to mention the smell!

And they've got more than just sheep. While driving you'll also see flocks of cows, pigs, goats, and even deer. I've seen signs indicating flocks of rabbits or at least mega-hutches, but I haven't seen any herds of hopping hares.

Considering the man-sheep ratio, a tremendous number of New Zealanders must work with sheep or some other form of livestock. I've met Kiwi fruit farmers, cruise boat crew, carpenters and rugby players, but no ranchers (stationers?). I guess they don't get in much. A man can shear at least 300 sheep per day. Each sheep is sheared twice per year. That's 140 million/300 = 1/2 million man-days, only about 1,000 people shearing sheep. Maybe they're all picking kiwi fruit after all.

In driving around the country, I've had to stop for livestock twice. One time a herd of cattle was being driven up the road. They were bigger than my car, so I pulled over. They were huge! They could have done serious damage to the car, but instead they just drooled on it. It needed washing anyway. The flock of sheep was smaller. They permitted me to drive slowly through them.