Fridolin comes to stay

Yesterday, Alice and I headed to Auckland Airport to pick up Fridolin, who had spent the last 25 hours travelling from Munich to be here. 

Fridolin is studying Bachelor of Agriculture at the Technical University of Munich (http://www.wzw.tum.de/ or http://www.agrar.wzw.tum.de/).  Fridolin on his return to Munich will do his Bachelor Thesis - pasture productivity based on varying sward height (40 year old traditional grassland, new pastures based on ryegrass/white clover).

Last year we hosted Michael and Veronika from the same university, and we encouraged them to put our name up at the intern office so that we could host other 'interns' http://www.wzw.tum.de/paw/pawv2/PraktikantenDatenbank/Sourcecode/document_root/internship/enquiry-manager/show/id/4170

Yesterday was a fairly wet day, and the scenery home was fairly misty.  We had 1 1/2 hour trip home from the airport, home in time for lunch and meet the rest of the family - Mal, Sarah and Rachael.  After lunch Mal and Fridolin went out to shift some mobs of bulls and look at some of the scenery.

Fridolin togged up after his bike ride.  The gear was mainly to keep the rain off as our days have been relatively mild.  Between the 10th - 13th October we have had 78 mls - rain that we needed.

Fridolin will be with us through to the end of January, so hopefully we can keep you posted of his activities while he is will us. 

We enjoy have foreigners and students to visit us and sharing our knowledge of farming.  Both of us have travelled and enjoy the interaction and knowledge that we share, as well as a great opportunity for the children to learn new languages.  At 3 Alice could count to 10 in French and say please and thank you, so hopefully in 4 months, she will have a basic grasp of German!

Today was a quiet day for all.  Shifting of a few mobs of bulls, a horse riding lesson and catching up on other jobs, and for Fridolin catching up on sleep!