How many calves do you rear each season? My daughters do the calves for their Uncle and they had to feed over 220 last year. I think NZ dairy farms are quite different to American farms. Are family farms that are smaller having a comeback in the USA? I have heard most of your meat is raised in huge "factory farms " where the cattle do not eat grass now. Is that actually true? We get a whole cow each year from my husband's brothers farm which is great as it is much cheaper than the shops and nicer too.

I am SO confused reading this. I "thought" your current government was bringing in some kind of universal health care like other countries have. This sounds like they have simply made it a way for private insurance companies to make a HUGE increase in profit by increasing their charges and that people are being forced to pay for all this out of their wages on top of taxes...??? HOW does this help the poor?? This has nothing to do with universal healthcare. What exactly is it? Can someone explain please. We have free hospital care in NZ which I have used as have my children for free surgeries( heart , tonsils etc) but we do usually pay for GP visits( poorer families get it cheaper if you have a community service card and in some areas of the country it is free, and ALL children aged under 6 are free also at the GP. Our family also chooses to have extra private insurance in case we need more urgent care as sometimes there is a wait in the public and to pay for GP visits as we have a lot of sickness with asthma etc. It does NOT cost anything like that much though! Many surgeons here work in public hospitals part time and private part time, same with specialists..

Try being in St Petersburg Russia with the two new babies you have just adopted...and we are from NZ so the clothes we had were not considered warm enough by Russian standards. Also nothing would fit as our kids were SO small everything we had bought was way to large. We would walk down the street and have EVERY old lady stop and tuck our kids blankets in ,pull their socks up and their trousers down and hat more firmly on all the while telling us off loudly in Russian. Luckily we were staying with an elderly couple who took us to a second hand store where we bought warmer and better fitted clothes AND the necessary thick thick stockings so NO part of the leg would be shown to the world lest they die of pneumonia then and there. .

Somebody should have actually been in the water with those kids not just watching. That is so dangerous. Is this woman not used to the ocean so ignorant of its danger? They are FAR too young to be left alone. We don't even leave our 15 year old alone yet as she is not a strong swimmer.

Well we for one would LOVE more babies and more teenagers.All of ours are adopted from Russia so we were only blessed with four kids.... we have three teenagers and one younger one(just turned 8) now .We are loving the teen stage as they are so much fun to be with and talk to!! So far our kids are awesome teens (17,16 and 14)and I would give so much to be able to adopt more kids...sigh.Why do teens get such a bad rap?

We won't ever buy soy or canola or usually corn(unless it is verified to be NZ grown) and we also basically avoid any food imported from the USA as we know your food if so contaminated with GMO's. The problem is so may additives are made with soy...so we try to cook from scratch as much as possible. Monsato is a VERY scary "company" . Who actually runs/owns it?

For those where this has worked how long did it take to work please? I am trying this and it is working a little... but am having problems with most things I eat. I had to go off the meds as they were not helping and are very dangerous long term.The problem is now I can hardy eat anything...sigh.I have been told i may be rebounding from the meds.It has been nearly two weeks of omeprazole...I am desperate for help!!Any ideas ladies please?

You are describing how my son looked and behaved when we adopted him from a Russian orphange...he too was so sacred of other adults and was terrified in shops and malls etc and was very tiny for his age.He had heart problems and so had been sickly and was very delayed developmentally. My advice is to do these things SLOWLY with him and give him time to get used to them. IF you want to explain to people do so ,if not don't. At least you have the advantage he knows and is bonded to you,my son had to learn this as well as English!!LOL!

Well my adopted daughters just love Ann of Green Gables BUT my 16 year old came to me in tears after reading the first few pages of Oliver Twist and refused to read more..I had fogotten about the woman who ran an orphanage and took babies and killed them....our kids were adopted out of orphages so that hit too close to home. Our kids have ALL made comments they really wish there were more classics with intact families as they get sick of the "little orphan" theme a bit.

Oh I know what you mean .I have only just recently been told I have bad acid reflux( slient reflux that was presenting like asthma).I am trying to go gluten free to see if it will help and am on a high dose of omeprasol(sp?) at the moment but I do NOT want to stay on it long term like the Dr wants me to. Please can you tell me what is the natural anti acid I can be taking?

Hi Thankfully no FAS in any of our kids .Their IQ is normal ( actually one is very bright) and they have no behaviour problems or probelms with cause/effect relationships. But two have full blown dyscalculia.They have average to above average reading ,comprehension and oral langauge skills...but can NOT do maths!!For two processing speed is also slow so they will get extra time if they do to University/polytech.This was why we got evaluations as our son wants to study in a year or so and I was concerned he would never cope with timed exams...I was right.The only thing picked up was slow processing and dyscalulia everything else "normal"( whatever that really means).Of course they do have some consequences to their early life sadly and learning problems is the main one. It took them a lot longer to be fluent in reading for one thing but they did eventually get there,but it took more work on mine and their part.

Thanks I will look at that book but we have been using manipulatives etc from the word go and nothing has helped.Our kids were adopted from Russia so had orphage time,malnutration,neglect , etc to overcome.

Hello ladies, We have four children and 3 of them have special learning needs...especially dyscalculia and slow processsing speed.I have been reading about this programme that is downloadable and you do with them to remediate what they have missed in connections with the brain etc. As we are in NZ I am very interested as there is no real therapies here available. Has anone used it please and what do you think? Was it useful and did it make a difference in your children's learning? The wbsite is http://www.learning-aids.com/ and the programme is called Building Blocks of Learning. Any information or feedback would be appreciated.Thanks in advance. Ann in NZ

Well I am not even American,but I can tell you I would not watch anything with that "woman" in it.She was a total traitor to her own people and why your country did not put her on trial for treason is beyond me. Has she ever appologised and made right what she did ? One would hope she grew up and is now mortified by how she acted back then!

I have two dyslexic kids...after reading and correcting their spelling for so long I now start to second guess how to spell things too. I used to be a very good speller but it seems they have made ME dyslexic somewhat...LOL!

Thats really common in New Zealand.Many smaller or new Churches hire school halls on a Sunday.We meet in a Church hall on a Sunday.

We have adopted four times form Russia ,but we are in New Zealand.it was the best thing we ever did in our life...congratulations!!!

We have friends with one of these dogs and she is a wonderful family pet,very friendly and loveable.The husband actually was a hunter/game keeper in Africa prior to moving to New Zealand and they could not wait to get another ridgeback .They had always had this type of dog in Zimbabwe but they are not common here.If we had room for a big dog I would love one after knowing theirs.

oh please could someone send me a copy if you managed to get this when it was free..I must have missed it as it now says it is not available..sigh... It is something I would love but it costs so much for us in New Zealand with exchange rate and postage costs on top.

Not a funny from my kids but something funny that happened to me.. Twenty five years ago I was 17 and spent 3 months in America.I needed to change some travellers cheques form $NZ into $US at a bank.I went with my host's Mother .The woman at the bank accused me of having a FAKE passport as there was no such country as New Zealand.....We argued with her and she would not budge. Finally we went and got someone higher up who appologised and changed our money as they had heard of New Zeland ( only thought it was in Africa!!LOL)

I am sure she has damaged the relationship between her "boyfriend" and his parents permanently( perhaps this was intentional on her part as they did not approve with him going out with her..."ha ha ,lets see how they feel if he gets me pregnant", and probably between her and her own siblings. How would you ever trust your sister( or your parents for allowing it !) again after this elaborate fabrication. I am sure there will be a lot of emotional fallout from this "experiment" .

Are you serious?? It is ILLEGAL to have homebirths and use midwives according to that website ??? What on earth for ? Do only obstetricians deliver babies in America?

O K I have to show my ignorance and ask..I do know what facebook is even though I have never bothered to look at it, but what on earth are you all talking about with regards to points etc? Thanks for the reply to this question.

Glad to hear everything is O K .The South Island is beautiful....hope the rest of his trip goes well.We have met a few American's moving here recently . Ann

Hi, We are Kiwis ( I am new to this board and just read your post )and live near Auckland (where I assume he is) .Please let us know if he needs any help etc or if we can do anything. It's not nice to be unwell in a foreign country. We do mean it ..just let us know how we can help (I think you can email somehow..??). God Bless Ann