Best-Laid Plans

 

Sara Johnson 1^st Sundays

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

          Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

          For promis’d joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But Och! I backward cast my e’e,

          On prospects drear!

An’ forward tho’ I canna see,

          I guess an’ fear!

(Last two verses: “To A Mouse On Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough” by Robert Burns, 1785)

Happy new year, friends.

I wanted to use the phrase ‘best-laid plans’ to lightheartedly refer to my return trip to New Zealand that didn’t go as scheduled. Digging around, I found the oft-repeated expression ‘best-laid-schemes’ in “To A Mouse.”

Jeff paid tribute to Robert Burns in his recent Auld Lang Syne Is Upon Us Once Again post. Burns’s poem about a farmer accidentally plowing up a mouse nest was written a couple years earlier than "Auld Lang Syne" and digs deeper than a vacation veering off track. The final verse is apt for the beginning of a new year, in which we as human beings, unlike mice, can reflect on the previous year and look forward – perhaps with fear, perhaps not – to the coming year.

But back to my original shallow plan. In 2023, my husband and I spent two weeks of our month long return-to-New-Zealand trip on the South Island. We had a full dance-card of strenuous hikes planned in the Wānaka area – Rob Roy Glacier Track, Roy’s Peak, and Isthmus Peak. 

Mild cases of Covid – first my husband and then me – robbed our stamina and rerouted us to the flat open paths along Lake Wānaka where we wandered and I spotted the famed #ThatWanakaTree that graces the cover of my first book  Molten Mud Murder.

Signs were posted all over the quaint town for the A & P show. Oh promis’d joy! We bought tickets for the next day.

 

 

 British settlers to New Zealand started agricultural and pastoral societies, like the ones they left behind, to promote farming. The first A&P show in Aotearoa was held in the Bay of Islands in 1842. The one in Wānaka, run by the Upper Clutha A&P Society, started in 1895 and is now the biggest one in the country, but never once did it feel crowded like my state fair in Raleigh, NC.

The showgrounds, surrounded by rugged mountains and Lake Wānaka views, were beautiful. I fetched a flat white coffee and sat next to my husband on a grassy hill to watch the iconic sheep dog trials. The Wānaka A&P website describes the trials as ‘a mesmerizing dance of strategy and skill, where every move is a testament to the historical synergy between human and dog.’ The herders shouted “Come-bye” and “Away’ and, when the sheep were penned, “That’ll do.”

Sheep shearing was next. Doesn’t this bloke look like Paul Hogan from Crocodile Dundee? (People often lump Australia and New Zealand together, but they are separated by 1,000 miles of Tasman Sea and are vastly different.)

A skilled shearer can handle 200-400 sheep a day. Nowadays, synthetic fibers outsell fleece and the cost of shearing a sheep is greater than the value of its wool. (Shearing is done to promote the sheep’s health.) Still, the Kiwis take wool seriously. The year we were there, the Wānaka A&P became home to the New Zealand Fine Wool Supreme Fleece Competition. The wool is judged on micron (fiber fineness), weight, length, and strength.

We spent time like cowpokes, leaning against fence rails and judging cattle. I admired both the beasts and their adorable Junior Handlers.

Pony trots and hunter classes went on in big rings all day. Elegant horses and riders of all ages competed, but the little girls with their serious cherubic faces were the most fun to watch.

People sometimes ask me to describe New Zealand. I tell them to imagine the USA fifty years ago. That’s what New Zealand is like. There’s less commercialism, the homes are more modest, the cars are older, the pace slower, and there is joy in simplicity. The Wānaka A&P show felt like yesteryear.

Children screamed from the Ferris wheel and captained bumper boats in a giant wading pool. There was merchandise for sale. I eyed the gumboots. In Great Britain they are called Wellies, but in New Z, they’re gumboots. A mum might say, “Golly. Your gummies are muddy.”

After we scarfed hot donuts and cheered for the wood choppers, it was time to follow the crowd to the Jack Russell Race. I'd never seen such a spectacle! Little eager dogs barked everywhere. About ninety Jack Russell terriers or Jack Russell look-alikes tugged at their restraints until the gun was fired. They took off in a furry flash, chasing a dead rabbit towed by a horse around the ring. 

The first dog to reach the rabbit was the winner. There were very few rules. Impostors were allowed to compete. (I spotted a poodle.) About 90 doggos competed in 2023. The commentary was hilarious. Some dogs went the wrong way. Others chased each other. Archie won by a hair, I mean hare. Then it was a mad scramble of owners chasing down their dogs.

Our hiking plans went gang aft agley but the A&P show brought us big smiles and no sore muscles. What’s a time your best-laid-schemes went awry, but you found serendipitous joy nonetheless?

Until next month -

Sara Johnson, 1st Sundays