Here chook, chook

(For overseas readers: in New Zealand we call hens 'chooks' - thus this is a tale about hens.)

Who cares about calling birds, French hens, turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree? Once I got a conventional chook for Christmas, but not in the way we usually think of Christmas chooks.

Blackie, a strapping Plymouth Barred Rock who’d outlived seven chooks, needed a companion. I’d bought her along with two Silver Laced Wyandottes whose feathers have the lacy pattern associated with Wild West music hall singers and Flamenco dancers. I named the Wyandottes after girlfriends who were flattered until the shortcomings of the system became evident when Rex’s dog Mo attacked one. I washed her wounds, dried her with a hairdryer - and changed her name. As she couldn’t walk, I’d sit her in the sun; a few bursts of fly killer kept flies away. Amazingly she recovered only to come to a sad end months later thanks to Kate the puppy who I suspect sensed her vulnerability and has since learned not to kill chooks.

I rebuilt my flock with brown shavers from an egg farm, but over the next couple of years the other Wyandotte and a young shaver disappeared in the long grass. It was a mystery. Stoats? Another chook got egg bound and died, one got fly blown (her horrible death shook my confidence as a chook farmer) and an old girl quietly passed away.

The remaining wobbly matron used her wings for stability, but had a can-do attitude and good appetite. Eggs were a distant memory. Plenty of pragmatists suggested I “dong her on the head”, but I liked the feisty old girl.

When she died two days after we’d gone on holiday, the considerate housesitters put a rock on her grave so she wouldn’t be exhumed by the dogs. But the phone wouldn’t work - they’d cut the cable and had to dig her up anyway.

Blackie lived alone until a friend offered me her white chook just before Christmas. Persecuted and pecked by brown shavers, she was living in solitary confinement for her own safety. After she moved in, Whitey was nervy and neurotic, emerging from her pen only for food and water. Blackie, who’d roamed the garden and enjoyed luxurious dust baths, remained closeted with her. What about eggs, you might be wondering. Again, they became a distant memory.

If only I’d got a partridge in a pear tree - at least we’d have got pears.

Reflections on the River - taken 22 Dec

Our community's Christmas gift to you

Please accept these fun and games as our community’s Christmas gift for you, your child’s school, your community or your sixtieth (seventieth?) birthday party. While these activities debuted in our community, the concept, which has already been embraced for two school gala days, was the brainchild of some committed individuals.

Each year our town’s Christmas Parade winds up at the local sports complex, Maungaturoto Country Club. Each year the club puts on entertainment for kids and Wesley Cullen organises games. Each year Fonterra donates kid-sized containers of milk which are given to anyone who puts out a hand. Some years there are activities and amusements which cost a fair bit of hard-earned cash. But not this year. This year was different.

This year, Kenny Finlayson and Terri Donaldson dreamed up a bunch more activities and, along with Wesley and others, set up and oversaw a grand total of 10 games. Any child who played six games swapped their stamped card for a reward: Fonterra’s milk.

The games were: Knock ‘em Down Blocks - throw a ball at a pile of blocks; Basket Case - throw a ball into a basket; Hook the Big One - a fishing contest (plastic bottles were fake fish); Horse Shoe Throw; Sporty Skills - hockey (dribble a ball through cones), soccer (bounce a ball on your foot), cricket (bowl stumps out - kiwis are suddenly very good at this).

In Sumo Wrestling two kids, each with their arms and body wrapped in a small mattress secured with a bungee cord, bumped each other until one fell. Pole Jousting involved two kids balanced on a wide piece of pipe, hitting each other with pillows until one toppled.

Surprisingly, plenty of people risked a cold shower in Dunking Machine. The foolish suckers sat under a delicately balanced bucket of water while people threw balls at the bucket. This cost money, and fair enough too. Two bucks bought you three chances, unless the local cop was on the chair when, naturally, it cost more.

Even the organisers were amazed at people’s willingness to play. “Some people got away dry,” reported Kenny, “and most people were keen to do it.”

The upshot was that for almost two hours the Country Club’s rugby fields were packed with people, including parents urging their children on.

“It was great to see the parents getting involved with their kids, and lots of people had a go at different things,” says Terri.

By the time the games were over, 240 milk drinks had been distributed along with three buckets of sweets donated by the Kaipara District Council, night was falling, and both Ruawai and Paparoa primary schools had said they’d like to use the signage and games for their gala days.

You, too, can play these games which, unlike most kids’ activities these days, cost almost nothing to assemble and nothing to play.

Happy Christmas and a happier New Year.

Animal Farm is a busy place

Life on the farm is certainly different from city life – and most the differences stem from animals that aren’t cattle and sheep.

One evening three gunshots rang out and two dogs that should have known better - Kate and Weasel, a visiting Jack Russell – rushed inside where they cowered and trembled. The farmer and a visitor had knocked off the possums that were stealing lemon peel (they had been leaving peeled fruit on the lawn).

The next day when I picked up the deceased possums I found Kate munching a joey. It was ghastly seeing its tiny naked body with curled up hands and wee dangling legs disappearing into Kate’s mouth as she crunched its bones.

Another day Kate and Floss raced into the bush and a rabbit raced out. Kate grabbed it in her mouth, flipped it over and, with a quick nip, left it paralysed. This dog also does sweet little nose kisses with two of our cats.

I lay the rabbit right side up in the hope it was merely paralysed with fear (yes, I know they’re pests), but it didn’t move. Kate took it home and thoughtfully left it in the garden. The farmer put it out of its misery.

Then Floss burrowed into a mound of kikuyu and emerged holding in her mouth what looked like a bird’s nest but was a terrified hedgehog curled in a ball.

Then, when I returned from a few days away, I found two swallows that had been killed by the cats positioned imaginatively on the brick mantelpiece above the fireplace. I bet you’ve never thought of that as an interior design concept.

The farmer had found them in what he now calls ‘the bird room’ since it’s where four swallows (and counting) have met their demise. Their deaths please him because they poo and nest all over the house.

Sadly, bigger animals die as well. The latest was a young white-faced bull that broke its hip and had to be shot. It’s hanging up somewhere (don’t ask) and makes a generous contribution to dog tucker.

Every few days hunks of meat arrive. Their dissection is a job for the farmer who sometimes leaves buckets of meat in the laundry for a day or two (I call it aging). That’s another interior design concept you won’t find in a magazine.

This is a boon for Kate whose reward for sneaking inside has only ever been morsels from cats’ plates. I arrived home one day to find her on the back door mat chomping on a massive chunk of beef.

And finally we’re raising calves. I met the second bunch when they were still on the truck, having stopped to say hi to the farmer. He ignored my white running shoes and said, “Great, you can help with unloading.”

I obliged and, in doing so, created a fashion statement that won’t catch on in the city.

Floss thanks you for the comments on her blog

A letter from Floss

(I dipped into Floss's ditzy puppy head to write this. She's mellowed now.... but not completely.)

 Calling all dogs,

If car chasing’s your game, allow me to recommend Batley. It’s car chasing heaven or so close to it, you won’t know the difference. No more standing for hours by your garden gate only to have cars zoom by and leave you in the dust. Batley’s a dead end so your victims start slowly and you get a head start. Plus lots of them tow boats so they’re really slow off the mark.

I especially enjoy jumping round in front of cars and you can only do this if you pounce early. When she’s silly enough to let me off the lead at home in the hope I won’t run away, I duck down the drive when I hear a vehicle start. If she sees me leave I ignore her shrieks and go for it.

And man, can she shriek. One day the farmer, who I only follow when he’s on the quad, stopped dead and said: “That shrieking sound you make. Is it really necessary?

“Yes,” she said. “Sometimes it’s the only way to get Floss to listen.”

Listen! Has she not noticed that I curl up on the ground with my paws over my ears? We dogs have highly sensitive hearing.

I even ignore her when we’re walking on the road. Boy, does that send her into panic mode. The instant she hears a car she’ll call me like she’s some kind of sergeant major and, if I get close, she makes a wild lunge for my collar. Then she gives me the sit down command and holds onto me like I’ll explode. Sometimes she even puts that horrible choke chain on me for a while.

The fact is it’s a drag when she’s around. I can tell she’s annoyed when I chase cars because she yells and yells, “Come here, Floss” like a cracked record. But here’s the kicker – when I finally run back to her she’s pleased with me cos I’ve just done what I’m told. Geddit? Man, have I got her sussed.

The post van is great to chase because it comes every day. Last year she put a note in the box for the post man warning him about Houdini lambs with no road sense (in my view they’ve got no sense of any kind) and this year she apologised for me even though I heard the mail guy say he likes dogs and doesn’t mind if I chase his truck. But still she gets her knickers in a knot. And she says I don’t listen!

Two weeks later:

You won’t believe this, but cars have started throwing out electric shocks. At least they’re not as bad as the ones I’ve got off fences. Man, have I had some doozies off fences. I guess all up only about half a dozen cars threw off shocks. They hit me on the neck and, frankly, they’ve made me reconsider the car chasing game.

At first I wondered if it was her, but when I’d run back to her after getting a shock she’d pat my head near this great big collar she puts on me sometimes and say, “Good dog”. Nope. Wasn’t her.

Now every time we’re on the road and I hear a car coming I sit down immediately. I get the feeling she’d prefer it if I didn’t sit in the middle of the road, but I’m still a bit fuzzy on that. So, yeah, I’ve given up chasing cars and, if you don’t mind, I’ll retract my earlier invitation. It’s just not worth the hassle.

Signed: Floss

PS: We get on better now I don’t chase cars even though I still go nutso over cars with dogs in them and she still bangs on at me for licking fresh cowpats. The farmer who I only follow etc also yells at me over that. What’s their problem? It’s processed grass . . . just like milk. One little lick and they’d be addicted.

Everything's at it

Whoever wrote the doggerel “Spring has sprung, the grass has ris, I wonder where the birdies is” went through life with his eyes wide shut.

It is spring. Birdies are everywhere. If they have not multiplied, they are in the throes of doing so.

Of course, rabbits are at it - they’re peak performers in the business of reproduction - while hares, which usually live solitary lives, are also busy making families. We’ve encountered many in pairs and small groups which guilty scatter as if mortified to have been caught together, let alone inflagrante delicto.

Turkeys appear to have done the business a while back, and now hens with clutches of chicks abound.The farmer’s mother says turkeys are useless mothers which is surely good; if their nurturing skills were excellent they would number in their millions rather than thousands.

There’s plenty of evidence of their poor parenting skills. When the farmer and I stepped outside to meet some visitors, a reporter and photographer from Country99 TV, we found them by their vehicle pondering a teeny turkey chick at their feet.

“Ohh, how cute,” said the reporter, “but I wonder how it got here.”

The cameraman, meanwhile, wanted to foster the bird and, we while pondering the chick’s mysterious appearance, we supported his dream, never mind that he lives in Auckland.

I even produced evidence of the logic of raising a turkey in the city having long ago raised half a dozen ducklings. After starring in an advertisement, they enjoyed regular swims in my bath and lived in a cosy box under a warming light, before moving to a friend’s lifestyle block.

Eventually, we concluded the chick had tumbled from our house paddock, off the retaining wall and into our parking area.

As if to back-up our theory, a turkey hen with a chick mooched into view in the house paddock. We returned the lost sibling, having got the okay from the cameraman. He looked relieved.

Two hours later, after waved our guests goodbye, the farmer spotted another turkey chick in our garden. Now we concluded the hen had camped here overnight, before being frightened away by a vehicle. Again we tracked down the hen and returned her youngster.

Then I came upon a turkey sitting atop day-old chicks - on the road. I scared her from this ridiculous spot and into a paddock.

And finally I picked up a nest on the roadside, presuming that it had been blown from a tree by the brutal winds we’re enduring. Its outer shell was composed of pale green moss, while the interior was cosily insulated with sheep’s wool.The bird that built this exquisite nest was far from foolish. Like many homeowners who this year have fallen victim to the vicious whims of Mother Nature, this bird was merely unlucky.

Show no fear

As we rocketed across a bumpy paddock on the brand new, bright red automatic quad I was pleased I’d enrolled us in an ACC FarmSafe course. The farmer bought the quad at our local agricultural field days – probably at the same time I was earnestly signing up for the course.

My decision FarmSafe was for us was made while herding steers: one jumped up a bank and my dog, Floss, took off after it to keep driving it forward – with me in tow. 

She was on a long leash because five sets of circumstances cause her to ignore commands and the farmer to yell, “Control that expletive dog!” At that moment three were present – the quad, her sister Sue, and a beast that had got separated from the mob. The fourth situation is a stranger (a stranger with a dog or child also induces amnesia) and the fifth is the delectable smell of decomposing possum.

When the steer charged back towards us, I shot out of the bush and scrambled down the bank while the farmer shouted, “Don’t show any fear!”

Fear? We didn’t discuss it at the time (there was no time), but fear didn’t come into my reasoning. Being trampled by a steer would have compromised my comfort, health and, of course, safety. Roll on FarmSafe course, I thought.

On the morning of the course we noted that we’d moved the cattle with no mishaps.  It would have been depressing to have an accident on the same day as the course which, incidentally, kept us safe and sound thus ensuring we weren’t among the 11 or so people destined to have farm accidents that day. (ACC pays out on about 4000 farm accidents a year.)

During the course we were reminded of the old-fashioned safety principle:  Learn from your mistakes.

A few weeks later we were advised we’d passed with full marks then, the very next day, Rex ruined our impeccable safety record by nicking his leg with his chainsaw. The injury resulted in a small bit of flapping skin he wanted to cut off. I thought it would be interesting to lay it back in place, put a plaster on and see whether it healed or died. But he vetoed my idea.

“Nuh,” he said. “That means pulling off the plaster, that means ripping out hairs and that means pain.”

It’s surprising this type of injury isn’t covered in FarmSafe courses.

Dot is a dog in disguise

Obviously one of our cats is really a dog because she prefers dog food and she follows.

When we set off on foot to move cattle it’s like being in a B-grade version of the movie, The Incredible Journey, where two dogs and a cat trek to wherever it was. It’s B-grade because the farm clothes are too tatty for Hollywood.

Another clue to Dot’s dogness is her name. Dot is one letter off Dog – the same as Rex is one letter off that other popular word. We won’t go there, but you must get my point by now: Dot is a dog in disguise.The masquerade means she lives inside, sleeps on the bed, lies by the fire . . . and dives into the dog food bag when it’s left open.

However one aspect of Dot’s character is purely cat – it’s impossible to get tablets down her throat. When she lost hair on her legs, the vet confirmed she was allergic to fleas and prescribed steroids. When I explained the difficulties we had dosing Dot (she eats around tablets hidden and crushed in food) the vet recommended a pill popper. You bung it in the cat’s mouth and fire out a capsule.

Rex and I steeled ourselves for a fight but Tablet One went down on the first try and all I got was a scratched arm. The next day, when we administered Tablet Two, I wore a long sleeved top and it took three attempts to score. Dot was furious with us! She steeled herself for full-on rebellion and Tablet Three skittered across the floor half a dozen times before we said ‘stuff it’ and a few other things and called it a day. (Fortunately Dot’s since made a full recovery.)

Obviously the reason it takes five years to qualify as a vet is because four years are devoted to learning how to get tablets down cats’ throats. There’s an acting module so vets can prescribe tablets for cats without laughing because they know their clients won’t be up to the task.

In year five there’s lots of frantic note taking: cows – four stomachs; woody tongue – iodide solution; everything else – penicillin; repairing wounds – sewing 101, etc, etc.

More evidence of Dot’s dogness showed up when she came home with a limp baby pheasant in her mouth. She dropped it at my feet and wandered off. If that’s not dog behaviour, I’ll eat Dot’s steroids.The pheasant quickly recovered. To stop Dot following me when I released it, I distracted her with food. It wasn’t dog food because the vet says it’s bad for her and we follow instructions when we can. The pheasant flew away and, hopefully, will remember its lesson and won’t find itself clamped in a dog’s mouth ever again.

If Bo Peep was a person

If Bo Peep was a person she would drive a tatty little sportscar too fast. It would be covered in dings from her reckless driving.

Read my last blog: Bo Peep is a lamb with attitude. If she were human she would be ‘known by the police’. She would run red lights, shop lift and nick anything she fancied. She would be impossible to catch.

She would own the latest model cellphone and be really good at text messaging. “Grpvn & strb lvs xlnt” – Grapevine and strawberry leaves are excellent. “Hl 2m frm gt – tgt sqz” – A hole two metres from the gate – a tight squeeze.

After living quietly in the paddock below the house, she led a break out on the day after the last column was published. Could the publicity have gone to her head? We were about to go out when we found the lambs grazing in the section. The farmer said, “Leave them there, Kate (the dog) will scare them away.” Huh! Kate retired to her bed on the back terrace and when we got home Bo Peep and her mate, Stamp, had claimed the day bed; the two little lambs were also on the front terrace.

Tony, who looked after the farm while we were on holiday, and the farmer attempted fencing reinforcements armed with wire mesh, stakes, hammers, etc. A farmer and a professional fencer, they have stood back after each attempt and said things like: “They will never get out of there”, “That’ll fix them”, etc. A few hours later I have found the paddock empty and the lambs grazing the garden or the grape vine.

Bo Peep is always the ringleader and, as a result, the farmer sees rosemary and garlic in her future. The idea gives me indigestion. I’ve fed her for months and adore Bo Peep’s audacity. Little Stamp has been deknackered, so is a gentle creature who only gets out when he’s led by Bo Peep. And the two little girls can make themselves useful by having lambs year after year after year.

One this is for certain – there will be no pet lambs next year. Meanwhile – drive carefully. Bo Peep’s licence plate number is: BAA2U2.

The audacious Bo Peep

Bo Peep was supposedly an orphan lamb, but when I got to know her I realised she simply wanted a better life. She’d been a day or so old and bursting with good health when – bleating her heart out - she followed us along the farm road. We installed her in a large cardboard box in the living room, but soon her bleating drove us crazy.

After a local ’sheep psychologist’ determined she was lonely, we found a companion – a tiny boy lamb who had been deserted by his mother and two siblings. He fiercely stamped his feet in what was, apparently, a move to make us back off.  We were very intimidated and named him Stamp.

Bo Peep, meanwhile, learned to jump out of her box and soon resided in the laundry lined with newspaper and hay. I was so impressed with her assertiveness I considered taking notes so I could incorporate her more effective behaviours into my own life, but went off the idea on the day she escaped. The farmer found her standing on the living room couch cheerfully peeing. She was unperturbed by the hissing television she’d turned on when she stood on the remote.

For a while Bo Peep and Stamp spent their days in the quad trailer crate on our lawn, then I herded them into the house paddock where they camped in the mud by the gate and refused to eat grass.

It rained.  The mud turned to sludge. When they wouldn’t shift onto clean grass, we allowed the cold, sopping, grubby lambs to graze the house section where, to our annoyance, they dined on flowers, strawberry plants and the grapevine.

Next we put them in the paddock in front of the house but, after four failed attempts to block their exits, we surrendered and let them graze the section again.

That was when Bo Peep showed her true colours – she wasn’t so much a self confident lamb as an impudent and audacious one.  She’d leap onto the day bed on the terrace, bounce on the mattress and bound off.  She became addicted to this and got Stamp in on the act.

The pair spent much of their time gazing at the countryside from the comfort of the day bed. As they also did the ‘nature’ thing, I figured it was high time to lamb proof a paddock. Armed with kitchen scissors and flexing my muscles, I dragged out a roll of fencing mesh that had been buried under kikuyu grass for a decade or so.  I used electric fence standards to hold it up.

“Phwoar!!” said the farmer when he saw my handiwork.  “I didn’t realise you were such a big strong girl.”

I smiled coyly and didn’t mention that scissors are great for cutting kikuyu.

Life returned to normal until two more newborn lambs, the weakest triplets from hoggets who were going to struggle with so many offspring, showed up. Toru (named for Tahi, Rua, Toru . . . one, two, three in Maori) liked to sniff flowers when she was given the chance, while Freckles followed me everywhere, even when she had a full tummy. Like all pet lambs, they were really cute and adorable - for a while.

Judging young farmers

When the farmer learned the Young Farmer of the Year regional finals were to be held locally, he put my name forward as a judge of the Communication Module and offered to play the role of a farm worker who had no initiatve.

This was a novelty for both of us: my attempts at communication are endlessly judged by readers (hi there!), and he requires endless initiative to farm a thousand-plus acres.

On the day, two of us judged eight young hopefuls. When each contestant arrived, we introduced them to their three fake ‘employees’ who’d been briefed to use minimal intelligence.

The contestants’ first task was to ask their ‘employees’ - without speaking - to place several white sticks on the ground to create a letter of the alphabet. Think Charades. As farmers are famously laconic, I thought they’d all score highly but, after having been briefed, one contestant said to his ‘employees’, “Right, I’m going to get one of you to create the letter ‘C’ with those white sticks.” 

We let him start again with a new letter, but ‘the farmer’ insisted we judges had been too soft. Frankly, I think farmers need all the encouragement they can get to speak to their staff.

In Task Two, the contestants had to tell two employees to assemble some metal sheep yards, and in Task Three, the contestant provided written instructions to an employee who had to give a quad bike a prestart check then drive it through an obstacle course.  

Some observations: Only one contestant asked an employee to start Task Three while the others were still on Task Two. None said to their ‘staff’ something along the lines of: “Hi guys, we’ve got half an hour to do three things.  I’ve got to get my instructions before we start, so you'll be standing round for a while.” I can vouch for the fact that employees like that because the farmer never says it to me and on those occasions I always wish I’d brought a book.

It’s easy to be critical when you’re not in the firing line but for once it was my job, and I found it fascinating.

During the evening session, the contestants answered a raft of questions including this one: When was decimal currency introduced to New Zealand? Eight young farmers looked blank, then one brave contestant blurted some long lost year like 1876. Every Kiwi who’s 50-something or older knows it was 1967 and can still sing the jingle.

Whoever dreamed up that advertising campaign would score 100 percent in any Communication Module. But as the Government was behind the jingle that still haunts many of us, perhaps it belongs in a Brainwashing Module.

Heard the one about the blonde and the rugby psychic?

A blonde went to the rubbish dump with a farmer who was disposing of countless plastic bags which once contained calf feed.

On the tray of his ute were three huge canvas wool bale bags packed to overflowing with calf feed bags.

The farmer was about to empty a bale into the container (of the type leaning perilously aboard Rena) which sat below a retaining wall when the blonde merrily heaved an entire wool bale and its contents into the container.

The farmer said, “But we need to keep the bag.”

“Of course,” said the blonde, “that was stupid of me. I’ll ask the manager for a ladder or hook so we can get it out.”

She’d taken a couple of steps when the manager got to his feet and retrieved it.

“I’m not climbing into the container,” declared the blonde who’s scared of ladders - and needn’t have worried. By this time the farmer was deep in the container.

“Gosh,” said the blonde, “it’ll be tricky climbing the ladder carrying the full wool bale.”

At this point the farmer and dump manager said in unison, “He’ll empty it’s while he’s down there and bring up the empty bag.”

“Of course,” said the blonde, seriously humiliated by now, “that was really stupid of me.”

You may have figured out that the blonde was, in fact, me. In further proof that opposites attract, the farmer has demonstrated brilliant psychic ability with regard to New Zealand’s RWB win and wit in respect of England’s performance.

Two weeks before the big final he often declared, in front of many witnesses, that Stephen Donald would kick the winning goal. Of course, he hasn't reminded us about this since the win....

And he reckons the English team learned a handy lesson: “If there’s one thing they’ve learned,” he said, “it’s that passes should be made on the field and not in night clubs.”

I thought this line was so clever I assumed he’d stolen it from some radio jock, but it’s original.

While we were celebrating the All Blacks’ semi-final glory with a black drink - coffee liqueur - and noting there had been more spouting blood in the game than any A&E department, the farmer was also suffering. He’d put his back out the day before.

“Perhaps a couple of painkillers would be in order,” I said

He groaned and muttered, in a voice which suggested they would be the last thing to pass his lips, “Do you think Richie McCaw takes painkillers?”

Once upon a time the farmer really was blond. McCaw still is.  

Of rugby dreams and realities

The farmer kicked off my recent book launch by blowing a whistle as if he was a Rugby World Cup referee.

He still dreams of being an All Black and in the preceding weeks had rehearsed a mock phone call. As he welcomed everyone, his cell phone would ring.

“Graham,” he’d say. “Oh, Sonny Bill Williams is out. Oh, Conrad Smith’s out as well. And you want me?”

That this was a fantasy is underscored by the fact that the farmer refuses to own a cell phone. When he co-ordinated a stage of the Rally of Whangarei I lent him mine so he could contact his team. He accidentally phoned his sister three times.

Rex also considered buying an All Black jersey for the occasion, despite that black isn’t his colour. My offer to buy an Argentine rugby shirt instead was ignored.

On the day, however, he said something that drew a bigger reaction than any replica rugby shirt or fake phone call would have done.

Waving a NZ Herald, he drew everyone’s attention to a story about grass roots rugby and the accompanying black and white photograph.

“Who would have imagined,” he said, “that in 2011 the NZ Herald would publish a photograph of the Batley rugby team from the1920s. My grandfather was in that team.” They played home games at Tanoa, about a kilometre up the Otamatea River from Batley. 

“Rugby’s been played for about 130 years in New Zealand, so it’s amazing that of all the photos available this one was published. And what’s more,” he said, drawing another gasp from our guests, “descendants of five people in this photo are with us today.”

Their names are Bull, Hargreaves, Linnell, Linton, and Roadley, but what Rex didn’t realise was that shortly before festivities began, two put in apologies.

One had to keep watch on his sheep after eight lambs had been savaged by roaming dogs, while the other’s plans to whip across the Otamatea River by boat then return home in time to drive to an RWC match, had been thwarted by wild weather.  

As far as I’m aware, the only other gasp of the day came from an Auckland friend who’d been about to hand around a platter of vol au vents filled with mullet, caught and smoked by the farmer himself.

“You can’t take it out like that,” admonished the caterer’s off-sider, “it’s got no nasturtiums on it. We do things properly here, you know.”

This is not strictly true, but we make a bit of an effort when we’ve got 150 visitors.

Sunrise

The Mysteries of Life

Farming sure keeps you in touch with the mysteries of life. Newborn calves and lambs are at one end of the scale, trucks take livestock away at the other, and there are illnesses and mishaps in between.

As a novice chook farmer, I berated myself when a young brown shaver died. It had become fly blown and I hadn't noticed - the damage was under her feathers. Now I regularly peer at the bottoms of my chooks.

Then one morning there was ruckus in the hall - thumps, bangs, the sound of running feet. I thought it was the cats playing chasey until I found a huge dead rat and big fat Tara the cat purring nearby.

After praising Tara, I picked up her prize in paper towels and showed it to the farmer.

"Lovely," he said, and it was. There wasn't a mark on this rat. Perhaps it died of fright.

These grim tales were offset a story of determination and survival.

I was soaking in the bath when a daddy longlegs near the taps decided to climb the wall. The first half metre above the bath is slippery Formica so it was tricky. But he found a rough edge and set off. Partway up he got overconfident - I could see it coming - and fell onto Patch, a mesh bathwasher with a dog face on it.

Undefeated, he tried again. After another crash landing on Patch, he made it to the next level where he found himself in another pickle simply because our bathroom needs a revamp. We never could get the Formica to fit after the plumbing was redone so it juts out rather than fits snugly against the wall.

The spider's legs were too short to reach the wall and so long he couldn’t balance on the Formica’s thin edge. What a dilemma! But this was one smart spider; he hooked a few feet over the edge of the Formica and took off. Once again overconfidence almost did him in but he saved himself with a web he quickly cobbled together as he fell.

I watched entranced as he swung over the hot tap, then clambered to the top of the web where he stood for perhaps a minute. He may have been catching his breath but I can’t verify this.

When the determined fighter made it to the safety of the curtain the show was over. And what a show it had been. After I got out of the bath I reported the spider’s hair-raising adventure to the farmer who lay on the couch engrossed in some telly programme you can watch any old night of the week.

"Lovely," he said.

Please speak lightly

I hadn’t thought ‘lightly’ and ‘politely’ were interchangeable until a letter from a rental vehicle company proved that, indeed, this is so.

We share a Kaipara beach with a decapitated ‘no camping’ sign and another sign some freedom campers ignored. During a preprandial wander, I passed this couple whose van had been parked all day. They were relaxing in deck chairs on the beach. Although the man acknowledged me, the stiff set of the couple’s backs indicated they had no wish to chat.

I walked past the van, past a fire on the beach and . . . .urghhh!!! . . . past dirty pieces of tissue paper near the boat ramp. Yick!!!

As if by karma, a clean plastic bag lay at my feet. I gathered the toilet paper (using the method dog owners have perfected) then approached the stiff-backed couple who told me they were from Europe, that this was their third New Zealand holiday, where they’d been and where they were going.
I politely mentioned the no camping rule, although they must have known, but they declined a camping spot in a nearby paddock. They looked surprised when they learned the beach was popular with boaties and families and that there was a nearby toilet.

“Some naughty people used the grass as a toilet,” I said, indicating the treasures in the plastic bag.

They left the next day leaving wood on a fire that smouldered near dry kikuyu.

What would you do? I wrote to the vehicle hire company, copying the council and government.

Days later a prickly reply from the vehicle rental company informed me I’d made incorrect assumptions and asked why I hadn’t lightly pointed out that camping wasn’t permitted.

Confused, I checked my letter. I’d made no incorrect assumptions - I hadn’t accused the company of not educating campers, but said I’d been unable to find this info on their website. And in the circumstances, was the tone of our interaction relevant? Now I felt prickly.

I replied saying that, in fact, they had made an incorrect assumption as I had spoken “lightly” to the campers and offered them a legal camp site.  

Later I realised I’d misread the grouchy letter. I don’t mean to make fun of the writer’s spelling ability - we have different strengths and weaknesses - but I’d been asked to speak “per lightly” to the campers, i.e. “politely”.

In my chummy reply, I hadn't mentioned that he’d incorrectly assumed I was a bloke or that I felt confident the company would never hire this littering couple another vehicle - that might have been an incorrect assumption.

Scarce as a Skelton spade

Having come within a whisker of death, I quietly vowed never again to act as a gate in the spot where two bulls had charged me.

Then I made a public declaration. “I'm never going to do that again," I said in a stern voice.   

"I've got bad news,” replied the farmer.  "You've got to do it once more."

If there’s truth in ‘third time lucky’, could ‘third time unlucky’ also hold? As I stood in the dreaded position, I also pondered my need for assertiveness training and this: If I wasn't going to do the job, who would?   

Then I noticed the farmer’s favourite spade - a Skelton with a dagger-sharp blade - on the tray of the truck and my hopes of survival swelled.While he and dogs mustered cattle, I decapitated the tall and swaying seedheads in the gateway with a level of aggression that's rare for me when it comes to manual labour.

Surely the bulls would see the gap now, I thought, as I inspected my handiwork. And they did, filing into the paddock as quiet as lambs. Although where that expression comes from, I don’t know as I’ve seen no evidence of quietness around sheep. 

They bleat a lot and the farmer yells a lot. The dogs, meanwhile, are merely muddled. They’re used to working with cattle not stupid, white, woolly things. It only takes one to cause trouble and later that day the honour went to a ewe which slipped away as the mob entered the yards. Rex took off at a gallop while I revved up the quad and zapped past him to head off the sheep.

The tricky part came when I had to stop on a slope. As quad bikes were designed by men so women would find them difficult to operate, applying the handbrake required both hands and half a second more than the time it took for the sheep to run past me.

Then I glimpsed a fast-moving blur to my left. The farmer had launched into a flying tackle reminiscent of his rugby days.He grabbed the animal in a headlock (he learned that at rugby too) and loaded the creature onto the quad. As the three of us made our sedate and somewhat comical way back to the yards I remembered the Skelton spade I’d left leaning against the fence.

By the time we got there it had been nicked by some cretin who must have known who owned it. 

Rex didn't blame me, but was so sad about the loss of his beloved spade I made it my mission to find another.

As they're no longer made, after scouring second-hand shops and the Internet, I found only one spade (it belongs to Christchurch City Council and has been used four times by the Queen at commemorative plantings) and one simile: “As scare as a Skelton spade.”

Morning

Jump!

The idea of writing about life on the farm hit me while I lay sprawled on the road after this . . .

Jump!

Our first lot of summer visitors marvelled at the way bulls and steers turned obediently and walked through gates but two days later our second group of guests discovered they did no such thing. 
On one of the intervening days, the farmer and I visited Auckland where we ate lunch while circuiting at Orbit, the cafe atop Sky Tower.While he downed a beer, I sipped a cocktail unaware that it's name - Jump - would become the theme of my week.

The following day while the farmer and dogs mustered the cattle, I stood on the road ready to direct them into their lush new paddock.

The round up took so long I got to thinking that the grass in the gateway was, well, so long. Would the cattle notice the open gate? I stomped the grass flat, bizarrely even folding down seed heads in my effort to make the gate a yawning invitation.

When the bulls arrived, I motioned them into their new home. But the last bull hesitated, bucked and, to my disbelief, started running - towards me.

I screamed, waved, jumped, yahooed and bellowed then, at the last possible second, jumped left. At the crucial moment the bull side-stepped right, like Jonah Lomu (only bigger) going for the tryline, and thundered down the road.

The farmer zoomed up on the quad grinning crazily. "How's your little heart?"

It wasn't great and got worse as images of the charging bull replayed endlessly in my mind.

Leap to the next day: Same place, same programme, different victims - two bulls that missed the muster.

The audience: our guests who retreated to their car as the bulls approached.

I stood my ground unfazed. The first bull, a monstrous thing, eyed the gate then charged on through it. Perfect!

Behind him a six-month-old mainly white Friesian took a scornful glance at the paddock then kept coming and coming and coming while I screamed, waved, jumped, yahooed and bellowed.

Then his head went down. Then he rammed it into my stomach. Then he effortlessly picked me up and tossed me aside. Then I landed - with a thud and scoring a crunched shoulder, sore hip and lots of sympathy from our alarmed friends who'd watched open-mouthed.

We found "whitey" miles down the farm. He’d jumped a cattle stop and kept running, but the big bull hasn't been seen since.

As the Bermuda Triangle hasn't moved to Kaipara, I wonder if there was something powerful that Jump cocktail. I don't want the recipe.