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.