Seriously last week went a little like this
Monday night fly,
to Palmerston North with Wiggy,
drive to Woodville with Wiggy
stay in Woodville with Wiigy,
separate rooms and Rosie was there too,
tramp around sheep yards in the dark
in a storm in high heels with Wiggy,
also with Rosie.
Only Rosie wore boots.
Go to sleep in Woodville, alone.
Wake up really early and go back to the sheep yards
in more suitable footwear for
with Wiggy and Rosie.
This is Logan the chef and Wiggy the MC
doing their thing after Logan and I had made
about 70 lamb patties by hand for yummy, sweet gourmet burgers
for the students lunch.
Highly recommend char grilled courgettes on burgers,
even when made in old sheep yards on BBQs that had seen better days
and we almost set fire to the building because there was so much fat in the lamb patties.
The flames were rather high.
Would have given us the opportunity to educate the students on the Volunteer Fire Brigade.
This is Rowdy*.
He manages this farm and was kind/insane enough to let us use his yards.
He is also the East Coast Grand Finalist
here is his episode of The Road to the Young Farmer Final
Go Rowdy!
Did I tell you Young Farmers has it's own TV series???
After a day in harrowing, howling, violent rain
Wiggy and I left to return to Methven.
Rosie stayed.
I got to work on Wednesday
and what the heck?
Flew to Napier that evening
(sorry Countess - I would have emailed you
I didn't know I was going to be there
and didn't arrive until 8.30pm)
I headed down to Brownriggs farm at Pokawa
on the most beautiful day
And 110 high students arrived for a Get Ahead Careers Day.
That's a lot of kids.
They came from schools across the Hawkes Bay.
We mixed their teams up and they moved around modules
trying on different jobs,
here they are testing milk quality.
I liked the Colenso College kids the best.
Lippy little beggars but great fun.
And then we have another chef to cook gourmet burgers.
Seeing a theme here??
It's a paddock to plate theme.
The modules go in order from soil scienctists and agronomists
to farmers and stock agents,
to the chef and the marketers.
Today's chef is Brenton from Whangarei.
He flew from Whangarei to Napier
leaving at 3am
with his luggage filled with prepped food
for slightly less gourmet burgers than we have had
but yum all the same.
Yes I helped to make these too.
Those pink serviettes have half burgers in them.
When the students asked questions they got a free half burger
They had all had one each already but they are most blokes
so one burger isn't enough.
It was great fun.
At the end of a really hot day
with hordes of kids,
I flew to Wellington
to have dinner with Jolly and friends
to celebrate April's graduation from
her library science masters programme
at Waggamamas.
And then to Kaffe Eis for ice cream.
I fled when invitations for Pirates of the Caribbean came out.
I hate, hate, hate those films.
They are just big ads for Disneyland.
I love Disneyland and have been five times
but a two hour ad is ridiculous.
So the real reason I was in Wellington
was for Big Wig Day
when Young Farmers bring together the
senior Young Farmers leadership
for a day of interaction with industry leaders.
Then on Saturday was the NZYF SGM.
Sounds exciting?
Special General Meeting's always are... not.
We revised our consitution,
now we have a new one,
and it only took an hour and a half to pass
but about six months of writing, debating and checking.
Nice work Elliot, Nessie and Karyn.
Then we had National Committee meeting for two days.
Yippy skippy and even better
I missed the last part because I got to realise an ambition of mine
and speak at a conference.
After years of organising conferences for others to present it was my turn.
I was part of a panel on leadership
with some people
(ok I only knew of three of them)
There was me and Winnie Laban
(ex Labour Minister of Pacific Affairs)
in a small office in Wellington
video conferencing into an Auckland theatre
talking to 250 Rural Women.
On the stage in Auckland
was Don Nicholson from Fed Farmers,
Dame Margaret someone who is elderly
and had been a wonder women leader in her time,
Sue Higgins who is a Rural Women board member
and on the phone was Tony Cockshorn,
Mayor of Greymouth.
You may remember him from the Pike River Mine disaster.
It was fun,
even though Winnie and I were giants
on a movie theatre size screen.
Fun, fun, fun.
Really fun shocking the conference attendees
with how young women are in control of their fertility
and though they make sacrifices
they can have it all.
Anyway that's a post for another day.
As is what it is like taking farmers to posh French restaurants.
Oh and I'm off to Rotorua tomorrow
for another Get Ahead.
* 10 bucks the first correct answer on why he is called Rowdy.
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