not everyone

makes it to Grand Final.

Some of the Young Farmers spend the most important part of the year (Grand Final, TBfree NZYF Conference, duck shooting) in places like Australia seeding or Britain or the US/Canada  for harvest or shearing like my mate Shaun Bradley from Taihape.  He's written a bit about his annual experiences in Western Australia.

The goings on in a day of a Wheat seeding programe on a Western Australia Farm.

Chilwell – is a family run farming operation consisting of 3 brother and a father.

Andrew Fowler, the eldest son is the director of the company and pretty much the big boss. He overseas the cropping programme consisting of about 17,500ha of canola, barley, wheat and ryegrass. Simon Fowler is in charge of the stock side of things. Running around 25,000 merino and perendale X ewes and about 2,500 cattle. Tim Fowler is.........well no one actually knows what Tim does but he is very good at looking occupied....yeh you get my drift. Richard, the father, just sifts about doing odd jobs here and there and then buggers off into town for a few days a week where they have a house.



The main block, Chatham is around about 100kms east of Esperance down the SE of WA. Esperance is a seaside town with amazing beaches and a great relaxed vibe to it.

In total the Fowlers run have around 25,000ha to look after. 10,500ha is owned by them and the rest is made up of lease land and share cropping. The land is spread over 6 different properties within a radius of about 30km from the main shed. The Company employs around 10 full time staff, not including the 3 brothers. There are 4 stockies, and the rest are cropmen and cropwomen, a grader/loader driver and a mechanic. During the Seeding and Havest times, casuals come in. There are 11 toyota landcruisers on the joint plus a couple of dualcabs for late night missions to town to drink the pub dry.



I came about this job through the mate Matt Wrenn who is full time out here, Matt is from Oringi back home in NZ, Oringi is half way between Woodville and Daniverke. Matt drives one of the big Nitro sprayers that are used excessively with a cropping programme.

The 2012 seeding season is the Fowlers biggest programme they have put in, recently aqquired lease land has jumped the programme from 11,500 to what it is now. Putting the crop in are two New Holland pivot steer tractors, 500hp, with a 60ft bar. Tractors run for around 21hours a day, 2 shitfts are run with day shift starting at 6am through till 3pm then night shift from 3pm through to 3am.



Before we seed the paddocks, a team of 3 sprayers have been getting paddocks ready for the last month or so. A knockdown spray a week or two before the paddocks are seeded to kill all weeds, grass and clover. 24Hrs before the paddock is seeded a pre-emergence spry is applied to stop any weeds that werent killed by the Roundup. The sprayers are kept very busy after seeding spraying the crops for more weeds and any insecticides and bugs that may appear. There are 3 sprayers out here, 2 self propelled (Nitros) theyve got 120ft booms on them so can get through the work, and a tow behind sprayer behind a tractor.


So im on night shift for seeding, you may think night shift is a bit average but infact its far better than during the day. So I usually wake up around midday, doing the usual chores, make lunch, washing and all that. Around 2:30pm I leave the house and go and pick up Keeri-lee, she is on nights with me. Kerri-lee is a local lass from esperance who has been driving tractors since she left school, she is 19. We arrive at the paddock round 3 and take over, during the day Brooke is on my tractor. Brooke is also a local Esperance girl, and Matts girlfriend. On the other tractor during the day is Neo, shes from Ireland and is out with her partner Colm who is on a sprayer.

So we rock up, get our debrief from the girls and then get into it. Every 20ha we get out and check all the pipes for blockages so that all the tynes are seeding. There is about 60 odd pipes and it only takes a few minutes to check and clear the odd blockage. Every 60 -70ha we get refilled with seed, fertiliser and liquid fert. Nights is good because everyone else is at home so we dont get bothered and were left to our own devices, and also at nights the suns not out so it doesnt put me to sleep. When we get closer to 3am we decide whether we park up at 3 or push on for another hour and get the paddock finished, depending on the paddock sizes.

Because this place run a lot of stock the sizes of the paddocks are on average 100ha so as to keep control on the grazing side of things and making mobs of stock also more controlable. But we do get bigger paddocks, on some of the new lease blocks we can get up to 300ha for one paddock so we would be stuck in there all night. On average we can get around 240ha seeded in a night, all up we average around 400ha for a day.

So then when we finish we shut the tractors down, jump in the ute and make a b-line for home and bed.



Seeding for the Fowlers this year will take about 2 months, at this stage we are nearing the end with about 4000ha remaining. Everyone is starting to look forward to the finish and abit of time off. We do get to take a day off when we want and if we want it. Most have taken a day off a week. I have a bit of a different attitude to the rest, mainly being a kiwi and having a kiwi attitude ive not taken anytime off since we really got busy so will probably end up going 5 weeks straight. Its interesting to see different peoples views on that, as being mostly non kiwis here they dont really understand that and think its mad. Maybe it is? I dont know, but thats just me, Im here to get the crop in so thats what ill do, its money for jam. Being on nights ive not been to the pub at all so have saved plenty. But the time will come where I do make it to the pub, then lookout cause itll be a blowout of all proportions. We are busy planning our cutout and farewells as we all head of in different directions and different countries.

Myself I'm off to England for the harvest up there. I am looking forward to that an experiencing what that will bring, but at the same time am also looking forward to heading back home to NZ.



rural awesomeness

Just so you know,

no self-respecting rural person would use the word awesomeness

unless they are a relatively uncool 13 year old

but it is the most appropriate word for the

2012 National Bank Young Farmer Grand Final.

This guy Elliot Scott was the man in charge

of a team of a fair few people who pulls together a massive,

a huge, an epic year of organising, planning and challenging

all for their fellow Young Farmers.

Early in the morning inside Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin,

looking down on the modules on the concrete at the right end and

on the field the AgriSports set up to be raced through in a few hours.

So this is how the volunteer side of Young Farmers works.

We have these great young people who

join Young Farmers.

They blithely go along to meetings,

having a few jars,

meeting people,

talking harvest and calving stuff.

Then they enter the National Bank Young Farmer Contest.

At first they are having a good opportunity for a skills day with their mates.

They have a go at skills modules welding, building, digging, or calving/lambing

(really gross defrosted, limp dead calves or lambs).

They do this for a couple of years

then one year they make it through to a Regional Final.

Then after a couple of goes a Regional Final

they might, might make it through to a Grand Final.

Only eight from each Region make it through to a Regional Final,

only one from each Region makes it to Grand Final.

Katherine Tucker (Northern Region Grand Final Contestant)

in the dairy module at 2012 Grand Final

Along the way the Young Farmer volunteers

will have chaired a Club,

run a District/Regional Contest Final,

organised fundraising, bus trips, hunting trips,

a million and one social activities

and

making really great, life lasting friends.

Chris Will, Cam Lewis (elected the NZYF Board just now)

and Cam Brown (Regional Chair, Taranaki/Manawatu)

Contest is like no other event in anywhere in the world,

the rural world or otherwise.

Three levels - District, Regional and National

400 enter, then 56 (8x 7 Regional Finals)

then just 7 at Grand Final

then just 1.

There is only one winner each year.

We've have been doing this Contest for 44 years.

There have now been 44 Young Farmer of the year.

2012 is Michael Lilley's turn.

That's Micheal in the cloak with his wife Kelly

and the six Grand Finalists.

Grand Final is a gruelling three day event

that has a day of mental challenges,

a day of physical challenges

then a night of conquering rounds of mastermind type ag questions

all the while being filmed, photographed and interviewed.

There are only seven each year.

Only one wins.

Don't worry we train them young these days.

We have AgriKids with their own Contest in teams of three

and TeenAg in pairs.

Training Grand Finalists for the future.

We have a TV series called

The Road to the Young Farmer Final 

so click above and hopefully TVNZ will be generous

and allow my overseas peeps to watch a little of what we do.

The National Bank Young Farmer Grand Final

In all seriousness,

Grand Final week is like giving birth

in the sense that there is a certain amnesia

that takes over once the dust has settled and life is tracking along.

Then you arrive in the host city

and within ten minutes

the franticness of the five days looms ahead of you.

It's a good looming but even so it's daunting.

So here we are in Dunedin

the host city of the 2012

National Bank Young Farmer Grand Final

with seven Grand Finalists

This morning I flew down from Palmerston North

with our Chairman Spud.

We arrived, dropped off and then

I headed out to Invermay AgResearch

to help (watch) Moffdog, Dunky Monkey and Henry

set up the National Fencing Final.

It's all just a pile of sticks here

but tomorrow

I'll show you the National Final in action

as they fence their way up a pretty steep hill.

Really quite steep in fact.

Enough that as I walked back to my ute

I felt sea sick for the wonky horizon.

Though I do have a dose of the flu

so it may have been a fever spike.

More drugs I say.

 It's all on in Dunedin

over the next couple of days.

If you are around come down to the Forsyth Barr Stadium

on Friday and for free watch our seven Contestants

battle it out doing ag modules for four hours,

two 30 minute head to head task races

and then the gruelling AgriSports.

It's a killer.

In the meantime watch

Katherine Tucker

our third female Grand Finalist in 44 years

on Close Up here

fast forward to 18 minutes and she's all yours.

last week

was a big one.

Four days away,

launches, seminars, meetings and too many flights

and not enough airpoints dollars.

The Southern Alps covered in winter snow

The last meeting I attended was

organised by Rural Women NZ.

Rural Women is an old school organisation that came from

the wives of Federated Farmer's members who were over

sitting around while the men did their talking about important things.

These wives cleaved off to organise themselves into a rather successful lobby group

focusing on rural issues that affect families, women and children.

Effectively the ones that Feds over look.

Rural Women have really made an impact on the

social landscape of rural communities in NZ

with a number of changes in legislation.

The meeting I invited myself to on behalf of Young Farmers

was about animal violence and domestic violence.

So with that in mind the

SPCA, Womens' Refuge, Vet Association and the Police

were also there.

The conversation was long and got side tracked

about SPCA getting a Memorandum of Understanding

with the Police that the Police should take advantage of the newish

animal abuse legislation when they can.

Of course the SPCA want to make the most of the changes

but for domestic violence it's an ideal opportunity

to get supporting evidence if not charges

to stop violence in a home.

The purpose of the meeting was for Rural Women et al

to try and figure out how to make it easier for

women* to leave violent or potentially violent

home environments.

Often the abuser use pets and stock as 'pawns' or 'hostages'

to keep women under their thumbs, afraid and stuck.

How can you leave your animals behind knowing

that they may bear the brunt of your abuser's anger.

Animals in the past have been killed in heinous ways

as a result of domestic violence escapes.

Another thing that came up was that the pattern bruising from a beating

on a corpse of a human and an animal are very similar.

Anyway it was an interesting conversation

that was very impassioned.

As per usual in discussions in the rural sector

there was little discussion about promotion and education.

I would imagine as an abused woman,

I would find it easier to talk about my dog being beaten

than me.

I not sure I would be able to admit I was being beaten.

If my neighbours understood that animal abuse and person abuse

go hand in hand,

then they can have an alarm to ask questions around

to make it easier for the abused to be helped.

After all if a person is willing to punch a cow in the shed

then they are fine with punching the cow in the kitchen.

(that little pearler didn't go over so well when I said it in the meeting).

Rural Women has started to form a plan

and will go back with a structured way of helping women.

Cause that's what they do.

And then I met Jolly Hockeysticks Jo for dinner

and flew home.

On my way home, the south Wairarapa coast

and a big scratch on the outside of the plane window *sigh*

* Obviously Rural Women focus on women but domestic violence has a million different faces and ways of expression.

Johnboi Nonoa

Last week on my tiki tour of the North Island

I stayed with Kaye Kaye Nonoa

as I do often do.

The Nonoas are my favourite family

who mostly live in Templeview.

Jordan has married lovely Landy.

Audrey has married manly Kelly

and just given birth to Vandross.

I thought Vandross was the pregnancy name.

I thought wrong.

Jesse has married macho Q and they have

the stella Sienna and Piripi.

Deej is humming along caring for children.

Housty married slick Sila

and has the most delightful son, Khaleo.

Then the youngest is Johnboi.

Recently Johnboi sang in public for the second time in his life

at his school assembly.

Awww it's that sweet.

 

UPDATE: Last night, 15 Jan 2014 my husband and I attended Johnboi's setting apart as a missionary for teh Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  For the next two years he will serve in the Australia Melbourne Mission and be known as Elder Nonoa.  I'm so excited for him!

farmer wellness

On Wednesday I was in Hamilton.

That alone will call for questions about my own wellness.

Hamilton or the 'tron

is considered a nonentity of a backwater city.

We all have them.

I attended a workshop on farmer wellness,

primarily about farmer stress.

I've not been to a mental and physical health workshop before.

Thankfully, for the most part the people were sane.

And the few who were questionable were able to prove their sanity

with the certificates of release.

There's light at the end of the tunnel for stressed farmers.

So we talked about lots of aspects of farmer wellness.

Because we were in the Waikato

(the home of dairy farming in NZ)

we talked about statistics and studies of dairy farmers.

The most interesting stats I remember

was that only 9.5% of dairy farmers

and 20% of the urban population smoke.

The average dairy farmer is overweight

and they talk to the friends rather than professionals.

Those of us familiar with the industry can explain all of these

quite logically and rationally.

The smoking - who wants to smoke with cow poo on their hands.

The fatness - dairy farming has anti-social hours

so no rugby team involvementt please and now days

nobody walks or rides horses on farm,

it's all tractors and ATVs.

The talking to friends rather than professionals?

Who the heck has the time to take half a day off to drive into

town to talk to a shrink?

Who has the consistent phone coverage to phone the 0800 numbers?

Friends are easier.

When a rural person commits suicide

it impacts the whole community.

It's very close to us all.

Everyone I know who lives outside the cities

can tell stories of clusters of suicides,

mostly young males

and I would say mostly due to isolation,

perceived and real.

Farmer's work situation doesn't have numerous co-workers.

Farmer's living situations many have a strong community

but because of physical distance between homes,

the concept of how well others are doing

is that they are totally handling their stuff.

(its not fun in town to overhear domestic arguments

but at least it helps you keep it real knowing that no-one is perfect).

Often, it's like the idea of suicide as an answer to your problems

is like a virus and is catching.

All the Young Farmers I spoke to about

what stresses them and other farmers

mentioned clusters of suicides and many of them not long ago.

AgResearch and the Rural Support Trust

are working together and

inviting all farmer network groups to join in

to come up with some viable answers

for improving farmer's physical and mental health.

There's lots of research and communities are

good at pulling together during droughts and disasters

to support each other

but how do we create a sustainable and educated

healthy rural population?

PICA

Ok I know that PICA doesn't sound exciting but it is, really.

We, being me and the boss headed to Wellington

for the PICA launch we had organised

at the very nice and very helpful Wellington Club.

I think some people came just because the launch was held there.

Other exciting thing was Nessie came up from

Central Otago for the night to speak at the launch.

Nessie and I would have had a bit of a girls night after the launch

cause we were staying together at my favourite Wellington Hotel

the Quest Hunter Street but we needed to do other stuff.

By the by, the Quest has the best showers,
that are so forceful they cause a howling gale in the shower stall.

The view from the 8th floor of the Quest.

So back to PICA.

PICA is the Primary Industry Capability Alliance.

There's us, Young Farmers, Federated Farmers, AgITO,

Beef+LambNZ, DairyNZ, MAF which is now MPI

and the Centre for Excellence, Lincoln and Massey.

We all get around a table and have yarn about how to create

a strong, agreeable human capability strategy for the entire pastoral sector.

That's the cows, cattle and sheep part of the industry.

It's been tried before but we are determined

to cooperate and collaborate.

This what happens when you copy photos from the internet, fuzzy as bro.

Left is the boss, Richard Fitzgerald, MP Nathan Guy,

Minister for Primary Industries David Carter and

the MC, DairyNZ Board member and ex Young Farmers President Ben Allomes.

You can tell Ben is DairyNZ by his tie.

Remember that, it will hold you in good steed for the future.

The Minister opened the launch or launched the launch

and gave us a great, supportive speech.

Ben as MC was funny and smart.

Richard as Chair of PICA was enlightening.

We had the whose who of Wellington agricultural industry.

It was all on that night.

Nessie spoke brilliantly as someone who is following

the PICA ag based career pathway.

She compared it to wanting to be a professional rugby player.

You don't just rock up to All Black training in your 20s.

You spend all your schooling and training working towards

the goal of being an elite, well trained, competant player.

Same for the ag industry.

Farming is a serious business

and we need serious, smart people to grow our food.

It's kind of important.

Then when it was all over,

Nessie, Ben, Massicks, me and Rosie* met up

for pizza and a debrief.

Cause that's how we roll in NZYF.

Check, check.

*Rosie had been in the Hawkes Bay at Brownriggs organising the Get Ahead Careers Day - all about ag careers in NZ.

on the road

again....

Well in the air cause Palmerston North is far, far away and

over the sea from Leeston.

That's the plane I took.

Not a very big plane I know,

it does the trick though.

It's really early in the morning

and I'm in a motel in Palmerston North.

I spend so much time in or around Palmerston North

I should just move here.

Except I can't because that would be insane

because I can't quite figure out why people want to live

in or around Palmerston North

other than they own farms.

I'm in or around Palmerston North

this time because last night was the

Rural Business Network meeting for the Manawatu Hub.

I'm not entirely sure what makes the RBN totally work

but there is a synergy there that is a little magic.

Getting people together,

espcially farmers and then getting them to interact,

to include others,

to connect and share experiences is never easy.

To have meetings that mean something to every one attending

is something special

and we seem to be able to do it.

Regularly.

Last night we asked Tom Phillips of

Pasture to Plate blog ,

one of not many rural New Zealand focused blogs

to explain himself.

Tom is really great.

He spent eons living overseas and has now returned to old NZed

to work for the Centre for Excellence (in Farm Management)

at Massey University.

Tom spends a fair bit of time talking up the whole social media thing,

but from a what it can do for you farmer person perspective.

We also had our own Simon Hunt of Hildale Farms

who tweets and had him explain why he does so.

Also Stacey Cottril of BLACK SHEEP DESIGN

(had to put that in caps cause I accidentally called Stacey's design company Black Dog.

Stacey mentioned that I had done this, rightly so and commented that I needed

a communications agency to help. 

And yes I do. 

But if you were in the comms business would you not jump on the opportunity

to give that a nudge with an offer of help, paid help

or a plan and proposal?

It is just me that sees an opportunity here???

This is a very long bracketted sentence.

Yet another example of my amateur commincations skills)

Stacey gave us a brush up on what different social media do.

Richard Morrison recently sert up an intranet for his farming business

so discussed the hows and whys of doing that.

A good interactive evening for all that attended.

I do have to say how much I like getting picked up

and driven places.

Totally love it when I need to go to places that are up the back of beyond

that I've never been too.

Like the very lovely Orlando Country.

Spudnik picked me up and

we headed over to Feilding to pick up Gazzarama.

Spud and Gazza are both great guys

who are very generous with their time and talents

(that's a Mormon sentence if there ever was)

and nothing is too hard or too far away for them.

I love it that there are good, keen men like them

out there in the wilds being generous, thoughtful and kind.

I'm off to the Wellington now for the PICA launch tonight.

Must remember to shave my legs.

its winter

It's 6.09pm and it's dark.

Winter has arrived.

That means roast dinners, stews and root veges.

I'm not a fan of winter

but one thing I like about winter is the long conversations

that result from the earlier darkness.

That's means random, reminiscing, rambling conversations

and lots of laughter

about things like the best biscuits you remember.

I remember these biscuits that had cartoon faces cut out of them

and filled with white cream.

Oh they were so yummy and special.

That was back in the day when shop bought biscuits

were such a treat.

Or white bread with golden syrup that for some reason made the bread crispy.

Or golden syrup or honey on wheatbix halves.

Or cold milk and too much milo.

Or pink waffer biscuits, cameo cremes, the old toffee pops.

Why is it that food remembered tastes so wonderful

and flavoursome?

I remember a chicken meal at the Brisbane, QLD Hilton

that melted in my mouth.

Then the silkiness of chicken livers sauteed in chili peppers and whiskey

every Thursday night in Los Gatos, CA.

Or the fresh, tanginess of a beef salad in Feilding, NZ.

And the refreshing, coolness of lime sorbet at the Octagon in Christchurch.

A while ago I mentioned that I had started a diet.

I've kept going and have slowly lost 15kgs (33lbs)

mostly from taking sugar and processed food out of my diet.

I started following the Dukan diet but that wasn't sustainable

so I kept trucking along without processed food

though struggled wtih NO chocolate.

Then I got onto the Cohen Clinic diet and that has made all the difference.

It's all fresh veges, a little meat and some fruit.

My stomach has shrunk and a fist size of food is more than enough.

That and reading David Gillespie's Big Fat Lies book.

Gillespie's thing is that sugar is poison

and I'm inclined to believe him.

Chocolate now goes straight through me.

It's tastes super sweet and tacky.

I dream of chocolate but know that it won't taste like I want it to.

When I have had chocolate I have been ill.

Just ill.

Sick to my stomach.

Crampy and sore.

I think I learn my lesson but in my humanness,

I struggle.

I'll get there.

storms from all directions

Sunday night, we had a rainy storm blow in from the west.

This resulted in a blackout in the middle of the 60 Minutes 

interview with the Victoria Cross winning Aussie digger

and just before the seasonal tornado hunters article.

Ah issues and dramas.

Punky Pete making the most of the hot water left in the kettle,

with a luke warm coffee (no he is not Mormon)

and a bit of light from one of my handy dandy lanterns.

You'd think that after 1000 earthquakes

(That's 1000 actual earthquakes not figuratively)

and living out on the Canterbury Plains

I'd be a little better prepared and less than surprised

when the first winter storm blows up and

the lights go out.

I know exact where candles are,

in the fridge/freezer, cause you can always find the fridge in the dark

and candles last longer if they've been frozen.

Matches remain in the same place they got put after the last big shake.

Both easy to find.

The lanterns are always on the top shelf of the cupboard next to the stove

(another appliance easy to find in the dark).

Batteries remain in the lanterns with the lids unscrewed

so not to waste the energy.

Last June, not long after the fourth really big earthquake
I was at National Fieldays.
For those who aren't in the know,
Fieldays are four days of agricultural exhibitionism with stands from
ag companies displaying their wares from tractors to tasselled alpaca fleece scarfs,
spades to sausages sizzles, gumboots to gumtrees and everything in between.
There are brilliant sales of all sorts of things.
I tackled the camping gear suppliers and got extra discounts
because of all the earthquakes disasters we'd been having.
Yay cheap lanterns that work like expensive ones,
because they are them!

When there's a blackout, even with lanterns
the only thing to do is go to bed and sleep through it
with hopes it will be over when you wake up.
And it was.

Monday evening arrived and brought this Southerly front with it.

Taken as I left Methven, buffeted by really strong winds,

enough to push my one tonne ute around the road,

yes I drive one handed in all weathers

'cause I drive a ute, brah!

After a night without power I figured

Orion, the lines company would be on top of things

so when the freezing cold Southerly front came through

on Monday evening all utilities remained on.

Shame the neighbours rickety old shed rattled and shook all night.

P.S. I love instagram