The Beginning

Two weeks ago, if you'd told me that there were farmers and then there was everyone else, I probably wouldn't have believed you. But such is the breadth of knowledge my inert brain has had to ingest over the last fortnight that I am now realising how wrong I was.

What kind of knowledge? Well, for starters: skinny black jeans do not appropriate farming attire make; and despite aiming directly at a neighbours house a few hundred metres away with a shotgun, the inhabitants of that house are not in danger because the pellets won't actually make it that far. Yes, it seems I am now enrolled in the University of (Farming) Life.

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. Here is some background as to why this blog has even come into existence. A couple of months ago, my Aunty and Uncle contacted me to ask if my partner Jo and I would be interested in looking after their 26 acre Highland Cattle farm in Pukekohe for four months while they were away on holiday in Europe. As we were both seeking work (or "employed by the government to actively job search" if you prefer) and were looking to move to Auckland anyway, we thought, "why not? How hard can it be? We've both visited farm's before, that's enough experience isn't it? And Pukekohe is closer to Auckland than Gisborne or Christchurch." Basically we were both optimistic.

By the time we'd said yes, there was no turning back. We'd bought the farm, so to speak. Or perhaps less morbidly, we were set for greener pastures.

We'd decided on a two week induction, giving us plenty of time to learn the ropes before being left to our own devices. This is us being chauffeured around our new domain:

We had our first encounter with the animals we'd be sharing our time with:

With names like Neil, Jock and Hamish, it helps to soften those otherwise sharp looking horns.

Of course, there are the farm dogs, Huntaway Kupe and Jack Russell Terrier Tera (whose photo will come later):

Things during these first few days have gone well, if I do say so myself. Aside from some fairly dodgy digging of ditches (it's been a while since a spade has been gripped by these hands) and a lack of rain making things tricky in regards to the level of water in the tank, only one thing has really challenged Jo and I during the week:

There'd been talk of killing a lamb for a few days and we both found ourselves doing some soul searching as to what our involvement would be in the process. Essentially as we both eat meat, it seemed a bit hypocritical to shy away from seeing the process of how the meat ends up in a delicious pile on our plates. As preparations were made and the event approached, we found ourselves facing the moment of truth. At which time I distinctly remember an urgent bit of business came to my attention and I had to go and do some work for the MTV website. No really, I did. Seriously! As for Jo, she probably would have been the more iron stomached of us both, but she didn't seem to mind when she was given the task of preparing vegetables for dinner instead.

And so, in a few days we will be in charge, with plenty of notes to refer to and plenty of people's contact numbers making up our emergency list. Next time I get around to writing this blog, there'll be reports of clay bird shooting, heading into the Big Smoke and hopefully not too much drama on the home front.

Until then, enjoy a couple of short videos featuring the aforementioned bulls and a whole lot of chickens.