City Girl on the Farm (Day 2) April 17, 2008

After possum hunting, what more could I expect to get out of my trip to an operating New Zealand sheep farm? Little did I know that we had arrived on “crutching” weekend. Crutching is when… God, what IS crutching? As far as I can tell, crutching is when you shave off a strip or so of hair around the behind of the famale sheeps.  This helps with hygiene to keep the flies away from items that might get stuck… however, it’s apparently also more to ease the job of the ram who will be visiting their pasture in about a week.

Ronnie lives and works on the 1400 that holds 3000 sheep and 500 cows. The sheep’s wool are sold at auction everywhere, until they’re about six year old and then they are sold for meat. The cows take apparently from 1 and 1/2 to 2 and 1/2 years until they are ready to be sold for meat. That day he was crutching about 450 sheep, and wanted to get them all done by lunch time so we took off right after breakfast.

On the way however, we ran into a few obstacles:

Once we got near the shed, Blair took me to a flat bit of meadow where he said I could try out the four wheeler for myself. He gave me some instruction, but I made him promise he’d stay on the back with me just in case.

 

Apparently,  Blair doesn’t keep his promise, as after a few meters I looked over and there he was running besides me!

 

Regardless, I got the hang of it! And I have to admit, it’s a little addicting.

Unfortunately, we had to get to work. Ronnie and his daughter had already started… They have heards separated into different stables, where they wait their turn to get crutched.

 Then once they’re in the closest pen, they have to get hearded into the line by the sheepdogs.

It can take a little effort, of course, but it all works out in the end and they’re in order waiting to be ‘crutched.’

I have to admit, that it reminded me all of the movie “Babe,” with all the commands and sheep running everywhere- just obviously minue the pig.

Of course, I had to try for myself. When asked for a review of how I did, I was told it was “decent for an American.” 

It can take forever just to shave a simple strip around the whole herds’ butt. And if you’re curious as to exactly how dramatic the results are, then here you go.  

Before:

After:

We finished the lot, with Sarah herding by command and Heidi hearding by generic noise. Ronnie did most of the crutching with Blair doing some light relieving. I, of course, was resident photographer. On the way back to the house, Blair and I took the scenic route, with me getting the grand tour of the farm.

If you can make out the slightly blue building to the slight right of the terrain, that’s where we were had been doing the shearing before we set off on a tour of the property lines. We made it back for lunch and cleaned up to pack for home!

I couldn’t have asked for a better New Zealand farm expereince….and in fact, when I returned to school one of the teachers who knew I was headed up there asked me how it was. When I replied enthusiastically that I crutched a sheep, she said ‘That’s more than I’ve ever done!’ So there you go- I’m more a kiwi than you’d think!

 

City Girl on the Farm (Day 1) April 15, 2008

Blair and Heidi have been talking of taking me up to ‘the farm’ since I’ve arrived, which is run by family friends. We decided that this would be a good weekend to go, and I had no idea what to expect. I’d be lying if I said that images of red roofed barns and something like Old MacDonald didn’t cross my mind.

Blair’s soccer season has started up and so we went to his first game. Regardless of the score- which shall remain a secret- the disposition was good as they headed for a local pub for traditional drinks. Although my drink was commented on when we got to the table as a little strong for that time in the afternoon, I couldn’t pass up a New Zealand staple of what they call RTD’s. RTD’s are pre-mixed, ‘ready to drink’ beverages. Jack and coke in the same bottle, people!

After, we headed up to the farm. We first stopped at Blair’s father’s house as we had driven to the soccer game separately and this was a place on the way out of town that we could drop off a car overnight. Blair’s father was away so we didn’t see him, but what I saw instead was an amazing view from the end of his drive! No wonder my grandparents from Hawaii said they considered moving here!

After consolidating cars, we were really off!

This was the puppy’s first long trip in the back of a truck and after a rough start:

 

he settled down. I did too, as it was a long windy two hour trip to the farm, and this time I was prepared with a common anti-nausa pill called “Sea Legs.” The bottle says “May cause drowsiness,” and I’ve decided that instead of any sort of anti-nausa medicine they’re just massive tranquilizers.

We left late in the afternoon so by the time we arrived to the farm it was dark. We stopped to let Rum out and could barely see the lights from Napier….

 

We arrived in time for ‘tea,’ and afterwards Blair took me out to experience possum hunting. Possums are a huge pest here but amazingly their fur is unbelievabley soft, and if you can catch enough (apparently around 20), you can get NZ $100/kilo! Ronnie (the farmer who runs the 1400 acre farm!) said a couple possums had been in messing up varying sheds across his property. So we took off to take a look.

We zoomed around tracks that Blair has been travelling on for the last twenty years. I could hear the river and feel temperature changes as our altitude increased, but other than that I was lost in the blackness. Blair was successful and I got my first experience of possum hunting! It feels a little weird to be smiling, but I did get handful of the soft fur to take back!

All in all a very eventful day- if only I knew what Sunday was going to hold!