Temporary Farmer

The sky is blue. Not a single cloud in sight. The grass beneath my rubber boots is still wet from the morning dew. My nose is running, and my cheeks are red from the cold. All the blood has drained from my fingers. I rode my ATV out to Gozers. Here on this roughly 400-hectare property, every pasture has a name.

Farmland, just a portion of the 400 ha

Actually, I’m standing on Top Hay. Only a fence separates me from Gozer, where there are about 40 heads of cattle. 7.2 kV of electricity courses through the pasture wire—and it’s not just the cattle that are wary of it. To be able to do anything with my fingers at all, I blow into my clenched hands and try to warm them up at least a little with my breath. Using a handheld device that I hold against the wire, I can cut the power. I drop the cord—which, by the way, is also live—to clear the way for the animals to move to the next pasture section. But they don’t trust me and just stand there. Rum, the herding dog I brought along, isn’t in the mood to work today. I walk around the herd and approach from behind. “See, Rum, that’s how it’s done!” The cattle move toward the open gate, looking forward to the fresh grass. Once all the animals have passed through, I hook the rope back onto the pasture wire and turn the power back on.

You can't do anything here without a quad bike.
The poles are for driving over pasture fences.

I ride the ATV to Stu, where about 60 head of cattle are still grazing. Here, too, I open the gate so the animals can move into the next section. I ride down to Two Bridges and check to see if the gate on the other side is closed. I’ll open that one the day after tomorrow to let the cattle into another pasture. On the way back, a cold southwest wind blows in my face. Despite the nice weather, it’s freezing up here on the hill, and I’m glad to be back in the sheltered area of the farmhouse after a good hour.

A typical farmhouse in New Zealand

But the day starts much earlier. After getting up and having breakfast, the first task is to tend to the lambs. Right now, there are still six lambs on the farm, each of which is fed milk in the morning and evening. The powdered milk is mixed with two liters of water and then poured into a dispenser. The lambs then suckle on the rubber teats until the dispenser is empty or falls off the wall. Even though the animals look well-behaved, things get very chaotic when it’s feeding time. Each lamb tries to get as much milk as possible while keeping the competition at bay. The animals use brute force, butting their opponents with their heads. However, they don’t always hit their mark, and the dispenser ends up bearing the brunt of it. Depending on where the dispenser is struck, the entire mounting bracket can fly off the wall, causing the dispenser to fall to the ground. That usually happens toward the end, though, when there’s no milk left in the container anyway.

After that, the dogs all get a treat and are let off their leashes. A short outing on foot or by ATV only tames these bundles of energy a little. It isn't until around noon that they finally calm down and take a nap in the sun.

Bunch of Rascals

Time to visit the chickens and collect the eggs. Barny is a hen who’s currently brooding. She won’t be convinced that it’s pointless, either. So she’s sitting on six marked eggs and doing her job. In the meantime, the other hens lay an egg, as is their custom. Unfortunately, Barny then confuses the box containing the marked eggs and ends up incubating the freshly laid ones instead. But the other hens aren’t exactly careful about where they lay their eggs either. So it’s possible that there are more than just the marked ones in Barny’s box. When it comes to the eggs, Barny isn’t one to mess around. If I gently interrupt her while she’s brooding, she responds by pecking at my hand with her beak. “It doesn’t hurt,” Nicole said when she pointed out to me that exactly that could happen. Somehow, the nerve pathways in my hand must run differently than Nicole’s, but whatever—at the end of the day, I’ve collected six eggs, and Barny is sitting contentedly on her marked eggs again.

Six fresh eggs every day

In the afternoon, I usually take the dogs out again. I normally take the ATV because I only have two legs instead of four. Gaby enjoys the first rays of sunshine on the patio while reading a book.

Gaby and Her Favorite Activity

I’m continuing to plan our trip to Australia, which we’ll be setting out on next week. Until then, I wish all you landlubbers “Happy Farming,” and to everyone else, as always, fair winds—and keep a stiff upper lip.