Christophers Comment

Posted by Christopher on 14 August 2019 | 0 Comments

CHRISTOPHERS COMMENT AUGUST 2019

I see it is a little over 6 months since I last made a contribution to this page. The old adage of time goes faster as you get older is very true. It never went this fast at boarding school!!

We are only a few days from lambing so we have our fingers crossed for a reasonable spell of weather. With lamb prices being so good saving as many lambs as possible is critical. Amy has her orphan lamb pens made up and all set to go and Hugh is set stocking our first lambing group now. Our scanning percentage was down a bit from previous years ( 182% ) due to a very dry late summer/early autumn period. Consequently we weren't able to flush the ewes as well as we would have liked. We also mated the best of our hoggets this year and on a purely wet/dry basis we had 63% in lamb. Hopefully this will translate into a 90 to 100% lambing.

As mentioned we had a very dry period which proved very costly for our heifer grazing operation. To keep the heifers up to standard we ended up having to buy in an extra 250 bales of baleage as well as using up all our own. This knocked a big hole in the profitability of our grazing operation. We were lucky that there was plenty of good quality baleage available and because the spring had been so good many farmers made more baleage than usual as a means to control all the grass. However the late autumn and so far into this winter the weather has been very favourable to us. I think I can count on one hand the number of frosts we've had and still got fingers to spare. Hugh is still doing an amazing job on the farm with good back up from Amy so fingers crossed we are in for a good year.

So to summarise. Lamb prices are good and should stay good for the season. Wool is terrible and in a world where sustainability is such a key word its hard to understand why. Perhaps our marketing is bad because there are so many positives for wool. Dairy grazing is still going well and we have a very settled group of farmers some who have been with us many years. The Govt and the media are on a roll in coming down heavily on farmers. We are blamed for everything that is going wrong in this country and although some farmers do need to get their act togther that tiny minority is all the media focus on. The vast majority of us are spending a lot on improving our environmental practices but we get no recognition so the public thinks all farmers are ratbags. In our case and with thanks to the support of our Regional Council we have to date fenced off 21 ha of native bush. This year we plan to do another 4 ha and as we fence off we plant native trees back into those areas. To date 2500 trees have been planted and by the time we finish we hope to have planted at least 10,000 trees. On top of this we are gradually fencing off many of our swamps or wetlands to be more precise. We are but one farmer. Most farmers are doing this and more. Yet the Govt in its climate change rhetoric doesn't recognise native trees for carbon credits. Only pine trees. So when tourists grace our shores to see our lovely green pastures being grazed by contented animals they will likely see miles and miles of pine trees. Whoops. I forgot. You mightn't see many animals. The greens and others want to get rid of animals and plant stuff that gives us a plant based diet. No meat. Really??? Enough said.

This year we have continued our quest to visit ( and touch where possible ) as many lighthouses as we can. In the summer we visited the Pouto Lighthouse on the northern entrance to the Kaipara Harbour. We took a four wheel drive vehicle from Dargarville the 107 kms down the beach to the end of the peninsular whereby the tyres were deflated and we drove right up the sand hills to the lighthouse some 100m above sea level. It was a very impressive lighthouse beautifully maintained and looking out over the harbour entrance towards the Graveyard where many a ship had been wrecked in the past. We were able to catch up with Karen and Michael Smales while in Maungaturoto and enjoyed our couple of nights at Batley House accommodation with Rex and Rae Roadley whose brother Sterl. we had met previously in the car park at Kaikoura while he and Gaylene were on a Beltex ram buying expedition. It was fun to see them all again; we all enjoyed an evening out at Karen and Michael's home. And on the southern side of the entrance to the Manukau harbour is the Manukau Heads lighthouse accessed through Waiuku and north up the Awhitu peninsular. This is a reconstructed lighthouse with a gravel road right up to the adjacent carpark and a short few steps to the lighthouse itself. Not difficult that one. We must be well into thirty lighthouses now in our quest to see them all in New Zealand. We are looking forward to our Cruise in May 2020 which will take us out from Manapouri around the SW coast of New Zealand to Preservation Inlet and the Puysegur Point Lighthouse from where we are to be helicoptered back to Te Anau.

Earlier in the year we had a visit from Sally from Kings Meaburn UK and her friend Charlotte. They had spent time living and working in Aussie. Sally's father John worked for us many moons ago so one of the first things we did was the farm tour to show Sally where her father had stayed and worked. Sally's parents John and Janet had been out here a few years ago to a cousins wedding so it was nice to be able to catch up with their daughter and her friend.

We read with interest of record temperatures in the Northern hemisphere; we would welcome some warmth and sun here. We have to remind ourselves it is winter and all things considered it hasnt been a bad one. We have some World Cup rugby to look forward to in Japan later in the year. Hope for us it goes better than the Cricket World Cup although there are many here still saying that we didn't lose the final. England got “awarded” it. |Subtle difference. But back to Rugby. How exciting to see some of the international teams in the build up catching up......it all makes for an interesting competition.

Happy days.

CHRISTOPHER GARDNER