Life on our small farm

One day the neighbour's young dog … let's call her Scout* … turned up solo. She was down in a jiffy to collect the little dog.

Soon our chat became a full-on investigation. How did Scout get here? The neighbour ran her hand along the little dog's wet furry back and then licked her hand. Mmmm salty. Quick, simple and she did it without thinking. I cringed but it gave us the intel we needed. I was impressed by her off the cuff investigation. The result?

The little dog had crossed our salty river. It didn't wander the roadside and cross the one-lane bridge. Scout had chosen the cross country route.

I looked into the little dog's mischievous eyes. I'm pretty sure I could see bravery and adventure. I imagined Scout at the top of her hill looking down across the river and at our farm.

A scent hits her nose. It's the salty river, refreshing and fun. An idea pops into her brain. I'll take a swim and visit the neighbours. Not a moment for hesitation or to wait for a command from her master.

 Ready, set, go. 

Down the paddock and past the cows. A low deep moo-mur comes from deep in a cow's belly. The cow associates the dog with the farmer. She's questioning why the dog is alone. But the dog is on an adventure and nothing will stop it now. So it just keeps running.

Now at the bottom of the paddock. Scout knows where she's going, she's following a scent. Under the electric fence (tail position low). Through the tall reeds (head up - don't get poked in the eye). Little paws sinking into gloopy mud, crabs scuttling aside making a path to the channel. Warm salty water up to knees, then … push off. Don't think about what you can't see lurking in the shadows. Finally swimming across the channel. 

The little dog enjoys the feeling of the water about her, the excitement of adventure, the independence of being alone and deciding for herself. 

After scrambling up the other side and shaking the water off, it's not far across the mudflats, under our fence and she's finding us in the market garden doing our work. 

Who sees Scout's adventure? The cows witnessed the start. The panicking crabs didn't take much notice. A fat dark eel at the river's edge felt the dog's movement through the water.

It's a white faced heron perched up in an old man pine who sees it all. From the start of the adventure at the hilltop to the river crossing, it sees it all. It has the perfect combo of a high vantage point and all the time in the world.

And as for Scout, she's keeping the details to herself. But that night she slept well and dreamed of her next expedition.

*The dog's name has been changed to protect her true identity.

"Well, as a goat, we do whatever we want, eat the best bits and have a great time."

I pick the edible flowers almost daily, after the morning dew has dried but before they get warm in the sun. After flower harvest, I tip over the basket ... and the crazy big bright pile of edible flowers on the bench in front of me is ... just beautiful. And so, on a day off, I draw a big pile of edible flowers, trying to capture the attitude of each flower face. I hide in my drawing the critters that I encounter out in the flower beds: skinks, honeybees, bumblebees, snails, and ants. Friends and foes of our market garden.

Who's that croaking in the troughs and watching me in the garden?

I'm going back and forwards with the wheelbarrow ... topping up rocket beds with soil. We're sowing 2 x 20m beds of rocket every week right now. It's a bit monotonous and feels like it will never end. Then I notice I have a silent audience.

A frog is sitting very still at the end of a garden bed. He doesn't move after I've gone past 10 times. Every time I go past, I glance over to see what he's doing. He distracts me from my work, and suddenly, I'm finished.

Southern Bell frogs love our place. In the warmer months, their croaking melodic love songs echo loudly from inside our concrete water troughs. They're telling potential girlfriends that our trough would be a good place to set up house.

In the winter, they become quiet, and we more likely see them in the garden, especially when it's wet. They hide under taupolins, logs, and piles of leaves.

I once looked it up, and they can live up to 10 or more years here in Northland NZ. Have we met before Mr Frog?

Each year or so Daryn heads to the sale yards to buy calves. We generally buy weaned calves and sell them 12-18 months later, depending on how much grass we have and what the pricing at the sale yards is like at the time. It only takes a few days for new calves to settle in and understand the drill here on our farm. We enjoy having cattle, they are intelligent animals and we generally only have between 20-30 here at one time. Their time here is calm and quiet, with no working dogs, just Daryn calling them to new paddocks and me trying to get them to pose for the odd photo.

This years group came from 3 different farms, but it doesn't take long for them to make new friends and work out their place in the herd.

It's entertaining to get to know the personalities of a new group of calves. As a general rule of thumb there is always in the group: a smart intuitive leader, a couple of friendlies who'll come right up close, and an annoying thick one who over-analyses everything and takes forever to follow along to a new paddock ... or totally freaks out and takes off in the wrong direction!

Some of this year's calves are Speckled Park breed ... with striking black and white smudgy dotted coats. I've been charmed at how they contrast against the other calves' black coats.

When we buy calves from the sale yards, we usually don't know much about where they've come from.

Sometimes, there will be a 'friendly' with an ear tag that's got an actual name on it instead of a number. Of course, the calf can't tell us that they were a calf-club calf or someone's herd favourite, but you get an impression that by the way they act, they were something special to someone.

The kererū have set up camp here, many years in a row. Why wouldn't they, with guava and peaches on tap. Looking comically oversized, perching on thin branches in small fruit trees. Confidently and calmly watching as we walk by.

Thwop ... thwop ... thwop. Mr kererū and Mrs kererū perform a flyover over the top of my head and the bean fences. They're on their way back from gorging themselves on the guava. They come in fast and it's a heavy landing into the cabbage tree. You wouldn't describe them as stealth.

Now full of guava, its time to sun themselves while digesting their meal. In this summer heat the fruit ferments. Drunk and happy up in the cabbage tree.

I was in the packing room one Saturday morning when I saw something out the corner of my eye. Thinking went on in my head for a few moments as I worked. The small black shape in the farm race was a calf. Daryn had shifted the cows and their calves across the road into a new paddock of grass the night before. I went over to the door for clarification ... had I seen a calf? Yes, there was a calf, it was standing quietly in the race by itself. It must of been left behind! I decided that I couldn't herd the calf across the road by myself and it would be ok until Daryn got home from the farmer's market to help.

The cows came to our farm in-calf. We didn't have any information about when they were mated, and slowly throughout a few months they had all but one, had their calves. It had been a few weeks since any calves had been born and the calves were now quite grown up and hung out in calf gangs, running up and down the hills together having a great time. Their mums are calm and friendly Angus cows, big giant softies, and good mothers. 

While I worked, I kept glancing out to check it really was a calf. And once Daryn came home we went out to the race to herd the calf over the road to it's mum. We walked up the race and at first it we couldn't see the calf. But it didn't take many steps before we could see the top of a little head and a little face trustingly watching us from a patch of long grass. The way the little calf was snuggled up, watching us approach and didn't stand when we walked up to it, made us realise the calf was a new born - just a wee baby. It had been born yesterday, just before the herd was moved! It had gone all night and half a day without his mum's milk and the warmth of her big body on it's first night to cuddle up to. The critical feeds of the first couple of days had been interrupted - we were eager to get the calf back to his mum. It was alert and we could tell it'd had at least a couple of first feeds before it'd got left behind, but he needed to get to mum ASAP. There was no way we would be able to herd the little fella without him having his mum to follow, so he'd have to be carried.

Daryn scooped the little fella up into his arms and I sped ahead to open gates in front of him. We got the little fella across the road and into the paddock where his herd was grazing. It took barely a second for his mum to see us coming and compute that we had her calf. She knew instantly he was her calf and gently pushed the calf into her side, knowing he needed to feed. We held our breath as the little calf bumped around clumsily trying to find her udder. He bumped around under her front legs and she pushed him back. He stubbled. He stood up again and did some more bumping around under mum. I was starting to feel a motherly-anxious-feeling of needing him to get the udder business sorted! It was at this time that a gang of older calves ran over to see who the strange calf was. They didn't know who this new calf was and started pushing the calf around and being a nuisance. 

Mum swung around and collected her baby with her nose. I think she was feeling like I was. She pushed him all the way around her big body to her other side, so that the calf was between her and a fence. Now the big calves couldn't get to her baby. We watched with relief as the little guy found his mum's udder and started drinking. What relief! We left them to it and headed on home. Daryn checked on the little guy each day, reporting back that the little guy was fine and strong.

A couple of weeks later I tagged along with Daryn to move the herd. The herd gathered at the gate waiting, while Daryn checked the fences in their new paddock. I stood there and counted everyone and everyone stared back at me. The mums, the bull and the calves in their gangs. The smallest face in the herd caught my eye and I realised it was the little left behind calf. He looked so grown up now, and like he had quite a lot of attitude. He watched me intelligently and I wondered if he was remembering his ordeal.

He was standing strongly with his legs apart and his gaze was steady. I guess he had to grow up quick to find his ground in the calf gang. I don't think he'll be left behind ever again.

Christmas arrives and family with helping hands arrive too. This means extra hands in the market garden, in the packing room, and to put up the Christmas tree which might have been forgotten otherwise. It means two extra sat-on seats at the table, extra company and extra laughs.

Our youngest son who has finished his Uni year comes home with a renewed enthusiasm for what we do. He makes a big impact on weeds, helps us fly through Christmas induced increased volumes of salad bags in the packing room, prunes trees and goes to the Farmers market to help Daryn with the big Christmas crowd chaos. 

My Mum turns up each year before Christmas, to lend a hand. She excels at pulling apart flowers for the salad mix, tying up feisty cucumbers, completing abandoned housework and peering seriously through her glasses when the rest of us joke that she's the HR department keeping us all in line.

When I was little, my grandparents would arrive a couple of days before Christmas to lend a hand in the tomato shed. It was a busy time, with the picking, grading, boxing and selling of tomatoes to locals and people heading off in all directions on their summer holidays. My grandparents, who had been market gardeners themselves, knew what a hectic time it was and turned up spot-on when they were needed. I remember the tomato shed a bustle of people chatting and laughing, Christmas songs playing on the local radio and customers cars pulling in off the road all day. 

This Christmas, keeping our flat-tack busy stockists stocked up is a priority, and we'll rush to keep up in the Christmas madness. But once we've done each days work, we'll relax and celebrate with our loved ones.

We wish you all a happy Christmas. May you too have extra hands if you need them over the busy season. Good luck to other growers out there, that are working hard these holidays to earn an important chunk of their year's revenue. Thank you to all our wonderful customers, fellow market stallholders, our stockists, friends ... and our families for your support and fellowship this year.