Biologically, it is looking good

01-02-2010 | Contributor

I've come up with a new line when people ask "How's the farm going?"

My stock answer is "Biologically we are having a great season."

I guess the last few years have made me gun shy about getting too excited about financial prospects before we have "harvested' a good chunk of income. While financial outcomes are most important you can't discount the satisfaction from knowing that animals are fully fed or as close to it as possible. The feeling of letting a weaned mob of ewes ooze through a gateway on to an ocean of quality lamb feed has a certain feeling about it, especially when there is plenty of choice for lambs as well.

I naturally compare this year to the last few years but in reality they are poor comparisons. We've made a few changes in the last year or so.

No hogget lambing this last year has opened up opportunities for better feeding the main lamb crop (and their mothers) and managing some more recent development over the spring period. After stuffing up last autumn it was a logical move but we may well mate hoggets again in the autumn of 2010. We have also eased back on cattle stocking rate. The demise of the cow herd after the 2008 drought has simplified that so now we are finishing only.

The problem with my mindset is I am inherently a sheep farmer so committing the right quality and quantity to the cattle enterprise is all a bit of a wrench. Sounds a pathetic excuse but I am sure someone out there will understand me.

During the past week or so I note some positive comments around corporate farming and looming world food shortages, this latter comment being the reason for some Middle Eastern investment in the NZ dairy industry. Hopefully they know something we don't because the good vibes are yet to find many a pastoral farmer's bank account.

The real estate industry has had quite a few quality farms on its books. Not all are meeting seller price expectations. It is an indication that not all is well with sheep and beef profitability. I understand that three North Wairarapa farms have become destined for the growing carbon market at prices above what pastoral farming was prepared to offer.

So farming is in a state of flux. The ever increasing push for increased per hectare productivity may be changing in the search for smarter ways of achieving the same ends: a more guarded approach to feeding livestock and protecting the base better than we were. More of the same just isn't working any more.

I'm afraid in my own case the body just hurts more than it used to. Work is still okay but after being bowled by a ram during ram selling last year I seem to have aged two years in one. The thought of finding easier ways of doing things has increased appeal.

To this end watching my son shear lambs over Christmas/New Year was actually a lot of fun. In reality this is just the transfer of pain from one generation to the next with some financial relief. (Yep, I am relieved of the finance and he is relieved to get it!)

The most encouraging thing was that with about three-quarters of an hour's careful guidance from a real shearer he popped up from 60 a run to 70, and it was easier. Our son has completed his Dip Ag at Lincoln and is shortly to return for the farm management option. When I first suggested he might be best doing both years he was a bit dismissive. Fathers just don't know anything. I am grateful for a couple of wise heads, both younger than mine, who convinced him otherwise.

My Dip Ag was completed at Massey in 78-79. This Massey course is due to close from lack of numbers. My old course director Peter MacGillivray recently contacted me about a pending party to make sure it went out with a roar instead of a whimper so let's have a good muster. I am sure we can reincarnate the FITZ (aka The Office) for a good send-off.

Two characters meet

Lifestylers are great. You can really wind them up. Two good lifestyler friends had harvested a great volume of our rocks to create an impressive entrance way to their recently acquired property.

I thought it a touch boring (being used to looking at rocks) and wanted to add my own touch. We had the short-term lease of a bit of dairy run-off and there was a small copse of trees where the occasional dead cow had been secreted. Two long bleached skulls were just looking for a new home so I added one to each side of the rather public gateway.

Recent wind had blown a mass of pine debris on to the road close by and I found four nice hard pinecones which made ghoulish eye inserts. Job complete I headed home.

After some days I thought I had better add some clue for them and left a plaintive little message about Yorick and the bovine community.

Some months passed and then one day I was heading past the Woodside railway station and noticed a poster. I slowed to take a look and then braked abruptly and reversed back. Was that my mugshot on top of a Shakespearean figure?

Yes it was. The opening line was "The Stonestead Players present ... Hamlet in the Woolshed."

There were the inevitable reviews by the likes of the NZ Woolshed review, Quadbike weekly and Playbull. It gave a date and 0800 number.

But it got worse as our beloved LS friends had delivered A4 flyers up and down the road. There was serious explaining to do by yours truly when the phone rang a number of times.

I have learned the hard way not to mess with a graphic designer with access to ALL technology.

Roger Barton, Greytown, Wairarapa.

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