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Couple turn their hand to anything
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| Don, Velma and friend and neighbour Michael Petersen discuss the aerial photographs taken by Horizons Regional Council during a flyover to check vegetation clearances. |
Necessity is the mother of invention and Don and Velma Siemonek have turned their hands to many trades to keep the money coming flowing in order to develop their farm.
For many years Don worked as a contract fencer for Landcorp and other local properties and as a shearer in neighbouring Raetihi and Kaitieke districts.
Velma grew up on Erewhon station, Taihape, did nursing training, and was able to turn her hand to anything else as well.
Surrounded by Erua Forest Park, they and the children for many years had a thriving possum skin business that saw them through many a lean period.
"Velma and I, with Kevin, Bryan and Linda's help, were bringing in more possum skin money than the combined lamb and wool cheques," Don says.
They started with trapping lines through the bush and were harvesting excellent quality skins - averaging around $8-$11 but with a top price of $26 for one skin.
Trapping possums had the downside of having to carry the dead ones home and skin them cold, but the carcases were handy dog tucker for the 12 farm dogs.
The advent of cyanide took some of the heavy work out of the job and the family laid out long poison lines.
Later, a gang of four lads would spend long hours in the bush, sometimes getting lost and overnighting as well. The boys caught possums all winter and Don and Velma banked the money to pay their summer wages. "It kept them out of trouble," Don says.
Velma was always the fastest possum skinner, he says with pride, retaining her title until carpal tunnel trouble took her out of the game.
"I was very sick of possums by that time," she says.
Another income stream was the extraction and sale of native timber in 1987, selectively logged from their 400ha of native bush.
Permits and logging plans were required from the Forest Service and heavy-lift helicopters took the trees from the bush block to a skidder site.
At 68, Velma still has her team of dogs and does her share of the stockwork with Don, who is 72.
They are still passionate about their work and their property and love the back-country life despite the hardships and challenges they have faced.
Kevin also lives and works on the property, with his partner, Heather, and their four children.
As a cabinetmaker, he builds native timber cabinetry and furniture for Lone Star restaurants and Grumpy Mole Bars throughout the country. He also runs a firewood business from the property, selling manuka fuel for pizza ovens throughout the Waikato and Bay of Plenty.
The manuka is cut from the dead standing scrub his parents sprayed five years ago, which he says is a good use of a valuable and renewable resource.
"The manuka is so dense and very dry - excellent for the high burning heat needed for outdoor pizza ovens," he says.