THE LIFE OF A FARMERS' WIFE, PART 2

Reporua Marae, on the back boundary of the farm

We have expanded the family somewhat, forgot to mention it

The church at Reporua on the back boundary of the farm

Last blog I was going through and article from the Farmers Weekly of a few years' ago and got as far as "being hospitable".  There are a number of other headings, which I will detail for you all now, along with a summary of yet another crazy week on the Coast.

Professional Cleaner

The article states that the Boss does not consider hygiene important and that farmers' wives must deal with copious amounts of stained clothes leaving grime around the inside of the washing machine and that the boss will show no consideration whatsoever for keeping furniture clean.  On this note, I will say that every farmers' wife I know complains constantly of having to put their arm down the inside out trouser leg of pants that have been used for dagging or some other disgusting task.  For me this situation is compounded by the fact that Scott has absolutely no sense of smell so is not aware that he stinks to high heaven after he has been picking up dead sheep and that it is not nice to have that smell permeate the washing basket, the lounge furniture or the bedroom.  No farmers' wife I know has a white duvet cover or pale coloured furniture.  There is also of course the socks that have sheep shit on them that they don't take off and then the muck gets tramped into the carpet.  Not to mention of course the mess that having farm children creates...cow shit fights, playing in the mud, etc.  Speak to any farmers wife and ask her what she has to remove from the pockets of their shorts...truck loading dockets, fence staples, baling twine, nails, ear tags, rubber castration rings...and that's only today's pants.

Gate Specialist

The article suggests that opening gates will always be the role of the farmers wife and the position won't be threatened.  Of course, having children does create a brief respite when they are between the age of 5 and leaving home, of course once they leave home, you will return to Commander in Chief of this role.  I must say though that when taking visitors out on a tour of the farm, I try to make sure that I sit in the middle in the back so that the guest gets that job!!!  I do feel a little sorry for the visitor though when alot of our gates are latched with no 8 wire and don't swing properly and the task of opening gates becomes one of brute strength.

Road Marker/Traffic Controller

A high level of responsibility is placed on the shoulders of the farmers' wife.  Your job is to direct stock through a gate while waving arms to slow traffic, a skill greatly underestimated by the boss.  Of course he is usually found meandering along on a bike, horse or in a vehicle behind the mob,  often chatting to a neighbour, while you have the hardest job of stopping the entire mob from scattering down the road.  Fortunately for me, we live on a relatively quiet road at present, so this job is somewhat easier than it has been for me in the past.  Some wives have a terrible time on main highways.

Easy going nature

The article states that the famers' wife must be prepared to have your flower and vegetable garden eaten at least once a year.  Tell me about it!!!  I have lost count of the number of times stock have come into the house area and cleaned up my renga renga lilies.  I have had a pohutukawa lopped off at ground level and the top nibbled out of an ornamental cherry this year!

Eavesdropper

I was talking with another famers' wife about this skill only last week.  It is necessary for us to listen to conversations had by the boss with other people in order to know whats going on.  The boss won't tell you the information directly  but will expect you to know what is going on and be able to pass information on to third parties and make decisions based on said information in his absence.  Only this week one of the staff turned up, couldn't get hold of Scott and had forgotten what time the truck was coming to pick up the cattle.  Although I hadn't been told directly, I had overheard (via eavesdropping) what was happening and so was able to assist.  Communication is not the strong point of the farmer when dealing with his wife!!

Understand Water Systems

When the boss is away, be prepared for either stock or house water to run dry and guess who has to fix it!  This happens more often than I would like.  Plenty of farmers wives, including myself, are expected to be able to know firstly why there is no water and secondly how to fix it.  I am expected to know which pump runs which system and where the pipes run so that if I haven't got water at the house because the tank has run dry and I need to get water from the bore, I can walk the line and find out where the problem is.  Of course, I am also expected to know how to fix it!!  Up here this is complicated somewhat by the fact that the pump is on another road and also runs water to one of the local marae.  If they have a water problem, they telephone the house expecting to find Scott at home (which of course he isn't) and have someone advise them how to fix it or mobilise someone else to do so.  This is of course expected to be done immediately and cannot wait until Scott has returned from the back of the farm.

So the above headings, along with the ones from last week, pretty much sum up the life of a farmers' wife and yet again this week, I was put through an examination of my skills to see whether I would pass or not.  

It has been a pretty tough week for our little Island in the South Pacific with the death toll from the Christchurch earthquake standing at 113 with 220 or so still missing.  Its been hard to watch all the footage and not feel a little guilt at the fact that "life" carries on for you, when your fellow countrymen are experiencing such dreadful times.  Obviously you do what little you can like donating to various appeals but of course you do have to get on with things, which is the New Zealand way I guess.  On Thursday we were watching the footage of the urban search and rescue teams going about the arduous task of looking for survivors.  Scott happened to look out the window and notice that we needed to enact a rescue of our own.  Marty, one of the station horses, was completely stuck in the cattle stop at the bottom of the driveway.  The entire house mobilised into vehicles and shot down the driveway for a closer inspection of the situation.  Of course, all the staff were there and some of the neighbours and a mini-summit meeting began regarding the best way to rescue poor Marty.  The first suggestion was that we would need a vet to sedate him while we attempted to get him out.  Scott immediately telephoned the two vet clinics in Gisborne.  Our usual vet who is a one man operation was in Palmerston North, so not able to help, and the larger vet clinic didn't have a vet up the coast but could have one there in two hours or so.  Nothing for it but to get stuck in.  Fortunately Marty is a pretty quiet sort of a horse so when we started beavering away with hacksaws and angle grinders on the steel, he stayed pretty still.  Of course being the capable farmers wife that I am, I was charged with putting my weight on his head and neck area to stop him thrashing about.  What a nightmare.  You will have all seen the photos on facebook.  Once we had him out and could assess his injuries, it was clear that Marty had lacerations on all legs, with a particularly nasty 15cm long 2cm deep cut to his left hind leg. 

Cue my nursing skills!  I rushed up the house, made up saline solution, tore up old towels, grabbed a roll of mutton cloth and the penicillin injection for the cattle (that is kept in my fridge) and all manner of other paraphenalia that could be useful to dress wounds on a large horse.  Jo, our shepherd, shot down the road to grab a container of manuka honey.  Tony, the stock agent, happened to be sifting round at the time, and had plenty of horse experience so between the three of us we managed to get Marty's wounds cleaned and bandaged up.  Thought that would be enough excitement for one day, so I returned home with the kids to carry on the morning's lessons.

Anyone who knows anything about the East Coast will know that it is one of New Zealand's largest cannabis growing areas.  Every year at about this time there are planes buzzing around over head and helicopters as well, dropping blue liquid from the sky onto cannabis crops to kill them.  I heard a plane and a helicopter flying low overhead but didn't think anything of it until I went down to the woolshed just before lunch to check on the shearers.  Apparently they had been hovering over several spots on the farm dropping blue dye on someone's crops!!!  The interesting thing about the Coast is that there is so much cannabis that the police do not even advise you they have found it growing on your farm and do not question you for further information.  Thought that was the end of the excitement, until Scott decided to go for a wee drive down the road later in the day.  We have a vacant house on the farm that we are in the process of renting out.  Scott went past and the gate was open, which he thought was a little strange.  The house itself is up a long driveway on top of a hill and you can't see it from the road.  Scott shot up there to investigate and lo and behold ends up in the middle of a police raid, Jimmy in tow.  There were six cop cars crawling all over the place, apparently with a warrant.  They didn't find anything, and Scott had to give a statement.  All in day's work on the Coast!!!  I went out later in the afternoon to find 9 cop cars at another address just down the road.  The police were certainly busy in their work.  I hope they found whatever it was they were looking for.

A candid Ruatoria shot.

Our local pub...needs a lick of paint.  No need for signage.  In fact I don't even know what its actual name is..we just call it "The Pub".  It probably has a name.  It is directly opposite our fish and chip caravan, or "Kai Kart"

Its been a pretty normal week other than that.  I have been busy teaching the kids.  I started writing this early this morning but the house had ended up as Grand Central Station today with several visits from locals, and a couple of other unexpected visitors as well.  Why is that people never call in when the house is tidy, but always when its a bomb site because you've been too busy to tidy it up???  I tried to explain that I had been making a worm farm this morning as part of the kids school work, but was met with sceptical looks.  Its true, honest!!  Wonder what next week will bring.  Perhaps it will be a quiet one.

Making a worm farm, stuffing grass clippings inside the tyre

The whole family was busy making the worm farm...kapai us!

MARRIED TO A FARMER? MARRIED TO A JOB!

I can't take credit for the title of this blog.  It comes from an article that was in the Farmers Weekly about five years ago or so.  I kept the article to remind me to laugh at the predicaments I find myself in and the expectations placed farmers wives by all and sundry.  Yesterday was a really good example and ties in nicely with the article.

The article starts off with a statement "If there was a job description for farmers' wives, the skills and requirements of the job would be challenging enough for any women with high career aspirations.  Farmers' wives are called on to do many things for the love of their husbands/bosses from simply preparing "smoko" though to lambing ewes".  The article then continues with a number of headings for things which farmers' wives are routinely asked to do.  Yesterday was a fine example of the salient headings of the article.  I will address them in order:

Stock Handler

This happened the day before yesterday, but still illustrates the point.  While I was trying to get the kids organised for school, the house dogs decided to have a fight.  I, of course, had to intervene, which involved grabbing the hose to try and spray them with water .  Unfortunately the hose got a kink in it just as I rounded the corner so no water came out and I ended up just whacking the two of them with the end of it.  Dogs bolted...one under the house and one under the vehicle.  The one under the house couldn't get out so I had to grab the hammer, prise the barge boards off and haul the dog out to check for injuries.  The other dog had to be hauled from under the car with  me lying on my tummy on the gravel to do so. That dog had injuries so I had to put antiseptic on them and then keep the two dogs separated all day.  This is in addition to my usual duties surrounding stock work, farm dogs, calves etc.

Not get green with envy

The article suggests that the wife must always remember they are second best, the top dog has the spot next to and riding behind the boss....this happened on Monday when I was not allowed to go to town with Scott as he was taking one of the dogs to the vets and apparently there was no room for the children and I...I suspect it is because he prefers the company of Stone the Huntaway!  Stone is less likely to ask anything of Scott or spend any money in town.

Love Farming

Article suggests that wife must understand husband's ability to talk for considerable time and considerable length about farming....yesterday I was subjected to a very long diatribe regarding sheep and beef prices, the price of wool and his cynical feelings on the proposed Wool Co-operative.  Makes a change from the science of fertiliser I guess.  Of course I too am expected to know what the sheep and beef schedules are doing and what prices various classes of stock are getting at the sales...all riveting stuff I can assure you.  I now scan the Farmers Weekly newspaper to make sure I am up with the play.  Every visitor we have seems to assume I know what is happening with the markets and will attempt to discuss them with me so it pays to be up with the play, rather than risk looking like an idiot.

Telepathy

The article suggests that instructions and directions given by the boss are not always clear the wife is expected to telepathically understand exactly what is meant by "put them in that paddock over there" or "open that gate in the corner" when there are four corners in a paddock, and sometimes those corners have more than one gate.  Yesterday, after I had finished all my schooling for the day and fed the calf, I was expected to drop everything at 6.30 pm to go and help him draft lambs before shearing.  He says "open the gate and put that mob into the pen"...to which I replied "which blardy gate and which blardy pen".  Communication is not always a farmers' strong point, particularly when working with their wives.  Any farmers wife will know that the job of drafting dirty lambs from clean lambs usually comes with one or either parties screaming abuse at the other and threatening divorce.

Be flexible

The article states that all farmers' wives should be prepared to be flexible as plans change at a moments notice and that "yeah, this will only take five minutes" will inevitably take an hour or more.  This happened yesterday when I was told "can you just come and help me draft this mob for shearing, it will only take 5 minutes".  It took an hour and a half at 6.30pm when I would rather have been cleaning kids and finishing dinner!  Scott will  often turn up and say "yeah, just going to shift a mob, it will take five minutes, thought you might want to come".  In my experience it never ever takes five minutes and the only reason I am invited is because the dogs can't open the gates and I can.  The actual shifting of the mob might take five minutes but getting there will take half an hour and then there is inevitably a water line that needs fixing, a hole in a fence that needs repairing, stock out on the road that need to be returned and of course the inevitable chat with the neighbours about the state of sheep and beef prices.  Never ever ever trust a farmers' estimation of time.

Be Hospitable

Your house will be something of an open home to stock agents, bank managers, workers, fencers etc and they will almost always turn up at meal times.  Again, this happened yesterday when I had the local stock agent for lunch and the shearing contractor came up to use the phone and had several cups of tea, twice in one day, including watching tv with us until 9.30pm.  Today has been no different with two extra families for lunch!!  I did know today's visitors were coming though so was up at 5.20am this morning making choc chip biscuits, bacon and egg pie and cheese scones and cleaning the house.  Don't forget of course the fact that most farmers' wives can't just zip down the road to the supermarket to get something for lunch, its got to be made from scratch.

There are another seven headings in the article, all of which occurred yesterday and which I will go into in my next blog.  Certainly being a farmers' wife has a different required skill set than most other jobs.  Shame the pay doesn't match up!

So yesterday was referee dog fights, teach children on Correspondence all day, cook lunch for stock agent, feed calf, run dogs for Scott, find out I have another calf to feed so make milk and try to get that one going, cook dinner, draft mob of sheep, make numerous cups of tea for shearing contractor, field a million phone calls and answer a multitude of questions, attend professional development via telephone with maths department of Correspondence School, washing, folding, clean children, read stories, etc etc.  Up at 5.20am the following day to cook and clean for visitors, entertain visitors from 9.00am until 2.30pm, teach for an hour to finish of some school work, field more phone calls, wash more kids, cook more meals, do more washing, feed more calves, etc etc ad infinitum.  Jealous much?  Perhaps that's why Scott came home with a bunch of flowers and box of chocolates this week!!  My advice for those of you unmarried ladies reading this is, if you meet a farmer...run for the hills, unless you are up for a challenge!!!

The only thing to expect is....the unexpected

So another week passes us by up here on the Coast and unsurprisingly, it was a week of the unexpected.  The first event to come under that title, comes from Scott.  He was travelling to Gisborne to attend a board meeting.  He got to the top of the hill between Waipiro Bay and Te Puia Springs and lo and behold there is a fence that needs repairing.  That in itself is not unusual, in fact up here its pretty commonplace.  The sign however accompanying the fence was not, it read: "TWO BOXES FOR REPAIR OF FENCE".  A "BOX" of steinlager being one of the local green currencies...you can guess what the other green currency is, I am sure.  We haven't been back to Gisborne since, so are unsure whether the job has been completed and payment received.

The second unexpected event to befall us this week is an unwanted pregnancy.  Before you all panic, its not mine!  It appears that Iwa, the much mentioned three legged german pointer, is pregnant.  She is a total slapper and has gone and got herself up the duff to one of Scott's farm dogs.  Not just any farm dog either, but the least desirable one.  His name is Scruffy and he is the ugliest dog that ever there was.  He is a Beardie Cross that looks a little like Basil Brush.  His only redeeming feature is his personality, and even that is questionable.  If you had to compare him to a person, you would say he was the skinny weedy guy at the rugby clubrooms that talked himself up and that got into fights for having a smart mouth and pestering the ladies.  We had kept Iwa away from all the dogs while she was on heat but right at the very end of it, Scruffy came sifting up to the house and hanging around.  That's nothing unusual in itself as he is always up here trying to ingratiate himself and become a house pet.  I digress.  Long story short, the two of them disappeared for over an hour, couldn't find them anywhere.  Poor Iwa is now developing boobies and inspection from the vet has confirmed our worst fears.  The pups will be the hairiest retards you will ever see.  Perhaps they will make good hunting dogs?!?

Right, onto the third unexpected event that happened today.  I was busy teaching the kids in the outside room this afternoon when the phone rang.  I answered and a lady introduced herself and it turns out she is from Parliament and wanted my help.  She is the press secretary for a member of parliament (I won't say who).  She had been given our contact details by another relative who had contacted their office with some information (I won't say who or what) that they needed me to do some further digging on and clarify for them.  Very odd to think that little old me, in little old Ruatoria, could be of such use.  Apparently the member had been interviewed recently by Guyon Espiner and had made some remarks that needed clarification, based on something the member had been told by aforementioned relative.  I was able to give them the contact details and information they required so that the member could quote the source...well done me!!  I know its a little cloak and dagger, but I am loathe to reveal the details.

In other news, and not part of the unexpected files, we had a lovely visit from Scott's parents over the weekend.  We took them fishing down the blue bin and caught about a dozen stingrays, trevally, snapper and shark.  Scott even managed to nip out into his "pig pen" (bushy paddock beside the house) and knock off a 120lb boar for them to take home the morning they were leaving.  They were stoked.

Kids are really enjoying their school work this week.  Madi's online programme has now started and there are 12 kids in her class.  Some of them are kiwi kids based overseas and completing their schoolwork via Correspondence...so far we have been introduced to kiwi kids in Oman, Turkey and Peru.  The balance of kids are mainly like us in isolated rural locations.  Madi has made friends with another wee girl and they have been emailing flat out and as I speak are chattering away on the telephone.  Lizzie and Xanthe have now finished their literacy units on Bees and Mini Beasts respectively.  Haven't even looked at what is happening for next week.  Its a roundtoit to job!!  I was forced to telephone the Correspondence School today to voice my frustrations over their ridiculous maths programme.  I have asked to speak to the person in charge of that curriculum area.  Watch this space as I am going to lay down a challenge.  I think that some airhead educationalist somewhere is writing the programme, with no actual experience of the reality of Correspondence teaching, particularly with four kids.  My challenge to that person or persons is to come and try and teach the actual units to my kids and see how they get on!!!  Given that Lizzie throws chips at the intinerant teacher and dog peed in his laptop bag, they will be in for an experience.  I will of course keep you all informed of progress.

I'M BACK

Okay I know I started off with a hiss and roar.  It can't even be said that things tapered off, it just came to a complete standstill.  In my defence, its been an incredibly busy month or two, which is always the case up here over summer.

We have had pretty much back to back visitors since Christmas, which has been great and has brought a little bit of civilisation to our sometimes uncivilised environment up the Coast.  We are becoming quite the tour guides, taking all manner of people on sight-seeing trips around the farm and giving them the potted history of the local area.  Its been really interesting to get other people's perspective on the place.  Every bloke we have ever come across has been incredibly enthusiastic about what a great spot it is....but most of the blokes we know are part of that most male of bastions "the hunting fraternity"...who of course love being able to go out and get deer and pigs in quite close proximity to the house.  Successful hunting in a short space of time of course gives more time for drinking beer and there's been plenty of that going on in the last couple of months too.  At last count, we have had at least five separate visits from hunters since the beginning of December.  Hunting blokes of course are large eaters so I am getting pretty good at whipping up massively large feeds to keep their massively large motors going.

Scott doing a blackberry dive to get to the pigs.  Note canvas leggings

A litle more blackberry and gorse bashing

One dead pig

Scott and Boy with the pig.  The dogs who did all the work seem to not like the camera.

What's great is that most hunters are the salt of the earth type who just turn up and make themselves at home.  They always bring plenty of supplies with them (including beer, obviously) and don't expect the house to be spotless or me to look my best. They've always got a story or several to share and we get a lot of laughs out of it.  They always take meat home with them, and leave meat for us as well, plus it gets Scott out of my hair.  One of the groups of hunters has since discovered that he can go diving on the back boundary of the farm as well, so next time is bringing his dive gear as well as his pig dogs.  Hopefully that means a feed of paua and crayfish. 

Summer has also seen a bit of United Nations theme happening with visitors from Japan, the Netherlands, Texas and Auckland.  I include Auckland because compared to Ruatoria, Auckland IS a foreign country.  What has been most surprising is that all of the international visitors have been so keen to get stuck in boots and all to the Ruatoria lifestyle.  We have had them out horseriding, hunting, tagging cattle, drenching and dagging.  Matt from Texas was a hitchhiker we picked up who eventually ended up staying with us for two weeks.  We really enjoyed having him and learnt alot about the good ole U S of A along the way.   He certainly got the real New Zealand experience staying with us as Scott made him go out to work, even teaching him to dag.  We took him to a hangi at the home of one of our staff, who incidentally are affiliated with one of NZ's most notorious gangs, and of course he went pig hunting several times.  He's shot off up the Coromandel now for a bit of a rest I think, having been mobbed incessantly for two weeks by the kids.  Unfortunately for him he is a reasonably handsome sort of a chap and a few of the local wahines took a bit of a shine to him.  I did let on to some of them towards the end of his stay that he was quite partial to fried chicken and I wouldn't have been a bit surprised to see a queue forming down our driveway of locals all with plates of fried chicken for our young Texan friend.  I haven't actually let on to all of them that he has left yet, in the hopes that they may turn up with said fried chicken which I will of course be able to put to good use.