SPORT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

So much to blog about this week but I'm going to give you an insight into the commitment required to live in a rural area when you have kids and want them to play sport.

So, we live in an absolutely amazing rural area full of fabulous people with a great sense of community.  The families around here are also what would be termed "good breeders" with most families having an heir and a spare and then some.  We ourselves have four kids, all of whom are playing a sport this winter.

When you live in town, sport is usually a much more simple affair involving a five to ten minute drive across town to get your kids to sport.  Often schools in town have much higher rolls so there are plenty of parents to take on the tasks of coaches and administrators.  It is quite a different scenario when you live in the country!!  Our school has a roll of about 54.  Being that we are all "breeders" the actual number of families is something like 20.  This of course means that when its time for sport, there aren't many hands to go around so nearly everyone has to take on one (or several) roles.  I am co-coaching one of the netball teams which means a once a week practice, and helping out with another team when the coach is unavailable, as well as being on the Committee.  Fortunately this year our three daughters all have practice on the same day however last year it was quite different with me having to do a one hour round trip twice a week for practices and a three hour round trip for games on Saturdays.

There is also the issue of not having enough children to make up full teams, a problem in most rural areas.  The usual way of things is that schools that are nearby will band together to find enough kids to make up full teams.  The concept of "nearby" though is an interesting one and comes with its own set of problems.  What constitutes nearby?  Well its all relative isn't it.  If you live on the North Shore, a nearby school would be about 2-3km away from another one.  In rural areas, nearby takes on a whole new meaning.  Our "nearby" schools are all 20-30km away from each other making the logistics of sports practice a little difficult.  In order to facilitate kids being able to play sport and get home before it is completely dark, our entire school day changes for the winter term with a shortened lunch hour and school finishing at 2.30pm.  My kids though live 30 minutes from school so unfortunately they still get home in the dark after sports practice!!  Kids are required to be extremely adaptable and the kiwi attitude of "just get on with it" seems to start a little bit earlier in country kids.  This is evident in Xanthe, our youngest, who in order to play netball has had to join a team of kids from town where she is the only country kid and knew nobody in her team.  It didn't phase her one bit though...character building is what they call it isn't it?

Madeleine, our oldest, is in a combined team with another nearby school this year, but last year she was in a combined team with two different schools whose distance from our home is over 100km one way.  She has to travel most weeks from our school to Weber school for practice.  Unfortunately this is also the day that I coach Lizzie's team at Pongaroa School so of course I cannot transport her there.  Cue rural community spirit and car pooling.  One parent, who also happens to be the coach of that team, drives Madeleine and the other A Grade players to their practices and another parent brings them back.  In the meantime two of us are coaching the C Grade team at Pongaroa School.  It is much easier than last year when she was travelling into Dannevirke once a week, although the local Pub provided the Community Van to transport them.  Hilarious watching the pub branded courtesy van full of young kids!!

Saturdays are an absolute nightmare in our house.  It is a nearly three hour round trip for netball and rugby games in Dannevirke.  We have to leave our house at 7.30 every Saturday morning in order to get to the Courts by 9.00am, stopping on the way to pick up the team sweets and player of the day prize.  It is even more difficult if Scott is planning on playing rugby for our local club that day.  We all need to go into town and I have to have lunch made for all six of us (I'm refuse to buy lunch as its too expensive) and I also have to have a substantial meal item made to take to the club rooms for after Scott's game.   The kids all play their respective games, with me coaching and assisting where needed....running around like a chook with my head cut off.  We then load into the car, stuff our faces with bacon and egg pie or sandwiches, while we drive the one hour back to Pongaroa for Scott's rugby.

I often say "oh well, it could be worse" and, quite often, it is.  On cold wet days you have to take at least one change of clothes per family member, sometimes two.  If Scott is unavailable then I have all four kids to deal with and often he will ask me to do a couple of jobs for him, seeing as I'm going to be in town.  I am often envious of some of the other parents who wander up to Netball immaculately groomed with a latte in hand while I am in trackpants, a sensible rather than glamorous coat and have frequently been rained on.  Last week I ended up covered in grease from doing one of Scott's little jobs.  In the 15 minute break between two games I had to go and drop off the pipes from the Bulldozer to the engineering workshop, hence the grease.  I also had to drop meat off at the butchers and pick up a box of sausages and check in at the motorbike shop to see if the quad was ready. 

Next year is going to be a little harder.  Although Jimmy started playing rugby this year, being 4 his enthusiasm has waned a little (or at least Scott's has) so we have taken a casual approach and only taken him along occasionally.  Next year will be different though and I am sure Scott will be approached for coaching duties.  I have admit that I am pleased that at this point our children are not in representative teams as that makes life even more difficult with two practices in town each week (3 hour round trip) on top of practices for their local team, then tournaments all around the lower North Island on Sundays.  It's just what you do for your kids though isn't it, although in my opinion rural people have to make a much larger commitment, including financially.  Roll on Summer I say when I can have my Saturday's back.

DAGGER IN CHIEF?!

I won't start by making excuses for not blogging.  Anyone who knows us knows how many people come through the station and how many people I have to feed.  At present I am feeding the six of us (and Scotty of course eats for two), two young Frenchmen (ou la la), a young South African and a couple from Cornwall in the UK, hence the lack of time.  I am also coaching a netball team, have been writing policies for the local Early Childhood Centre and Bus Committee and attending meetings for both.  Not to mention all the unpaid volunteer work I do for the station and of course raising the four holy terrors.  Actually now that I think about it, those all sound like excuses, but they are very plausible ones.

So today it was time for some dagging.  We have the students from Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre out here at the moment with their tutor, plus the aforementioned foreigners and of course ME, general dogsbody.  The plan was to get the foreigners dragging the sheep from the pens for the students who would then dag.  I had a wee giggle to myself because when we went up there all us Kiwis stripped off a couple of layers of clothing and put on some mocs.  After about ten minutes and a hell of a lot of sweating, the french boys started stripping off their layers as well.  Patch, from Cornwall, has done a wee bit of time on a handpiece before so he was able to actually get on the end of one and give it a go.  I always think that any muppet can work with sheep and there is no skill involved.  Today disproved that theory, there is definitely an art to working with them. 

I decided I would put my broom down for a bit and drag for a couple of the girls who were dagging.  I went into the pen beside one of the french boys and it became apparent to me immediately as to why they were sweating so much.  Now bear in mind that I am somewhere north of 30, have spat four kids out and I'm probably old enough to be the boys' mother (had I been overly amorous as a teenager) so you would think that they would have it all over me on the fitness front and would find flipping a sheep much easier than me.  Alas, no.  Turns out that my years spent in docking pens and yards as Scott's apprentice has served me well.  I was able to flip a sheep much quicker and easier than the boys and was able to "advise" them on the correct technique.  This was also the case when it came to them having a go on the handpiece.

The french boys are studying agriculture in France and one of their course requirements is to spend four months completing an internship on a farm in an english speaking country.  Of course given that they are on a large sheep and beef station, it was only a matter of time before they were given a handpiece and taught to dag.  Again, its that same old thing of knowing how to handle a sheep.  The boys found it really difficult to get the sheep to relax and looked incredibly awkward trying to hold them.  At that point I felt I really wasn't in a position to criticise (at least not out loud) and it's a long time since I've been on the end of a handpiece.  I did make some smart comments about them not knowing how to get a woman to relax but I think that perhaps it got lost in translation, or they just chose to ignore me.

Catherine being taught how to shear by Scott with Mathieu watching on.

Patch from Cornwall being handed a sheep by Mathieu from France

What a team, husband and wife doing the business.

So we were getting towards the end of the day and I decided that I would give it a go.  I have picked up a handpiece before but it was a hell of a long time ago.  There is definitely a huge advantage in knowing how to hold a sheep and getting it to sit in a relaxed position.  To be honest, I surprised myself, and I definitely surprised my darling husband, with my skills.  For everyone else who gave it a go, they had to keep stopping, turning the machine off, repositioning and starting again.  NOT ME.  I was able to dag without too much difficulty, just had a wee bit of trouble getting around the hamstring area, but Scott assured me that was more to do with blunt gear than my actual technique.  Four sheep done and dusted in double quick time (or at least quicker than the frenchies, Marius from South Africa and Catherine from Cornwall and no slower than the Taratahi female students).  The young guys all only shore one each.  I was blardy proud of myself given my age and overall physical condition.  My only concern now is that because I made not a bad fist of it, Scott is going to make me practice a little bit more and then use me as his dagger-in-chief?!  Shit, I hope not.  Of course when he finally arrived back at the house tonight I told him how wonderfully well I had done and that he should be proud of me.  As is usual for Scott he completely burst my bubble by giving me a withering look and saying "Yes Dear but you only did four, let's see how good you are when you do a full day".  I think he just issued a challenge.  It's yet another skillI I can add to my ever-growing resume as a Farmer's Wife.

Here I am, giving everyone a demonstation