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8 November 2009
Well, it was bound to happen. We decided to take a break from having HelpXers and suddenly there aren’t enough hours in the day again.
This weekend Aaron and I worked really hard, but although we achieved a lot it wasn’t enough. It’s spring and suddenly we are swamped with stuff to do. I would take a few days off work if I thought it would help but Aaron can’t and won’t. And so inevitably we discussed the possibility of having HelpXers in again, if only for a week, and after discussing our list of things to do we both agreed to host again.
Quite frankly we’re both enjoying the break from guests and Coppa has been the happiest dog since we have been guest free so it is not an easy decision to make. However, there’s a truckload of compost and a truckload of woodchip sitting on the drive and they need to be shifted into our new permaculture vegetable garden. We have to extend 2 pig houses and also fence Stanley’s paddock with chicken wire so we can let the ducks in.
Pig Business
As yet we haven’t sorted out any deal with the local butcher but we’re taking the plunge anyway and increasing our breeding stock to 6 sows. It’s a big step and a lot of pigs to look after but we’ve crunched the numbers and if we can sell our piglets at a fair price we stand to make enough money to help us pay the mortgage off that much faster.
It’s no get-rich-quick scheme and in fact most financial advisors would probably advise against doing such a thing. However, this isn’t really about money. Now the farm is set up to raise pigs, as long as we don’t lose money from hereon in then we are happy. For us it’s about the sheer enjoyment of being around pigs and about knowing the meat we eat is of an extremely high standard.
So we’ve agreed to buy the Wessex Saddleback sow from Kaipara Workwear and Safety Clothing in town. She’s getting on a bit but we may be able to get one or two litters out of her. We just hope she gets on well with Mabel.
As for the other 2 new girls, we’ve decided to keep 2 gilts from Mabel’s litter – Emily and Olive. They’re both very sweet, friendly wee girls and they will be raised together.
28 October 2009
Life was going grand, and then I must have got too complacent? Too happy?
My brother lost his sight very suddenly in one eye just over a week ago. He was sent to hospital straight from A&E. And so we waited, fearing the worst. A scan quickly revealed there weren’t any tumours present. We breathed a sigh of relief but more tests needed to be done. Matt overhead one of the surgeons suggesting he be tested for optical neuritis.
As is the deal with the modern age, Jo and I were straight onto Google searching for descriptions of this condition. We didn’t like what we saw. We bypassed Wikipedia and the blogs and chat rooms and went straight for the medical articles. These didn’t allay our fears.
We stopped ourselves from looking any further and told each other to lighten up. This was ridiculous. He wasn’t even diagnosed with optical neuritis and here we were scaring ourselves silly about what conditions can cause optical neuritis.
We kept our discoveries to ourselves and waited. Matt’s MRI was late Thursday afternoon.
My phone rang after 6 while I was out walking the dogs. Aaron answered. I returned to the house and that which Jo and I had feared had become reality.
The family gathered in the hospital with Matt, each dealing with the shock of the diagnosis.
I stood at the kitchen bench and cried. Why Matt? Why my brother? And selfishly I wondered why my family has to deal with this and not some other family.
And then I did the one thing I could do, got on the Internet and start researching. What the hell was Multiple Sclerosis and what did it mean for Matt, for Bron, for the family?
It’s not a death sentence but it is a life sentence. It has the potential to be a series of minor inconveniences or a lifetime of frustration and pain. There is no diagnosing which of the 4 types of MS Matt will end up with. There is no cure. Matt’s life is now a wait and see game. He can either let this knowledge swallow him up and drag him down or he can just get on with it and face whatever life has to throw at him when the time comes.
I don’t actually know what type of person Matt is. Is he the former or the latter? I know I am the former.
I lay awake all Thursday night thinking about it. I arrived at work Friday and did nothing but scour the Internet for information. I could feel myself bobbing along on emotional waves as I read the good and the bad.
Calls bounced back and forth between myself and mum and Jo and by lunchtime I was an emotional wreck. I debated whether to travel to Auckland or not. What was the point? I could offer nothing, and did Matt really want the family hanging around while he himself came to terms with the diagnosis? If it was me I’d want space and time to digest. I went home and stayed there.
After 3 days of steroids Matt regained most of his sight. It was a fast recovery. A Friday meeting with the neurologist confirmed he is at the very early stages of the condition and he sent Matt away feeling reasonably positive.
Matt and Bron’s initial decision has been to just get on with life and not dwell on what might be. It’s a good decision to make. After all, he’s in top health with plenty of good things to look forward to.
And I have quickly learnt that MS is a very common condition. People I know have it and other people I know have family members with it. In a strange way this helps.
And bizarrely enough it’s brought back flashbacks of memory from my days at Northcote College, when we were bussed off to different parts of Auckland to sell Four Leaf Clover tickets to raise funds for the Multiple Sclerosis Society.
And the song came back into my head “Turn a new leaf over and buy a four leaf clover”. And I remember thinking at the time how much I hated being made to stand outside a shop trying to make people buy a lucky ticket. I had no idea what MS was, it didn’t affect me or anyone I knew. I recall seeing a picture of a person in a wheelchair and feeling absolutely no connection to the cause. I begrudged having to sell them and felt embarrassed at the thought of conning people out of money for what would no doubt inevitably be a non-winning ticket.
As a young teenager with wildly swinging hormones and moods I had enough of my own problems to contend with.
And so 25 years later I now find myself grateful that there were others at the time that cared more than I.
Something To Celebrate
It was Aaron’s birthday on Saturday and instead of swapping presents we go out to dinner. Aaron had suggested just going to the local pizza restaurant in Kaiwaka. It’s nothing flash but it’s close to home so I agreed. Aaron rang Marty and asked if he wanted to join us. He said yes.
Saturday evening we got ready and Marty turned up at the door with Amy and Russell. It was a pleasant surprise. Suddenly it was more like a party than just a dinner out.
The dinner was good, the company great and Russell very kindly and quite unexpectedly paid for dinner.
We went back to ours and while everyone stayed up until some time after 2am I went to bed early so I could get up and feed out.
You Are What You Eat
While out at dinner on Saturday Marty asked us if we wanted to go to Matakana with him and Amy on Sunday. Marty had farming mates entering the ‘Shear a sheep, eat a pie, down a pint’ challenge and after that they were going to the movies to see a documentary film called ‘Food Inc’.
We were intrigued enough to say yes.
And so the animals all got dinner at lunchtime and then the 4 of us headed into Matakana. We grabbed lunch from the local bakery, went across the road to the pub to watch some sheep shearing and then went to the movies.
I almost choked at the $15 admission fee but what the hell, we never go to the movies and we hadn’t paid for dinner.
The Matakana movie theatre is very cool. It’s very cosy, with big armchairs and a very warm, relaxed ambience. Who knows, we may just go again some day.
The movie started and for the next 2 hours we were continually shocked, horrified, sickened and completely riveted. All 4 of us came out of the theatre looking slightly tortured.
Aaron and I had considered ourselves fairly clued up consumers but our appalling ignorance was now only too obvious. I was too scared to look in the pantry when I got home. Aaron and I talked about the movie and our food choices. I tossed and turned all night as I thought about how much I was going to have to change, not only as a consumer but also as the grocery buyer of the household.
Suddenly it was no longer just about money and trying to eat healthy but now I had to consider ethics, sustainability, genetic modification, organics, and both animal and human welfare. I felt both enlightened and overwhelmed.
Monday I looked in the pantry and started reading labels. I was mentally compiling a list of don’t buys and it was getting beyond a joke.
This is where it gets tricky. I have to make a decision as to which category each item of food should fall under.
Meat we’ve got sussed. It’s free range and happy or not at all.
Fruit and veg is also easy, if it’s not NZ grown I’m not buying it and if we grow it ourselves it’s organically raised.
Fast food is easy. At the moment it might be once or twice a year and now it’s never.
Fish – it has to be wild and sustainable
Cereals – no genetic modification and only grains grown in NZ or Australia
Hot drinks – organic, fair trade
Baking products – flour, sugar, fruit, nuts and seeds – I can’t get my head around this one. I don’t buy ready made baked goods but I do lots of baking. Organics is a great idea but I’m not yet sure we can sustain the cost.
Dairy – We’ll cut back even more but let’s face it, Aaron works at a cheese factory, cutting out cheese isn’t going to happen. I’m not convinced cheese is all that bad anyway. It’s milk, yoghurt, and cream related products that worry me. I know they’re full of antibiotics. I’ve already cut back majorly on them in the last few years but I think I need to be far more disciplined now. It’ll have to be a treat and it’ll have to be organic.
Soy – My beloved soy milk and soy related products are on the hit list. The product itself doesn’t need to be organic but the soy beans must be non-gm and organic.
Bread, Pasta and Rice – Well it has to be organic really but it isn’t going to happen overnight. We’re big consumers of all 3 so I’m going to have to convert in stages as finance and access allows.
Cleaning Products – Easy! We had to convert to eco-friendly anyway as soon as we moved to the country
Cosmetics – I’ve been thinking about this one for a while. I just need to find a good local, natural brand and make the change
Wednesday I went to the supermarket with some fear and trepidation. It wasn’t without basis.
Although I was pleasantly surprised at how many items are now on the shelf which fit my shopping criteria, I also spent an extra hour reading every label until quite frankly all the words became a blur. I got to the tinned tomatoes and couldn’t find the country of origin on any of them. What to do? What to do? I grabbed 3 tins that looked like they’d be safe. Of course as soon as I got home Aaron read the label, and there, very clearly it read Product of the US. Ahhhhhh!
So my 90 minute trip around the supermarket yielded only ½ a trolley load, a pounding headache and the realisation that until I compile a list of “safe” products supermarket shopping is going to be a mission.
18 October 2009
So that’s it. HelpXers Jay and Bex have finally left the nest and headed north to Russell for the summer. We are once again alone and it’s not such a bad thing. Their leaving signals an end to almost 5 months of continual hosting. We need a break.
If I Knew Then What I Know Now
6 years ago when we were looking for a block of land our plans were different, our experience and knowledge were extremely limited, and I insisted we buy property somewhere between The Bombay Hills and the Brynderwyns that was easy for friends and family to visit. I feared isolation and loneliness if we moved further afield. We wanted 25 acres but could only afford 10 acres on the side of the highway and I couldn’t have been happier until about 3 months ago and then a slight restlessness hit me.
It’s not so much a need to do something different, as it is a desire to do it on a grander scale. I want more land. I want more hills, more bush, more pigs. How wonderful would it be to give each pig a couple of acres with hills and gullies and bush? We could still have our few sheep and cattle and we could have ducks and chooks galore. I’d like 10 sows and 2 boars. I’d like to be able to move the pigs every 3 months to rest the paddocks and reduce the amount of damage they do over winter.
Of course there’s nothing stopping us looking for more land, and in fact Aaron’s been doing that for the last 6 months. God knows now is the best time to buy farm land as the interest in farming big and small has taken a dive. There are hundreds of properties for sale and many of them going at bargain prices. But it’s not as simple as that. I don’t want to move to some old house that needs doing up. We’d have to build again, despite swearing I would never, ever do so.
Work and money are the biggest issues. We need to work to pay for our lifestyle.
Building in a more remote area would cost more. Our petrol bills would be higher. We’d be starting again with so many things – fencing, planting, animal housing, etc. The thought of putting behind us 5 years of hard graft and progress to be back at almost square one is a horrible thought.
To be fair, I don’t dislike what I have, it’s just I want more. I want to wind the clock back 6 years, using the knowledge I have now, to look further afield. I want to buy 100 acres instead of 10.
Isolation and loneliness wouldn’t be an issue because we’d keep the HelpXers and CouchSurfers coming.
But I guess things are the way they are for a reason. The truth of the matter is, we’re currently in the perfect location for our financial situation. We both have good jobs and we’re located exactly half way between the two. We’re managing the land well with the resources we have.
Lets face it, we’re both fast approaching 40 and time is not on our side. It takes time to establish a farm. It’s taken us 5 years to get where we are now, although if we had to start again we could possibly do it again in 3.
I honestly can’t see myself moving to another farm, unless money and fulltime work suddenly stopped being issues for us.
But still, I can’t stop myself from wondering what we might be doing now, if 6 years ago we’d moved somewhere different and bought 100 acres instead of 10.
Demand Has Outstripped Supply
Since Mike King’s documentary on commercial pig farming in New Zealand a couple of months ago, the demand for piglets and free range pork has skyrocketed. Every week Aaron and I are asked if we can supply. We could literally sell hundreds of piglets now if we had them. A shop owner in Wellsford has told Aaron he gets daily requests from people looking for local pig farmers.
The time to hit the market with good quality free-range pork is now. We could make a killing but we are at least a year away from producing large quantities of piglets.
Perhaps the only saving grace is that it seems every other free range pig farmer is facing the same issue. Everyone’s asking and there’s only a limited supply of pigs. Any piglets around have all been pre sold.
Now is the time to buy 100 acres of cheap, rough land and turn it into a massive pig farm. Of course, good luck sourcing breeding stock if you haven’t already got any!
Frank’s son-in-law has timed it beautifully. He bought his massive farm a couple of years ago and will apparently have around 500 free-range pigs in his herd sometime next year. This is the farm Herculisa moved to and we have just been advised she is now running with 100 sows in a massive bush paddock, living the dream life it sounds.
So now Aaron and I have to make some big decisions. After deciding we didn’t have room for more than 4 breeding sows we’re now seriously contemplating increasing that to 6 to take advantage of the current trend for pork. It doesn’t seem much but 2 extra sows means around 24 extra piglets to feed each year. It’ll involve dividing paddocks, more fencing, more housing and more work. We have some number crunching to do this weekend. We’ve hopefully got our meeting with the smallgoods butcher before the end of the month and so we must decide before the month is up.
I’m a little nervous about taking the step but as Aaron says, if it proves to be 2 too many, 1 set of piglets from each of the 2 sows will cover a lot of our costs. The sows could then be sold or turned into sausages and we’ve lost nothing.
Ultimately our best course of action is to seal the deal with the butcher. While interest in free range pork is high at the moment, there’s no doubt it will wane somewhat in the next 6 months. It is certainly better to have a confirmed multiple pre order than trying to keep up relationships with multiple single pig buyers.
Stanley Gets His Day
Well, Stanley is only a couple of weeks away from being together with his true love Mabel. He’s as yet untested in the siring stakes and our hopes are high.
Then he’ll be straight home and in a paddock with Mabel, so basically his next couple of months are going to be a young boar’s dream really.
His fertility needs to be high as the alternative is he becomes sausages. This is a horrifying thought. Stanley is now an adored pet. He is as much a gentleman as Arthur but not as much of a ladies man. He has already shown that his ego is easily bruised when his affections are not reciprocated.
And What of the Future?
It is fair to say I have been doing a lot of thinking about the future in the last few months. I am guessing this is largely due to having so many extra hands helping out on the block. I’ve had time to actually sit back and assess where we’ve come from and where we’re going. Now that I know that juggling the farm and work doesn’t have to be a constant struggle I don’t feel so scared about making decisions that could potentially lead to more work.
I’ve learnt a lot about myself this year and discovered that I’m actually capable of things I didn’t think I was.
The most amazing thing for me to learn is that, not only can I host complete strangers in my home but I can do so in a way that makes them enjoy their stay. In the past when people have suggested we run a farmstay and charge people for it I honestly believed my attitude was so anti-social that we would be out of business before we started.
Hosting HelpXers and finding out about their experiences with other hosts – the good, the bad and the truly ugly – I have discovered that as a team, Aaron and I make an excellent host team.
So now this has opened up to us a new doorway in the future when farming loses its shine and becomes too physically demanding.
I truly believe that at that time we will be the perfect couple to run a campground, hostel or even motel. I anticipate us only doing it for 2-5 years and maybe even being one of those couples that doesn’t actually own but just travels the country relieving owners so they themselves can take a break.
As for the other 2 new girls, we’ve decided to keep 2 gilts from Mabel’s litter – Emily and Olive. They’re both very sweet, friendly wee girls and they will be raised together.
