Hyundai Country Calendar Season 60 Episode 40

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00:00The best of New Zealand's rural heartland.

00:05Hyundai Country Calendar.

00:11I always wanted the farm.

00:13I always knew this is where and what I wanted to do.

00:17It's a succession plan with a difference.

00:20Now they're doing things their way.

00:23We've been extremely lucky to be given the opportunity.

00:27It's going to be a challenge.

00:28I'm sure we can make it work.

00:30We're going to go feed the chickens.

00:47Wow.

00:48Louisa and Brett Harmer have always wanted their own farm.

00:52And thanks to Lou's grandfather, they're hoping to make it happen.

00:55There's a lot of work for us, but we're getting through it day by day.

01:00Yeah.

01:01And, you know, we continue to keep growing.

01:04We're growing as a family and we've got so much support around us.

01:08We're so lucky.

01:10It's going to be a challenge for us, but we've got to take bull by the horns and make it work.

01:16Lou first featured on Country Calendar back in 2016.

01:21She'd left school early to go farming near Cheviot.

01:25Everyone was, I guess, shocked at first and didn't think I'd obviously proceed and follow through with it.

01:29But when I did, they all were so encouraging and everyone was there to help.

01:35She was working with her granddad, Graham McClintock, learning her trade.

01:39She's pretty diligent and does everything pretty well.

01:43She was about to do something and she does it.

01:46Yeah, she's not a clock watcher.

01:48I call her to five and if I was going to take her to six o'clock, she'll stay there until six o'clock and get it done.

01:53Don't have arguments or anything like that.

01:56So if she's not doing things like, oh, I'll just tell her.

02:00If I think her idea's better than mine, we'll do it that way.

02:02Well, I can't even get the spade in, actually.

02:08Her father, Jeff, supported her decision.

02:11It's a long road for a girl in a career who may want to go on to manage a farm.

02:19Before passing away, her granddad arranged for the couple to buy the farm off his estate

02:24and gave them ten years to pay out the other beneficiaries.

02:29I guess we were pretty surprised by it all.

02:31He really wanted to die on the property and he got that wish.

02:36You know, we got to spend some pretty quality time with him before he passed away here at home.

02:42And he always wanted it to be farmed and kept being farmed.

02:46And he was petrified of it going into pine trees, actually.

02:49So this was a great way to keep the wheels rolling, I guess.

02:53Big move for us, but we're pretty happy to be here.

02:57And yeah, we're really going to thank him for the opportunity.

02:59But the opportunity brings with it a lot of hard work.

03:06We've got 880 hectares of mix of cattle and sheep.

03:13Get him and bounce.

03:14It's really lovely country.

03:18Beautiful for riding and walking.

03:21We're really lucky. I guess we don't have steep country that's unusable.

03:25A lot of it is obviously really productive land for us.

03:32Bounce!

03:33They're essentially three big blocks and ideally for us to continue farming, we would like to be able to have the funds to cut these up into smaller blocks to get more out of them.

03:43Will it go bats?

03:54As money allows, they're making repairs and improvements.

03:57and improvements probably replaced anywhere up to 300 you know joiners or

04:06water leaks since we've been here it's just an old system put in in the early

04:11days and they probably first started using alkothene so it's all 20 mil and

04:1515 mil so we sort of wanted to upgrade that soon I'd say it's probably there

04:21because of the big hole underneath it so I'd say it's been shooting down and

04:25like wearing it out yeah so we just need a 15 mil joiner to put in there and then

04:30it'll be fixed yeah they're upgrading fences and the stock water system we've

04:40brought the water pipe and some more new troughs and we've got about 12 Ks of 30

04:45and 40 mil pipe to rip in it won't take too long probably anywhere up to a week we

04:53could probably get troughs put in and gravel around the troughs and water on

04:58to bring in additional income Lou works full-time and they run an earth moving

05:03business they make farm tracks horse arenas and are currently working on a

05:08vineyard just north of Cheviot it's been quite an exciting sort of job for us to

05:14be able to work and do but it's the first vineyard I can say I've ever been a part

05:19of developing ironically it's land that used to belong to Lou's grandfather what we're

05:26doing here is building 2.2 kilometers of roading for the vineyard obviously harvesters and tractors

05:34and bits and pieces to be able to get around we're also doing the deep ripping and just a bit of

05:41drainage work as well the deep ripping loosens the clay pan so when the new

05:48vines are planted they can get their roots down through the clay pan the business

05:55brings in vital off-farm income the earth moving and sort of slotted in quite

06:01nicely with the farm for us being a secondary income farming is pretty

06:08volatile especially sheep and beef and we have had some pretty tough years one

06:14of them being last year we're able to use some of the income from the earth

06:18moving to do development on the farm that we couldn't normally do

06:22Brett's family has been in the earth moving business for years and their

06:27support has been crucial being a small company with only two of us of being

06:34really lucky to be able to reach out to my brother and father to help me

06:40obviously having access to my brother and also my father's gear has been great

06:46his brother John is helping on this job I just come up here and help me out drive

06:52the greatest he's done a good job he's had a lot of learning curves and that I

06:56feel that you know he's priced jobs and then realized that it costs a lot more

07:00and especially through the last few years with inflation and the cost of

07:04everything's going up with fuel you could price the job and the fuel prices go

07:07through the roof you know a few weeks later and you're still in the same job

07:11yeah

07:19yeah

07:23vineyard manager Wesley Heron is overseeing the project

07:34Mount Beautiful it was first planted in 2006 so we're almost 20 years old for our oldest vines

07:40existing vineyard is 79 hectares and this development that Brett's

07:46helping us with is an extra 35 so yeah quite a big increase for us this site is a

07:53difficult one because we're on rolling hills and it's it's been slippery it's

07:57been quite wet over winter so deep rip it first with Brett and then we've got to

08:00cultivate it get the roads in so soon we'll be planting putting the

08:04intermediate posts in string up the wires there's a lot involved yeah getting the

08:10contracting business up and running hasn't been easy it was pretty difficult

08:16for a start lose family has been in cheviot for generations but for myself

08:21being sort of the new kid on the block it was pretty hard farmers are relatively

08:26loyal to their contractors that they've used in the past so we were just so

08:30lucky to have people that were sort of around us that used us and it's slowly

08:34expanding through cheviot as we grow and and people hear about us hopefully that

08:39carries on earth moving isn't their only new initiative that made tailing day a

08:46social event

08:49it's a big day for Lou and Brett Armour on their farm near cheviot in North

09:01Canterbury tailing day we'd even start when we first started farming we got the

09:08price to get a tailing contractor in and we thought you know what we could do

09:13this a lot cheaper so we decided to make a Facebook page and we asked all our

09:17friends and family to come help and in return we would provide free food and

09:20free alcohol and I think the first year we maybe had about 10 to 15 people turn

09:26up and then every year it's just grown to about 60 odd people this year bad

09:33weather meant tailing over two days it's not looking too bad the weather was

09:39gonna be a lot worse so hopefully we can get up there soon get on with it get it

09:44done and avoid the rain

10:00I'd started off as just a small thing when Lou's grandfather was still alive

10:05before we actually brought Stratholme so I was actually this group of my mates for a

10:09start really close mates and you know just grew from there there's all sort of walks of life here so we've got you know lawyers

10:19bankers builders some farmers as well we're just drafting the lambs off the

10:29ewes and then the ewes are going through the dip to be dipped bit of a shame it's

10:34just a wee bit damp but we can't do much about mother nature especially when we've

10:38already organized it when we're into it

10:41among the helpers is Lou's cousin Matt McClintock he's been coming here since he

10:47was a kid I do a lot of hunting up here and a lot of just helping out on the farm

10:52with Brett and Lou and help where I can and I think it's great that it's gonna

10:56stay in the family and you know it gives me the opportunity to be able to come

11:01back up here and keep enjoying the place for the future

11:03I think it's your eggs yes we're getting about 30 eggs a day at the moment we're eating a lot of eggs

11:14down below there's plenty of action in the kitchen as well cooking for the amount of

11:20people that we do there's not a strong point to me unfortunately there's a lot

11:25to it and we're really lucky that we've got so many people that come and help

11:28then I'm gonna send them over to you to cut we've got Nanny who does all her

11:34special baking Jeanette pulls through with about a hundred and ten sausage rolls

11:38and then Rach and Trish who step up these ladies all have a great passion for

11:44cooking and that's not a passion of mine so we just power through it

11:49it's you know sandwich stations and sausage rolls and everyone seems to love

11:54it it is a big day of food for someone who doesn't like cooking

12:00come on also helping us lose dad Jeff he banks the farm ownership plan it was a

12:14bit of a surprise but not a surprise if you know what I mean Lou and dad

12:19have had a pretty close relationship ten years ago they were working here doing

12:24their farming thing whatever Lou does in life I'll prepare to support her and help

12:32her out and yeah here we are still here ten years later

12:38after 30 years flying in places like Antarctica and Papua New Guinea Jeff now works for a local

12:57helicopter company which donates the choppers for the day

13:00it's financially quite expensive to hire a tailing game and so Lou came up with an idea dad you bring

13:22the helicopter and we'll have a party at the end of it and see what we can do and maybe have a tailing

13:30that's apart from being free it's fun and so a bit of farming bit of flying a bit of partying and

13:35yeah it all ends up quite a good scenario really so this is how we do things around here a little bit

13:44different set it up on the back of the truck it's a bit of a free-for-all it's pretty exciting today to

13:53have all our friends and family it's been a great turnout you ain't on a diet now I'm not it's pretty

14:00cool lots of banter lots of food I guess the real funds tonight but to have dad and Nige here with

14:07the helicopters being able to ferry everyone in due to the tracks being so wet we're super fortunate

14:12tea the ewes and lambs are doing well this was the first year that we wintered our ewes on kale and gave

14:33our big hill blocks a break so yeah it's worked out for us we've had a good survival rate and that's

14:39just obviously due to the weather yeah I'm pretty happy it's so special they all drop everything

14:49this weekend to be able to come and give us a hand and I think you know to have friends and family like

14:55that just shows how special these guys really are you know they turn up every year sunshine rain hail

15:02you know they're always committed and I think it's because it's something that we need help with and they

15:08all turn up to help you know and if you can get friends like that I think you're winning at life

15:12with the work done it's time for a feed and a chance to relax

15:41it's gonna be a big night here in Cheviot for us everyone's starting to dress up turn up for the

15:48next round and have a good night we put it on just to thank everyone for bloody coming up and helping us

15:56it's been a big two days this year yeah we're pretty lucky to have everyone turn up it's nice

16:02that we can all come together as a group and enjoy the night sometimes we don't see our friends and family

16:08family for gosh probably this time next year yeah yeah we'll do it all over again yeah we'll have a

16:16different thing and an even bigger party hopefully although tailings done for another year there's

16:24still plenty to keep them busy on Lou and Brett Armour's farm near Cheviot they're always looking at ways to

16:44boost their income this is Steve or Eve she is a nine-year-old and she's got plenty of life left in

16:54her yet you'll see she likes to get going on the hill and I guess that's what we'll go and do hey

17:00right are we going yep the horses have been such a big part of my life ever since we were little

17:09probably riding from about the age of two so it's pretty special to you know have grown up with them

17:15and have that ability to muster and show jump horse trekking will bring in some much-needed money to

17:22help pay off the farm we're going to be running horse treks and with groups coming over the next

17:29couple of weeks one got up for a hundred people over one weekend and essentially they ride out at

17:35their own time and come back in on their own time we've opened the gates and then shut them at five

17:40now I reckon we need to cut you here this weekend with that income then we can upgrade more things

17:49essentially on the farm so instead of tapping out a nail we can go buy a box of brand new ones I

17:54guess our future plans for this would be able to offer it to hikers walkers and you know bikers it gets

18:03people around our beautiful farm you know you get amazing views of the wire river you can see the

18:08cattle and the sheep and you get to enjoy being in the outdoors on our farm

18:14the daffodils were planted by granny and grandad granny had a big passion for gardening especially

18:36tulips daffodils so they spent hours in here we open it up to the public and we do a gold coin

18:48donation to go to the cancer society and I think last year we raised about $360 so it's pretty cool

18:55that we can give back to a charity based on what grandad and granny started we will take these and go

19:05pop them on granny and grandad's grave we do it every year so that she gets to keep seeing them

19:12and grandad thoroughly enjoyed them as well so very special thing for both of them all right

19:18oh Jacko you want to put your flower on grandad's grave Lou's grandad is never far from her thoughts

19:24he would probably be a little bit hesitant about the improvements he loved old nails and buggered gates

19:34and string string was definitely his favorite thing um pretty sure we actually buried him with some

19:41he was in the generation where you had to save you know and you had to reuse old big nails and tap them

19:49out straight again you give me that mummy the flowers give mum the flowers here we are good boy

19:55I'd like to think if he could see it now he would have a smile on his face you know and see how beautiful

20:01it is yeah was it one for um putting up a new fence and things like that just repair the old one

20:07perfect darling good Jeff knows farm ownership is a big ask when it's time to pay back the estate

20:17they'll need a mortgage that means the farm and business have to be profitable definitely up for

20:24the challenge Brett is an extremely good worker Lou is extremely determined it's a challenge definitely a challenge

20:34it's not going to be an easy one but but the moral of the story is if you're prepared to put the work in

20:44and and do the long hours you'll get there

20:49in the meantime Louisa and Brett are knuckling down and hoping the hard work pays off

21:01I think farming and getting into farms is so hard to do these days and obviously we've been

21:10extremely lucky to be given the opportunity right you do the scoops

21:14I'd like to see Stratholme stay in the family whether it's our kids or wider family it's going to be a

21:24challenge having young children and living full-time work but I don't think it's out of reach

21:30I think it's definitely impossible and having both myself and Lou's family around us I'm sure we

21:37can make it work and get to the end goal there's probably been the odd day you know we've thought

21:44why are we doing this but you just have to look at your kids and the lifestyle it brings us to know

21:51that you know this is where we want to be and this is why we're here good to see some rain

21:56yeah

21:57yeah

22:10Country calendar was brought to you by Hyundai, future positive.

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