- 13 hours ago
Hyundai Country Calendar - Season 60 Episode 40 -
In Grandad's Footsteps
In Grandad's Footsteps
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00:00The best of New Zealand's rural heartland, Hyundai Country Calendar.
00:10I always wanted the farm. I always knew this is where and what I wanted to do.
00:16It's a succession plan with a difference. Now they're doing things their way.
00:23We've been extremely lucky to be given the opportunity.
00:26It's going to be a challenge. I'm sure we can make it work.
00:30We're going to go feed the chickens.
00:48Louisa and Brett Harmer have always wanted their own farm.
00:51And 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 and, you know, we continue to keep growing.
01:04We're growing as a family and we've got so much support around us. We're so lucky.
01:09It's going to be a challenge for us, but we've got to take bull by the horns and make it work.
01:15Lou first featured on Country Calendar back in 2016. She'd left school early to go farming near Cheviot.
01:24Everyone 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.
01:34She was working with her grandad, Graeme McClintock, learning her trade.
01:39She's pretty diligent and does everything pretty well. She was about to do something and she does it.
01:46Yeah, she's not a clock watcher.
01:48Call her to five and if you're going to take her to six o'clock, she'll stay there till six o'clock and get it done.
01:53Don't have arguments or anything like that.
01:56If she's not doing things like I like it, I'll just tell her.
01:59If I think her idea's better than mine, we'll do it that way.
02:05I can't even get the spade in, actually.
02:07Her father, Jeff, supported her decision.
02:10It's a long road for a girl in a career who may want to go on to manage a farm.
02:18Before passing away, her grandad arranged for the couple to buy the farm off his estate
02:23and gave them ten years to pay out the other beneficiaries.
02:28I guess we were pretty surprised by it all.
02:31He really wanted to die on the property and he got that wish.
02:35You 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
02:45and he was petrified of it going into pine trees, actually.
02:48So this was a great way to keep the wheels rolling, I guess.
02:52Big move for us, but we're pretty happy to be here.
02:55And, yeah, we've really got to thank him for the opportunity.
03:01But the opportunity brings with it a lot of hard work.
03:06We've got 880 hectares of mix of cattle and sheep.
03:12Get him and bounce.
03:13It's really lovely country.
03:17Beautiful for riding and walking.
03:20We're really lucky.
03:21I guess we don't have steep country that's unusable.
03:24A lot of it is obviously really productive land for us.
03:31Bounce!
03:32They're essentially three big blocks, and ideally for us to continue farming,
03:38we would like to be able to have the funds to cut these up into smaller blocks
03:42to get more out of them.
03:43Want to go, bats?
03:54As money allows, they're making repairs and improvements.
03:58We've probably replaced anywhere up to 300 joiners or water leaks since we've been here.
04:08It's just an old system put in in the early days when they probably first started using
04:13alkothene.
04:14So it's all 20 mil and 15 mil.
04:16So we're sort of wanting to upgrade that soon.
04:18I'd say it's probably there, because there's a big hole underneath it.
04:23So I'd say it's been shooting down and wearing it out.
04:26Yeah, so we just need a 15 mil joiner to put in there, and then it'll be fixed, yeah.
04:35They're upgrading fences and the stock water system.
04:40We've brought the water pipe in some more new troughs,
04:43and we've got about 12 k's of 30 and 40 mil pipe to rip in.
04:48It won't take too long.
04:50Probably anywhere up to a week, we could probably get troughs put in
04:54and gravel around the troughs and water on.
04:58To bring in additional income, Lou works full-time,
05:01and they run an earth-moving business.
05:04They make farm tracks, horse arenas, and are currently working on a vineyard
05:08just north of Cheviot.
05:11It's been quite an exciting sort of job for us to be able to work and do.
05:15It's the first vineyard I can say I've ever been a part of developing.
05:20Ironically, it's land that used to belong to Lou's grandfather.
05:25What we're doing here is building 2.2 kilometres of roading for the vineyard.
05:31Obviously harvesters and tractors and bits and pieces to be able to get around.
05:35We're also doing the deep ripping and just a bit of drainage work as well.
05:44The deep ripping loosens the clay pan so when the new vines are planted,
05:49they can get their roots down through the clay pan.
05:52The business brings in vital off-farm income.
05:57Well, the earth-moving has sort of slotted in quite nicely with the farm for us.
06:04Being a secondary income, farming is pretty volatile, especially sheep and beef,
06:10and we have had some pretty tough years, one of them being last year.
06:15We're able to use some of the income from the earth-moving 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 support has been crucial.
06:28Being a small company with only two of us, I've been really 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.
06:47His brother John is helping on this job.
06:50I've just come up here and helped him out, drive the graders.
06:53Yeah, he's done a good job.
06:54He's had a lot of learning curves in that.
06:56I feel that he's priced jobs and then realised that it costs a lot more,
07:00and especially through the last few years with inflation and the cost of everything's going up with fuel.
07:05You can price a job and the fuel prices go through the roof a few weeks later and you're still going to do the same job.
07:10How are you doing Brett?
07:24How are you with me?
07:25You well?
07:26Good to see you. Yeah, yeah.
07:27Good.
07:28Wet day?
07:29Yeah, yeah.
07:30We're getting through it though.
07:31Vineyard 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.
07:42Existing vineyard is 79 hectares and this development that Brett's helping us with is an extra 35.
07:49So yeah, quite a big increase for us.
07:52This site is a difficult one because we're on rolling hills and it's been slippery.
07:57It's been quite wet over winter, so deep rip at first with Brett and then we've got to cultivate it, get the roads in.
08:02So soon we'll be planting, putting the intermediate posts in, string up the wires.
08:06There's a lot involved, yeah.
08:08Getting the contracting business up and running hasn't been easy.
08:14It was pretty difficult for a start.
08:17Lou's family has been in Cheviot for generations, but for myself being sort of the new kid on the block it was pretty hard.
08:25Farmers are relatively loyal to their contractors that they've used in the past, so we were just so lucky to have people that were sort of around us that used us and it's slowly expanding through Cheviot as we grow and people hear about us.
08:37Hopefully that carries on.
08:41Earth moving isn't their only new initiative.
08:44They've made tailing day a social event.
08:56It's a big day for Lou and Brett Armour on their farm near Cheviot in North Canterbury.
09:03Tailing day, where do you even start?
09:06When we first started farming we got the price to get a tailing contractor in and we thought, you know what, we could do this a lot cheaper.
09:13So we decided to make a Facebook page and we asked all our friends and family to come and help and in return we would provide free food and free alcohol.
09:21And I think the first year we maybe had about 10 to 15 people turn up and then every year it's just grown to about 60 odd people.
09:32This year bad weather meant tailing over two days.
09:35It's not looking too bad. The weather was going to be a lot worse. So hopefully we can get up there soon and get on with it, get it done and avoid the rain.
09:45It started off as just a small thing when Lou's grandfather was still alive before we actually brought Stratholme.
10:05So it was actually just a group of my mates for a start, really close mates and, you know, just grew from there.
10:14There's all sort of walks of life here. So we've got, you know, lawyers, bankers, builders, some farmers as well.
10:22We're just drafting the lambs off the ewes and then the ewes are going through the dip to be dipped.
10:33Bit of a shame it's just a wee bit damp but we can't know much about mother nature, especially when we've already organised it and we're into it.
10:42Among the helpers is Lou's cousin Matt McClintock. He's been coming here since he was a kid.
10:47I do a lot of hunting up here and a lot of just helping out on the farm with Brett and Lou and help where I can.
10:54And I think it's great that it's going to stay in the family.
10:57And, you know, it gives me the opportunity to be able to come back up here and keep enjoying the place for the future.
11:08Are these your eggs? Yes.
11:10We're getting about 30 eggs a day at the moment.
11:12Oh gosh. We're eating a lot of the eggs.
11:15Down below there's plenty of action in the kitchen as well.
11:19Cooking for the amount of people that we do is not a strong point for me, unfortunately.
11:24There's a lot to it and we're really lucky that we've got so many people that come and help.
11:29How are you not? I'm going to send them over to you to cut.
11:32We've got Nanny who does all her special baking.
11:34Jeanette pulls through with about 110 sausage rolls and then Rach and Trish who step up.
11:42These ladies all have a great passion for cooking and that's not a passion of mine.
11:47So we just power through it.
11:50It's, you know, sandwich stations and sausage rolls and everyone seems to love it.
11:54It is a big day of food for someone who doesn't like cooking.
12:01Come on Lou, hurry up.
12:04Also helping is Lou's dad Jeff.
12:07He backs the farm ownership plan.
12:10I'll stack some of that flat stuff under the back seat.
12:13It was a bit of a surprise but not a surprise if you know what I mean.
12:17Lou and dad have had a pretty close relationship.
12:22Ten years ago they were working here doing their farming thing.
12:27Whatever Lou does in life I'll prepare to support her and help her out.
12:33And here we are still here. Ten years later.
12:35We're going up the hill to tailing to help Dad.
12:38After 30 years flying in places like Antarctica and Papua New Guinea, Jeff now works for a local helicopter company which donates the choppers for the day.
13:00Oh, it's hot, rain, raining.
13:02This is good.
13:03No.
13:05Oh, I looked at the weather forecast.
13:07Oh, it's okay.
13:08It's a lot better than forecasting.
13:10Oh, that's good.
13:15It's financially quite expensive to hire a tailing gang.
13:20And so Lou came up with an idea.
13:22Dad, you bring the helicopter and we'll have a party at the end of it and see what we can do.
13:27And maybe have a tailing that's apart from being free, it's fun.
13:32And so a bit of farming, a bit of flying, a bit of partying and yeah, it all ends up quite a good scenario really.
13:38Yeah.
13:41So this is how we do things around here.
13:43A little bit different.
13:44Set it up on the back of the truck.
13:46It's a bit of a free for all.
13:48Smogo's ready.
13:49It's pretty exciting today to have all our friends and family.
13:55It's been a great turnout.
13:57You ain't on a diet now?
13:59I'm not.
14:00It's pretty cool.
14:01Lots of banter, lots of food.
14:03I guess the real fun's tonight.
14:05But to have Dad and Nige here with the helicopters, being able to ferry everyone in due to the tracks being so wet.
14:10We're super fortunate.
14:12Tea?
14:13Cheers.
14:14You've got a good turnout for the day.
14:15Yeah, yeah.
14:16We have, yeah.
14:17We always do really.
14:18Great.
14:19You want tea?
14:20Oh yeah, thank you very much.
14:21Tea or coffee?
14:22Oh, tea, please.
14:23There you go.
14:24Oh, you're fine too.
14:26The ewes and lambs are doing well.
14:28This was the first year that we wintered our ewes on kale and gave our big hill blocks a break.
14:35So yeah, that's worked out for us.
14:37We've had a good survival rate, and that's just obviously due to the weather.
14:42Yeah, I'm pretty happy.
14:46It's so special.
14:48They all drop everything this weekend to be able to come and give us a hand,
14:52and I think, you know, to have friends and family like that just shows how special these guys really are.
14:58You know, they turn up every year.
15:00Sunshine, rain, hail.
15:02You know, they're always committed.
15:04And I think it's because it's something that we need help with, and they all turn up to help.
15:09You know, and if you can get friends like that, I think you're winning at life.
15:22On the count of three, it's on my count of three.
15:34One, two, three.
15:37With the work done, it's time for a feed and a chance to relax.
15:42It's going to be a big night here in Cheviot for us.
15:45Everyone's starting to dress up, turn up for the next round, and have a good night.
15:52We put it on just to thank everyone for bloody coming up and helping us.
15:57It's been a big two days this year.
15:59Yeah, we're pretty lucky to have everyone turn up.
16:01It's nice that we can all come together as a group and enjoy the night.
16:06Sometimes we don't see our friends and family for, gosh, probably this time next year.
16:10Yeah, yeah.
16:15We'll do it all over again, yeah.
16:16We'll have a different thing and an even bigger party, hopefully.
16:19Although tailing's done for another year, there's still plenty to keep them busy.
16:25On Lou and Brett Armour's farm near Cheviot, they're always looking at ways to boost their income.
16:31This is Steve or Eve. She is a nine-year-old and she's got plenty of life left in her yet.
16:38You'll see, she likes to get going on the hill and I guess that's what we'll go and do.
16:40Right, right, are we going?
16:41Yep, we're ready.
16:42Let's go.
16:43Let's go.
16:44The horses have been such a big part of my life ever since we were little, probably riding
16:45from about the age of two.
16:46So it's pretty special to have grown up with them and have that ability to must.
16:47Let's go.
16:48Let's go.
16:49Let's go.
16:50Let's go.
16:51And then we'll go.
16:52Let's go.
16:53Let's go.
16:54Let's go.
16:55Let's go.
16:56Let's go.
16:57Let's go.
16:58Let's go.
16:59Let's go.
17:00Let's go.
17:01Let's go.
17:02Let's go.
17:03Let's go.
17:04Let's go.
17:05Let's go.
17:06Let's go.
17:07Let's go.
17:08Let's go.
17:09The horses have been such a big part of my life ever since we were little, probably
17:10riding from about the age of two.
17:11So it's pretty special to, you know, have grown up with them and have that ability to
17:16muster and show jump.
17:19Horse trekking will bring in some much needed money to help pay off the farm.
17:25We're going to be running horse treks with groups coming over the next couple of weeks.
17:31One got up to 100 people over one weekend.
17:34And essentially they ride out at their own time and come back in at their own time.
17:38We open the gates and then shut them at five.
17:41Now I reckon we need to cut you here this weekend.
17:44No, surely not.
17:46With that income then we can upgrade more things essentially on the farm.
17:50So instead of tapping out a nail we can go buy a box of brand new ones.
17:55I guess our future plans for this would be able to offer it to hikers, walkers,
18:00and, you know, bikers.
18:02It gets people around our beautiful farm.
18:05You know, you get amazing views of the Wai River.
18:07You can see the cattle and the sheep and you get to enjoy being in the outdoors on our farm.
18:15You can see them.
18:16You can see them.
18:17You can see them.
18:18Come on.
18:19Come on.
18:20Come on.
18:21Say, Maisie.
18:22Come on.
18:23Come on.
18:24Come on.
18:25Come on.
18:26Come on.
18:27Come on.
18:28Come on.
18:29Come on.
18:30The daffodils were planted by Granny and Grandad.
18:33Granny had a big passion for gardening, especially tulips, daffodils.
18:38So they spent hours in here.
18:40That's it.
18:41Bring your ploughs.
18:43We open it up to the public and we do a gold coin donation to go to the Cancer Society.
18:50And I think last year we raised about $360.
18:54So it's pretty cool that we can give back to a charity based on what Grandad and Granny started.
19:00Jack.
19:01Here.
19:02I've got more.
19:03Jack.
19:04We will take these and go pop them on Granny and Grandad's grave.
19:08We do it every year so that she gets to keep seeing them.
19:12And Grandad thoroughly enjoyed them as well.
19:15So a very special thing for both of them.
19:17Righto, Jack.
19:18You want to put your flower on Grandad's grave?
19:21Lou's Grandad is never far from her thoughts.
19:25That's your great Grandad, actually.
19:27He would probably be a little bit hesitant about the improvements.
19:30He loved old nails and buggered gates and string.
19:35String was definitely his favourite thing.
19:38I'm pretty sure we actually buried him with some.
19:42He was in the generation where you had to save, you know,
19:46and you had to reuse old bent nails and tap them out straight again.
19:50You give Grandad the Mummy the flowers.
19:52Give Mummy the flowers.
19:53There we are.
19:54Good boy.
19:55I'd like to think if he could see it now,
19:58he would have a smile on his face, you know,
20:00and see how beautiful it is.
20:02Yeah, was it one for putting up a new fence and things like that,
20:06just repair the old one?
20:08Perfect, darling.
20:10Good.
20:11Oh, look, he's really...
20:12Geoff knows farm ownership is a big ask.
20:15When it's time to pay back the estate, they'll need a mortgage.
20:18That means the farm and business have to be profitable.
20:23Definitely up for the challenge.
20:25Brett is an extremely good worker.
20:28Lou is extremely determined.
20:31It's a challenge.
20:33Definitely a challenge.
20:35It's not going to be an easy one, but the moral of the story is if you're prepared to put the work in and do the long hours, you'll get there.
20:50In the meantime, Louisa and Brett are knuckling down and hoping the hard work pays off.
21:02I think farming and getting into farms are so hard to do these days.
21:08And obviously we've been extremely lucky to be given the opportunity.
21:13Right, you do the scoops.
21:15I'd like to just see Stratholme stay in the family, whether it's our kids or wider family.
21:23It's going to be a challenge having young children and living full-time work,
21:28but I don't think it's out of reach.
21:31I think it's definitely possible, and having both myself and Lou's family around us,
21:37I'm sure we can make it work and get to the end goal.
21:40There's probably been the odd day.
21:43You know, we've thought, why are we doing this?
21:46But, you know, you just have to look at your kids and the lifestyle it brings us to know that,
21:51you know, this is where we want to be and this is why we're here.
21:55Good to see some rain.
21:57Yeah.
22:07Country Calendar was brought to you by Hyundai. Future positive.
22:13Country calendar was brought to you by Hyundai, future positive.
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