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00:05Proudly celebrating 60 years of rural New Zealand.
00:10Hyundai Country Calendar.
00:16There's a lot happening. Some would say controlled mayhem.
00:20We've definitely bitten off more than we can chew here, but we absolutely love it.
00:25They can get pretty big too, these guys.
00:27It started with the lifestyle block sharing. It's massive now.
00:31We've got 300 to 400 on the books.
00:34The end game is to have a farm of our own, whether it's this one or another one.
00:53We basically use a drone just to make sure it's worthwhile walking over there.
00:56It's self-taught. Some would say a bit of an amateur.
01:00But that's all right. I haven't crashed it yet.
01:05Richmond Wells manages this 160 hectare hill country farm on the Kapiti coast north of Wellington.
01:14I sort of met the owner by accident, really.
01:16He had sort of just taken the place on and said,
01:19What's your opinion on what we should do with the place?
01:21And I said, oh, it needs a lot of fencing.
01:23It probably needs to be farmed.
01:24Otherwise, it's just going to go to waste and ruin, really.
01:27So we kept in contact and sort of come up with a decision that we'll start trying to farm it
01:31again, make something of it.
01:37It hadn't been farmed for about seven or eight years.
01:40It was just a hell of a mess.
01:42All the fences needed love.
01:44The whole place looked like a bit of a hay paddock, really.
01:47First day we were here, I drove my ute into a set of discs or something. Couldn't see them.
01:51Jack, get in.
01:54We sprayed 60 hectares of gorse.
01:56It was all, you know, between six and ten foot high standing.
02:00We brought a helicopter in to do it.
02:02There was no other way, really.
02:03It's too steep and inaccessible.
02:10It's quite hard mustering, so you just get them in when you can or when you need to.
02:15You can't leave the track too much.
02:17You've got to be pretty handy on a bike.
02:18Try and keep it on foot.
02:20Slow it down a bit.
02:21Helps the dogs.
02:22They get pretty tired running around.
02:25They definitely earn their keep around here.
02:34Richmond's partner, Brooke O'Connell, is new to farming.
02:40I'm a previous dive instructor.
02:41I grew up on the water and we've sort of met and swapped our skills.
02:46So I've taught Richmond how to dive and drive a boat
02:48and he's taught me how to drive a quad and muster a farm.
02:53I pretty much just come on for the ride and do the gates
02:56and just do anything I'm told to do because I'm just picking it up as I go.
03:01I know a lot more than I did yesterday and I know a lot more than I did last year.
03:08Time on the farm has to be fitted around Richmond and Brooke's day jobs.
03:14We probably put a lot more time into the farm than we should.
03:17We spend probably four nights a week up here and then every weekend,
03:22Saturday, Sunday, we're up here pretty much all day.
03:23And if anyone else we can rope in to help, we'll bring them up here.
03:27Jack! Jack, come here! Jack, get out of it!
03:29It's pretty daunting doing this whole thing, but we wouldn't be anywhere else.
03:34And Richmond always says, bite off more than you can chew and chew like crazy.
03:43It's a chance for Richmond to get a closer look at their stock.
03:48These ones came down from Taranaki, somewhere out the back of Stratford ways.
03:52Some pretty gnarly hills by the sound, so it was good we wanted something
03:57that had come from a place that somewhat matches this.
04:02They've got to work pretty hard for a feed.
04:04There's a lot of grass around, but they've got to go for a hike to go and get it.
04:06Up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up! Come on!
04:10They look like they're in pretty good nick, a bit of weight on them.
04:16They've left any behind. How good!
04:20There's only really a handful of big hill country type blocks around.
04:25They're not massive places, they're usually managed by one or two people
04:28and they're quite often just the families that have had it for years and years.
04:32I think there's only a couple of younger people around
04:34that are trying to make something of it.
04:36But it's mostly dairy and lifestyle blocks now.
04:45Next morning, Richmond has a big job ahead of him.
04:50Maybe four or five times a year we'll get into a shed for full days.
04:53Usually ends up being two days or a day and a half.
04:58I sort of taught myself how to shear really.
05:00Hamish, my grandfather, gave us a few tips and watching a few videos.
05:04And then over the last few years I've had a few sharers that I've been with
05:07sort of give me some pointers in that.
05:09It's a pretty unorthodox technique, most would say.
05:14It's going alright. They're a little bit sticky, jumpy.
05:17Perindales are usually pretty kicky, feisty things.
05:21So obviously all the gorse off the farm that's been sprayed,
05:24they love making their way through it and end up pretty gorsy on the back.
05:27So the shearing genes cop it quite a bit and the legs cop it.
05:30I'll be pulling a few thistles out tonight.
05:34It doesn't make the wool great, but it's also not worth a whole lot just at the moment.
05:38So I don't mind too much.
05:39It makes it a little bit harder shearing, but it's for the greater good really.
05:45Jason, it's even already bellied for you.
05:47Yeah, I know. I saw that.
05:51These years and years shearing look like riding a bike,
05:53so you've got to dust off the cobwebs and keep them going.
05:59It comes back like a bad dream.
06:02Just get stuck into it and do it.
06:04The stories you hear about him and his father when he was growing up
06:07in his earlier days in the 20s and that,
06:09ever since talking to him about it, I've sort of just developed a bit of a passion
06:12for wanting to get amongst it really.
06:16He's inspiring. He's a hard worker.
06:17He doesn't stop.
06:19You know, we never have a day off.
06:20You can't really go around there on a Saturday or a Sunday and expect to be chilled out.
06:23He's always doing some work on chainsaws or splitting wood,
06:27driving his tractor around.
06:28He's a busy man.
06:33Oh, well, this is one less that I have to do.
06:34Yeah, that's right.
06:37I'll appreciate it at the end of the day.
06:40He had a chance to be an engineer like me and he went down the farming route.
06:45Farming's like, it's a bloody hard game.
06:47There's no question about it.
06:48And the fact that they're doing good at what they're doing is really encouraging.
06:53Well, I'll put it this way.
06:54The sheep around here aren't great shearing and he does a pretty good job.
07:01I got thrown in the deep end.
07:03I went along to watch Richmond Shearing and walked into this three-stand shed and they were like,
07:09here's a broom.
07:10I was like, oh, no, no, I'm fine, thanks.
07:11And they were like, here's a broom.
07:13And that's how I learned.
07:15She's a bit of a natural, eh?
07:17She's all over it.
07:20I love it.
07:21I'm a very, like, clean person.
07:23So I love getting every little bit of wool and just learning to work with Richmond and around him, learning
07:28his styles and stuff.
07:33We've got Charlie, one of our staff on the fencing crew.
07:36He's jumping on the press with my brother-in-law, Jordan, today.
07:39They had a bit of a crash course this morning.
07:44Hot work's stomping, isn't it?
07:47Give me a break and let me do some sharing.
07:51Beetroot relish here, guys.
07:52Hope everyone got some of that.
07:54Did you make...?
07:55Jenna made it. It's real nice.
07:58I think family is everything to us.
08:00And our friends, we class them as family.
08:02Our staff are family to us.
08:04Everyone is so good to us.
08:06And we just really appreciate that.
08:11And we just really appreciate that.
08:21The Carpetty Coast north of Wellington is home to hundreds of small blocks
08:26whose owners live here for the beaches and the lifestyle.
08:32Richmond Wells and Brooke O'Connell live near Ōtaki
08:35and run a business called Rural Works that helps out the lifestylers.
08:41We're getting ready for a bit of lifestyle blocks here this morning.
08:44We've got a couple of local clients that we're going to.
08:49They're all sort of within 10 minutes today, which is good.
08:51Sometimes they're an hour away.
08:58Rural Works started from the lifestyle blocks sharing.
09:01I was doing my grandfather's sheep on the side of the road one day
09:04and someone pulled up and sort of said,
09:06Oh, there's not really many people around doing this.
09:08Can you do mine?
09:10Ended up doing his ones.
09:11Did his neighbours.
09:12A couple of houses down the road.
09:16Look all right, Mick.
09:17Shall we just share the ewes?
09:19Yep.
09:19And then the lambs will look pretty clean.
09:22When demand spiralled, Brooke got involved.
09:24And the business has kept growing.
09:27Right.
09:28Who's first?
09:29His phone will be ringing sort of 10 o'clock at night
09:32on a Saturday, 5.30 in the morning on a Wednesday,
09:34just really like non-stop.
09:36And he's trying to do his other job during the day.
09:38So I had to step in and just say,
09:40Hey, how about you hand your baby over to me
09:42and I'll start doing what I'm good at and do the admin side of it.
09:47This property was one of the first on the Rural Works books.
09:52I remember the first time I turned up here
09:53and sharing them it was like,
09:54Oh, okay. Yeah, sweet.
09:55These are quite nice.
09:57You don't get many like this.
09:59These are jobs you enjoy.
10:02You can see these are crutched.
10:03They get drenched often.
10:04They're dipped as well.
10:08It's a lot more tiring than a shed.
10:10A few work cut out for you.
10:11You kind of have to commit to grabbing one,
10:14wrestling it for a bit and then, yeah, get it shorn.
10:17It's not golden sheds material, but gets it done anyway.
10:25They got massive full bellies on them.
10:28So 90% of the time people don't have the means to get them into a pen overnight
10:33and keep them dry and you share them with a full belly.
10:37They fight a bit more, but you try to be nice about it.
10:40Keep them comfortable.
10:42People have their coffee in the morning,
10:43look out the kitchen window at these walking around the paddock.
10:46So we want to be doing a nice job for them.
10:49Brooke's pretty good at customer relations.
10:52She usually does most of the talking while I share the sheep.
10:56What do you guys usually do with the wool?
10:58Oh, it's all mulching usually.
10:59It's good for mulching.
11:00Works great on the garlic.
11:03Little kids are around quite a lot to me.
11:06For a lot of people this is the only time
11:07that something happens on their property that's, you know, farming.
11:11So, yeah, people get quite excited about it.
11:25At the next property, Richmond needs help to get the sheep in.
11:31Yeah, left, head, left.
11:34Real work's hardest working employee right there.
11:38Everyone's pretty much got sheep for lawn mowers or they have pets
11:41and the likes of this place that we came here.
11:43And they've got sheep in the paddock and no sort of yard to catch them.
11:46So we built these yards here that we've used to shear the sheep.
11:54Pretty rarely you're shearing the same type of sheep for the day
11:57or same length of wool.
12:00With the pet sheep, they're hard going to shear
12:02because they're not scared of you.
12:03You sort of flip them over and they start wondering
12:05why the hell you're doing it.
12:06Always makes it a bit of fun.
12:16This thing's a bit of a arapawa cross.
12:19There's a lot more of these getting around.
12:21They're a bit harder going.
12:23Real sticky and woolly and they like to wriggle around on you.
12:27Most commonly they're straight black.
12:29The wool goes brown in the sun.
12:31But crossing them up you end up with spotty things
12:34and different colours and all sorts going on.
12:37Not quite my flavour but each to their own.
12:40I like the standard white easy shearing sheep.
12:45The gear we use is all battery.
12:47It's fully portable, chargeable.
12:49We have sets of batteries.
12:51We can pretty much do a 10 or 12 hour day
12:53and not have to charge all the batteries.
12:56I started off with a $50 dagging plant that I bought off Marketplace
13:00and a handpiece that wouldn't stay clipped in
13:01and I had to duct tape it up every time I wanted to use it.
13:04So the progression of the gear that we're using now is unreal.
13:10You sort of find yourself almost turning into a little bit of a vet
13:12when you're doing this as well.
13:14This is quite often for most people the only time the sheep actually get handled or looked at.
13:18So you sort of have a look over and just let the clients know
13:21if they've actually got any problems that they need to address
13:24and have a look at and get a vet out or something like that.
13:34Come on. Good girl.
13:37Richmond's last job for today is getting the wool off these valet sheep.
13:42Come on. Good to see you.
13:45How are you? Good?
13:46Yeah, not too bad. Happy New Year.
13:48Yeah, you too.
13:49Hi, Tanya.
13:50How are you?
13:51Come on, let's go see these sheep.
13:53They're popular for their looks, but a challenge to shear.
13:57Oh my gosh, I love these.
14:00You can't have one.
14:01I cannot wait till I get these.
14:02No, no, no.
14:04The less sheep, the better.
14:09They're a lot different shape to a normal sheep underneath all the wool.
14:13Skin's a lot thinner, a lot looser.
14:17You don't want to be too keen to rifle off a piece of wool
14:20because it's going to take a lot else with it.
14:29They can get pretty big too, these guys.
14:32It's got to be close to 120 kilos.
14:35A big unit.
14:36They are woolly from their nose to the end of their hoof.
14:40Rural Works has around 400 lifestyle blocks on its books
14:44and is doing a range of different jobs for them.
14:47Oh, you're a good boy. You look like a goat.
14:49You are.
14:50Good boy.
14:50You're a legend.
14:51We'll do a shearing job for someone and I'll say,
14:53oh, you know, do you do anything else?
14:54We've done horse shelters, chicken sheds, the fences as well, decks.
15:00It's sort of one thing always ends up leading to another.
15:03We'll have a go at anything.
15:04We'll make something happen.
15:06What's this little guy worth you reckon, Tania?
15:08I think you get about anywhere between 1 and 3k for a ram lamb.
15:12I've seen some of the ewes at the sales go between 5 and 10k.
15:16Yeah.
15:17The purebred ones.
15:19And big money's also going into a roading project
15:22that's delivering plenty of work to Richmond's team.
15:26Mint.
15:28It's the new one too.
15:33Kapiti Coast Company Rural Works started out doing jobs on lifestyle blocks.
15:39But owner Richmond Wells has recently taken on a new challenge.
15:45It's a stretch of road, Otake to north of Levin.
15:49So it's a new expressway that's going in.
15:53We're basically fencing off the designation boundaries
15:55for the new highway that's here.
15:58So basically we just get contracted to put in fence lines
16:00to make way for earthworks and keep stock of neighbouring properties
16:03from crossing over into the boundaries.
16:06Yeah, loosen it off first.
16:09It's big work.
16:11It's new gear.
16:13The first fence line we came to as a part of this
16:15was longer than any fence line we'd done before.
16:18We went through about 50,000 baton staples alone
16:22in the last six months.
16:24It's a lot of rinse and repeat in the ways of putting fences up
16:27and doing assemblies.
16:29It's great for the boys.
16:30They sharpen up really quickly on what we're doing.
16:34Put it in the ground too well.
16:37First up today they're moving a strainer post.
16:42The access way's changed here so they're looking at bringing machinery through.
16:46Originally when we put the fence line in no one really knew that was part of the plan.
16:49So these things happen, we come back, add an extra gate, make it a double gate
16:53so that any machinery around the project can come through this way.
16:57Charlie and Logan, they're grafters.
17:00They work bloody hard.
17:01I couldn't do all this without them.
17:03That's sort of the backbone of what we do.
17:05They make it happen, they turn up.
17:07Rain, hail, shine.
17:08They don't complain.
17:10Expansion wise we've been able to bring on another staff member
17:12since we started with this project.
17:14So there's room for growth and for everyone in the community as well.
17:18I mean there's multiple contractors in this
17:20and I know that all of them are growing with it too.
17:25And when they're not working on the expressway job,
17:27there's still plenty of fencing for the Rural Works team.
17:33Today Richmond, Charlie and Logan are on the 160 hectare hill country blocks
17:38at Richmond's Farming.
17:41He and the owner have come up with a plan to restore the property,
17:45including its fences.
17:48They've been done well, the old guys that have built them back in the day.
17:52You give them credit, it's all concrete posts, it's all pretty hard going.
17:55But yeah, they were pretty shot.
17:56We're sort of going through every single one of them and reshaping them,
17:59re-battening, just giving them the love they need.
18:04We want to come here and get into it for about a week at least.
18:07We want to bring all of our gear here.
18:08We're using almost every part of equipment that we've got.
18:13We've had a couple of hairy moments with the tractor on this place.
18:16You've sort of just got to be confident in yourself,
18:19know what your limits are before you get to them.
18:21Otherwise things can go wrong pretty quickly.
18:23But we sort of like to think we're not cowboys.
18:26We will get to the limits, but we don't want to push them too far.
18:29Otherwise it's just not worth it.
18:32Physically it's pretty challenging.
18:34We've offered the boys a gym membership as part of their works,
18:37and they said, oh no, we don't need it.
18:41There's no two fences, they're the same really.
18:43Everything's different.
18:44You're always on a different piece of land.
18:45You're always working over different ground.
18:47There's always problems.
18:49Keeps it exciting.
18:53Meanwhile, Richmond's partner, Brooke O'Connell,
18:56has been given a job to do.
18:58The first time Richmond told me to go and check stock,
19:01I was like, and do what?
19:03Like what am I going to do if something goes wrong?
19:05But I think the more that he's made me do it,
19:07the more I've just sort of picked up what I'm looking for.
19:10And if something is going wrong,
19:11I can either try and sort out myself or I'll just call him.
19:15But yeah, pretty confident with all the sheep now,
19:17learning with the cows.
19:20One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
19:25Should be one more.
19:27This is a really nice area of the farm.
19:29We used to lease it out to someone else.
19:32Now we've got the cattle,
19:33we thought that it's probably better off
19:34that we would actually do it ourselves.
19:36And they're sharing it with the sheep at the moment.
19:38But yeah, there's lots of them to eat in here.
19:40I think they're quite happy.
19:45And up the top, the new fence is taking shape.
19:49Might want to start at that other end,
19:50because you'll need to tie on those lines.
19:54There's a good technique to it.
19:56Sort of the first bend to get the wire really hot,
19:58and then it just snaps.
19:59But it took me a long time to work it out.
20:01I used to try and cut them off as close as I could
20:03with a pair of wire cutters, and it always looked horrible.
20:07You learn a lot from fences you take apart as well,
20:10seeing how they were put together,
20:11and the ones that are hard to take down
20:13are the ones you want to build like.
20:15It's tight.
20:18Yeah, happy days.
20:22Find it!
20:27Good boy, Cheat!
20:31That's so funny!
20:33The end game is to have a farm of our own,
20:35whether it's this one or another one eventually.
20:38It always counts putting the work into a place like this.
20:40You want to look after it like it's your own
20:42and treat it well.
20:43It'll treat you well.
20:46Some people would say it's pretty chaotic.
20:48Some would say controlled mayhem.
20:50But it's good.
20:52I don't know what we would do if we didn't have so much to do,
20:55but we just love being busy.
20:57I think it's just our personality and our relationship.
21:00It's quite cool to be able to be so young
21:02and running a successful business
21:04is something that you actually enjoy doing.
21:09Through everything that's happened financially
21:11in the world climate and within New Zealand,
21:13we've managed to stay afloat.
21:15We've sort of had moments where you feel the pinch
21:18like every other business,
21:19but we've managed to push through, put our heads down.
21:21You so clever!
21:23I think that if we're able to continue doing that
21:25and continue growing and be more involved in what we love,
21:28then you can't be much prouder than that.
21:42Each summer, dogfish make a spawning run into the Hokianga.
21:47It's not a dangerous fish to handle.
21:49The dogfish has got more names than it has teeth.
21:52Gummy shark, rig, mongo, lemonfish,
21:56or as the scientists call it,
21:58Mastellus lenticulatus.
22:02To see the rest of this classic episode
22:05and more gems from the past 60 years,
22:08head to TVNZ+.
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