Study leave

I find myself in a delicious but strange time in my life.

I have paid study leave for a month.

Do you know what an absolute luxury that is?

I resigned from my role at Young Farmers

a few months ago.

I set the date as the end of June 

as the middle of months of the years are always super busy for NZYF

plus I didn't want to leave any projects with holes in them.

I resigned because after three and half years

of giving it my all 

I am exhausted and looking for a new challenge.

Boy do I have some cool stuff coming up.

I am blessed to have an extensive network 

in the ag sector and over the last few years

opportunity after opportunity 

to do some great projects has arisen 

but working full time for an equally dynamic and busy organization

means there is little time to all the cool stuff.

So I find myself sitting at my home computer

on a Monday morning,

still in my jamas, 

all cosy by the fire

(while my fulla is off fishing with some friends in the freezing cold)

but wondering what you do when you have lots of unstructured time.

Maybe I'll pull out my A3 paper and colour pens

and create a schedule.

George the pig

For some reason,

some insane reason

I thought having a kune kune pig

would be the coolest thing.

You can like, you can train them and take them for walks.

So when a friend of a friend

said she had one needing a home

I lept the chance.

Slap me, slap me now!

I know how cute is this little pig?

Ginger George he is.

See how not cute he is now.

See that pink cord to the left?

We got a harness, we already had the pink leash,

my fulla and I wrestled with this little pig

trying to get the harness on.

But pigs had an advantage over us.

There is a reason why squalling like a pig is a saying,

y'know?

George squalled like a pig and 

we backed off cause it was like we were killing him or something.

*sigh*

I was so looking forward to taking him for walks

and introducing him to the neighbours.

This is cute George from when he would sit in a box.

He isn't cute anymore.

He is just big and fat and lives down the back of our garage

protected from the elements, 

sheltered by a high fence and the trees at one end.

He is due to meet Pete the homekill butcher.  

Very soon little monster that he is.

I'll let you know what he tastes like.

Grand Final 2013 - getting there

It's Grand Final time again.

It was Grand Final time,

last week,

which seems about five minutes ago.

My fulla and I headed off on a sunny Friday morning

from Christchurch to Picton.

The weather was fine and we made good time.

We got to Blenheim (the town before the Picton harbour)

and discovered my work credit card wouldn't work.

No worries.

This was followed closely by a txt from the 

Interislander Ferry people 

letting us know that our ferry was delayed due to extreme weather.

Long story short.

Our 6:30pm sailing finally left at 10:30am the next morning.

We took a wander around Picton.

You sure can't mistake the toilets in Picton.

For some reason I posted on Facebook

that we were delayed and voila!

We got a phone call from lovely Claude to say 

come and stay with her family. 

Being polite and naive we really believed we would be sailing soon.

Gosh the ferry people said we would.

We had a 1:30am, 6:25am and finally a 10:30am sailing.

Our hosts thought we were a hoot.

They knew better.

They use the ferries all the time.

We set out early to make sure we were at the front of the car queue.

So that meant breakfast on the road.

Chicken sandwiches.

I love rotisserie chickens.

While waiting in line,

my fulla bumped into his mate from home.

They hadn't seen each other for about five years so 

a catch up was in order.

Culturally this requires sharing food.

Thank goodness for a handy dandy fruit loaf on hand.

We set out on peaceful seas.

Through the Marlborough Sounds and out into 

Cook Strait.

I now hate Cook Strait.

For goodness sake, I have traveling on these ferries

since I was a baby.

My Poppa would take me and Punky Pete across

in the highest of seas and let us run wild

while he propped up the bar and

yarned with his old railways mates.

This was the day I was introduced to sea sickness.

I puked.

I never puke.

My fulla took his sweet time to get a sick bag for me

but I held on,

then I puked and felt so much better.

we stayed with my super uncle for the night

then headed off to Auckland.

We got a flat tire on the very heavy trailer.

Thank goodness for my fulla cause

in  all seriousness I would have sat down and 

cried if I had been alone.

I couldn't even figure out how the jack worked.

And it was already dusk.

And I was super tired.

But my husband saved the day.

We hadn't even got near Auckland.

It was already a long week.

It's complex

Recently I attended a lecture on a subject of interest to me.  

The subject is not relevant here other than to say my attendance 

was relatively compulsory and ag related.

The presenter is a woman I have had limited 

but a reasonably negative experience of.

She knows her research that's for sure and 

to an extent I agree with her findings.

What I found interesting was the content of her introduction. 

The content of which she supplied.

As I listened to her lecture, I pondered her 'back story"

(I always think of a story tattooed across ones back)

and how there are things we choose to be known by.

Having spent a lot of time introducing others and myself to strangers,

I am hyper aware of how we present ourselves.

At a previous course, 

one of the course conveners 

told his story in the context of his career development.

As a youngster he loved spending time on local sheep farms.

Every waking moment that he could find was spent doing 

regular and seasonal farming related activities.

His plan was to be a sheep farmer.

However life has a different plan for him.

Just as his adult life started began he was in a bad car accident,

breaking his neck, arm and leg.

This, of course was a disaster for  a young man planning on taking on the 

extremely physical life of a sheep farmer.

The physicalness of farming is harsh even to the fittest and strongest of us all,

by all, I don't mean me.

This part of his back story is not what he is known for.

I imagine different people have different experiences of him.

To me he is an intellectual, thoughtful, considered academic whose passion

is developing rural leaders and creating a robust ag industry.

To others he will have been a teacher,

a workmate, a board member, a traveler and more. 

Back to the presenter.

So she was introduced as being famous for two reasons;

1. her research into the land tenure review of High Country;

2. she is the only survivor of the bus that was crushed in the Feb 2011 earthquake.

How utterly horrific to have been riding the bus, 

to stop at the lights,

to have the front of building fall on your vehicle.

To be trapped, 

to be crushed under bricks,

to be surrounded by dying passengers,

to be pulled, damaged and broken from the wreckage by passers by,

to find your leg crushed, 

to work so hard to be rehabilitated, 

to return to your disrupted and altered life, 

changed and learning your new normal.

What I was wondering was simply,

how do you want to be known?

Before the earthquakes, 

this woman was seen as a thorn in farmers sides,

an advocate and supporter of the environment,

passionate and vital.

Now how she is seen has changed.

Her every introduction is coloured by being earthquake survivor.

Does it detract from her research and interest?

Her recent history is whispered both with compassion and admiration,

but how does how people view her sit with her?

It's complex and evolving I'm sure.

I believe it's worth our while to examine how we want to be viewed.

What stories do we tell about ourselves?

What stories do others tell about us?

Are we a sum of a lifetime of wounds and scars?

Or are we a creation of ourselves?

First Nat Com of the year

Yep it rolls around thrice times a year and the dates seem to get closer and closer together.

Basically we get together the seven Young Farmers Regional Chairs and 

a few of the Vice-Chairs so that they can tell us, 

the National Organisation what’s going on out there in the nether regions of Nu Zild.

Plus we help them develop their understanding of what the National organisation is up to, 

have reporting from committees and 

throw in a high profile speaker and a smidge of leadership training – 

this is mostly done by osmosis.

This Nat Coms speaker was the Honourable Nathan Guy, Minister for Primary Industries and 

the general consensus was that Nathan is pretty damn cool and, 

thank goodness there is someone nearer our age and is calm, cool and collected.  

Plus he tweets his own tweets.

This Nat Com was really positive.  

Run by our Young Farmers Board members, 

Cam Lewis took the helm to guide us through the agenda effectively and efficiently.  

We try to make the agenda manageable so a bunch of farmers can sit for two days

in an enclosed environment.  

Though we do make sure there are windows. 

This Nat Com was held at Cam’s family asparagus farm near Levin.  

The farm was a great location, Levin, however was a cautious ok.  

May have been the train tracks that were about 10 meters from our motel rooms.

At the end of the day, Nat Com is the engine of New Zealand Young Farmers.  

The discussions that start in the meeting room continue 

as the friendships continue after the Nat Com guys go back to their home Regions.