A Week in the Life of Dannevirke

Well we finally arrived in Dannevirke on the Friday night with lots of unpacking to arrange and so little time to get organised before I started as a 2IC on the farm. It was a busy time for all trying to get the right boxes in the right places and making the house as comfortable as possible. By late Sunday it was finally looking like a home for us all to live in and we could start getting back to some sort of normality. The children enjoyed a trip to their new School to acquaint themselves with their surroundings and new friends.
My first week on the farm was a real eye opener to how hard farmers actually work and what varied work you have to do for a full week. Many aspects to farming that I actually didn't really know about, this week has taught to give them a respect in many ways. My working day involved ear tagging, feeding out, measuring pasture, fencing, marking out pasture breaks, mixing feed by the tonne, and moving cattle to various positions throughout the week.

So by the end of the first week my whole body ached and could not tell which part hurt the most from using most parts physically for 5 days non stop from 7am through to 5pm, most days there was severe gale force winds, snow blizzards, to horizontal rain. It couldn't of been a more varied week for weather patterns but taught a lot in a very short space of time.

This is going to be a long year for me in a new part of New Zealand where its not for the faint hearted to get into a career change at my age of life, but its what we as a family have decided to do together, it just means I have to put in the hard yards if we are going to be a success on the Farm.

Keep you all posted with my next chapter soon.