Frost and sunshine

Frosty morning

Another Mackenzie adventure!

Well, it seems a bit like the whole year is a Mackenzie adventure. Unfortunately I can’t spend it all in the Mackenzie area, but I’m doing my best and absorbing as much as I can while I’m there. So last week was another one out in the wonderful countryside, starting at the Mackenzie show in Fairlie.

Which as far as shows go was brilliant! I just wish the weather had been less rubbish. But i slogged around in the mud for an afternoon meeting all sorts of interesting animals. Too much rain to get the video camera out though.

Fairground sheep

From then the weather only got better. And a glorious day spent in the Pukaki headwaters stalking black stilts resulted in duck, goose, rabbit, heron and cat spotting – but no stilts.

Still, there’s time. And I’m certainly complaining about an afternoon in the sun and wilderness. Other missions included frost stalking in early mornings and frost wrangling in the dark of night (it turns out it’s pretty hard to film anything when the camera lens has frosted over), interviewing the mayor of the Mackenzie (a friendly and articulate woman, for those who haven’t met her) and bunny stalking with new gadgets to try out.

One revelation I was sad to discover is that there are still stock grazing in the rivers!

I thought that keeping stock out of waterways was the first step in environmental care? And while one of my farms has an excellent system for keeping stock out of the river, and in fact all waterways on the property – it’s clear that not all management strategies are taking this into account.

And as far as i can see it’s not even dairy farms that have these problems. It seems a hard ask to get rid of or restrict dairy farms on the basis of environmental effects when there are ‘dryland’ farms making these basic faux pars!

It just re-enforces the idea that environmental issues are primarily with individual management strategies rather than farming styles (Issues of landscape values being another story altogether).

So all in all a successful mission, all kinds of adventuring and learning along the way. Next mission – sort all the footage from the trip (the less fun part).

See you out there soon….