Farming

Previous | Contents | Next Most of my memories seem to do with food, and I suppose this is hardly surprising in a growing twelve-year-old (strangely enough I didn’t actually grow until I started work — I seemed to thrive on it). Dad kept racing pigeons which had to be ... Read more

Previous | Contents | Next Hay-making is hard work, but more so in those days. The grass was cut with a horse mower. If it was turned to dry this was done by hand with a pitch-fork. It was then raked into windrows with a horse-drawn tumbler rake and swept ... Read more

Previous | Contents | Next I gradually made progress towards achieving my ambition. Dave arrived every day to do odd jobs and take the cream out to the corner for collection, about a mile away. The cream was transported in a light flat-topped cart to which Mary was harnessed. The ... Read more

Previous | Contents | Next The Hikurangi telephone exchange operated from 3.00am to 10.00pm. Only once during those first few weeks was I able to ring Jimmy Orr before he went home after night shift — and this before we had sat down to dinner. I could never be sure ... Read more

Previous | Contents | Next I said I’d keep myself out of Cliff’s stories, but I find this hard to read because of the treatment meted out to cows and dogs. It’s certainly not how they were treated on Dorothy and Cliff’s farm, but a good reminder that managing animals ... Read more

Previous | Contents | Next I’ve renamed Cliff’s first employers the Smiths because that’s the most common New Zealand surname. ~ IanAnyone who could get you a job during the Great Depression was doing you a big favour, and when Nellie found one for me I was properly grateful. Nellie, ... Read more