('COUNTRY CALENDAR' THEME) - The best of New Zealand's rural heartland. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024 - She's built a life around wool. - Come on! I've always loved wool. It's such a great fibre. - Coloured sheep are her passion, providing a lifestyle and an income. - I've sold to Japan, Europe, Canada and the UK. New Zealand wool has a great reputation. - (BAAS) (SHEEP BAA) (GENTLE MUSIC) - It's midwinter on Anne Grassham's lifestyle block near Wakefield, south of Nelson. - Here, girls! Your favourite. Come on. - With lambing just a couple of months away, it's time to take extra care of her coloured sheep. - I've just been feeding them tree lucerne, and they really like it because it's got a lot of nitrogen in it, and it's a legume, and it's very good for they ewes while they're late-stage pregnancy. - When Anne and her husband at the time bought the property in 1988, it needed a lot of work. - It was just bare land. There was just pasture. There was no buildings or no trees, no nothing. It's really changed over the last 35 years. It's really rewarding to look back and see what the transformation's been. - Whoa. Whoa! - It's shearing tomorrow, and because Anne doesn't have a wool shed or dogs, friends like Colin Gibbs are helping out. - That'll do, Pink. - We're just getting the sheep all together here, and then Colin will come down. Now, he's gonna do the droving. - That'll do, Pink. - He'll put his dogs around the sheep, and we'll get them organised and take them up the road to the shearing shed, which is actually at my neighbour's place. - Stay there, Ned! Stay there, Ned! (DOG BARKS) It's a kilometre and a half nearly. We're going to take the sheep up a public road. Stay there, Ned. The road is actually called Stock Rd, would you believe? So it is... (CHUCKLES) appropriately named. I really have got no problem with traffic that comes in meeting us. It's the ones behind you that want to get on a bit quicker than you want to get on. And one chap was quite happy to tick along behind, and so I thanked him very much for doing that. - It's been a pretty good trip up the road today. We haven't really had any trucks in the works trying to get by, and that can really send the sheep off into the paddock at the side of the road. - They're running better now that they` They took off like a rocket when they've first come out of the paddock and, uh, job to catch up. (DOG BARKS FAINTLY) - Anne grew up in Auckland, a city girl who worked as a geologist and studied volcanic rocks in the Antarctic. When she moved here, farming was new, and when goats didn't work out, she tried sheep. - There was an ad in the newspaper for half a dozen coloured sheep. So I went and looked at them, and they looked like sheep to me. So I bought them. (LAUGHS) And it turned out that they were English Leicester. You know, it suited me, suited what I was doing. Some of it was a bit coarse, so then I started breeding and finer and finer, but keeping the other English Leicester characteristics. And so that's what I've ended up with 35 years later. - The fleeces are sought after for handcrafts. - Here we've got an English Leicester style of wool that is long, it's quite lustrous, got a nice bit of curl to it, but it's much finer than a true English Leicester, and is therefore much more what my customers want, although it's also what I like as well. - It's a year since these sheep were last shorn. - Here's one. Get on, girl. There, one down. We need to separate her out. We shear the white ones first, just so we don't get any coloured fibres in the` in mixed up with the white fleeces. Here we go. It only takes one coloured fibre in a white fleece. If it goes through commercial processing, that one fibre can wreck a whole jumper because it shows up as a different colour. (RESTFUL MUSIC) - The next morning, it's all go. (MECHANICAL WHIRRING) - This is a big fleece, this one. I'm not skirting fleeces in the shed because I just don't have time to do the sort of standard and the sort of job that I want in the time that it takes the shearer to shear the sheep. So I'm just getting the fleece as closely as I can in one lot and putting it in the fadge, separating it off, and then I will go home and skirt it according to what I want for handcraft use in the fleece. Wendy is helping me because it's a fairly full-on job. (CHUCKLES) The tag has to go in so I know what fleece it is, and then I put the fleece in. Every sheep in my flock has a number, so we just record the numbers in the book here, and I put the number in on a sheet of paper underneath the fleece in the fadge, so it's all sort of stacked up. When I come to skirt them, I take the fleece out of the fadge, the numbers sitting there underneath it, and all that's recorded. Some of these are lovely. Yeah, I don't go for the white ones quite too much, so... (LAUGHS) The coloured ones, and especially the ones with the lustre and the length in them... Yeah, can get excited about them. I shear midwinter, and the reason for that is that there's a break in the wool right on about the shortest day, and it takes a couple of weeks for it to grow out on to the skin surface. So I want to coordinate shearing and taking that wool off right where the break is, so that then gives me a nice long staple without a break in it. That ties in exactly with what's really good for lambing, because lambing is usually about six weeks after shearing, and that means that the ewes have lost their wool, they're a little bit chilly at times, so they'll go and seek shelter. And if they've got a lamb, they'll take the lamb with them to shelter. Also, the lamb can find the udder. Here we go. Liberated! They're looking a little bit thinner than normal, but not too bad considering the autumn that we've had, which was a drought, and we were a bit pressed for feed. You can see that they've still got a little bit of wool on them. That's what the cover comb leaves them so they've got a little bit of insulation. That's plenty to keep them warm enough until they can grow a bit more. They need shelter, they need good feed and hopefully a bit of sunshine, (LAUGHS) yeah. - Anne takes a low-tech approach to farming. - I've always taken a great deal of satisfaction out of being able to make the most out of things. So if that means reusing or recycling, then that's always preferable to, you know, having to go and buy something new. And so I can live very cheaply because I don't need all the new gadgets. But occasionally there'll be something that, you know is just what I want, and I'll go out and spend my money on it. (CHUCKLES) - The tree planting she's done over the years is now paying off. - I've always loved trees, and I guess the first ones I planted were a few fruit trees. And then I got into the deciduous autumn colour kind of trees, eucalypts for some firewood, and then I got into natives cos as the birds came into the other trees, they brought all the seeds in from the surrounding area, and I ended up with a lot of native seedlings that I planted out of shelter belts. Worked fantastic. But as we cut down all the big trees, whether it's to feed stock in the drought or just to open the place a bit, I've ended up with a lot of firewood, which is really great because I rely on firewood for heating the house and for heating my hot water. (ENGINE TURNS OVER) - And as spring arrives, so does another generation of lambs, producing more top-quality fibre. (GENTLE MUSIC) - On Anne Grassham's lifestyle block south of Nelson, lambing is well underway. - Most of these are only a week or so old, maybe as much as two, in some cases. You notice there aren't too many twins this year. That's because we had a fairly dry autumn. Tends to lead to more singles, not so many multiple births, but they're all looking all right. There's one just here that has only just been born. - Every new arrival gets its own special treatment. (LAMB BAAS) - There we go. Hey? Yeah. - (BAAS) - Oh, look at that lovely, dark grey colour there. Just give you a few antibodies. It just helps them if they come in contact with tetanus or pulpy kidney at a young age and haven't got the immunity from their mother. Now, we'll just do a ring on the tail, and you can go again, buddy. - (BAAS) - Anne has 160 sheep and doesn't want to increase the size of her flock. She'll sell some lambs, but not the grey ones. - The grey fleece is probably a bit more versatile in terms of what people want. You can overdye it, so you can get a whole range of colours, but people often like a natural grey colour, whether it's light to medium grey, sometimes dark greys. It's all fashion ` it changes. Every few years it changes. - Anne shears in July, and through the rest of the year she washes and prepares the fleeces ready for sale. - Stoke it up a bit and get a bit more hot water here. I'll just add some detergent here. This is a grease cutter that dissolves the grease in the fleece. I've put the wool in the onion sacks. It just makes it easier to manage, and I just prod them down. It's really important not to stir it around, but you just have to get them under the water because it's the hot water and the detergent that does the job. - Half an hour later, the excess water is removed by spinning the wool in the washing machine. - Notice how dirty that water is? This is the first bath. It's the worst of the dirt. Um... So it's good to get all that out. (MACHINE WHIRRS) - She repeats the process a couple of times, and then the wool is dried. - Just lay it out about one layer thick, and then those are all the notes that go with it so I know what the fleece is, and we just leave it to dry. - I love that little lamb. - He's gorgeous, isn't he? (BOTH LAUGH) - Hello! - (BAAS) - Anne sells her wool to knitters and weavers locally and overseas. Janet Ludbrook is one of her regulars. - You were after brown, weren't you? - Yeah. - How dark? Cos there's the darker ones here, the moorit, but then paler ones as well, which are gorgeous. What about something like this? - That is beautiful. Look at all the different greys in it. It's just amazing - That's a lamb fleece, you know. - Well, lamb fleece is very special. - Yeah. Well, it'll make it softer, won't it? Yep. - Yeah. They're all so natural. It's very difficult to find one that you don't like. They're all just beautiful, aren't they? I always come straight to Anne. The problem is ` how much wool can I get into my car? (LAUGHS) - Right. OK. - OK. Oh, thank you, Anne. - You're welcome. - While some customers want natural fleeces, others prefer them processed. - Hi, Anne. - This is what I got for you today. That one` Can we do that one first? - We can do that one first. - Yeah. Some people like to have it carded because it's ready to spin. They don't have to do the preparation themselves. And the process opens up the fibres. It opens up the fleece. To spin an even yarn, you need it so that each fibre will slide against the one next to it, and that's what this process does. - And according to owner Catherine Inwood Hesketh, this is no ordinary carding machine. - So, the bearings heat up, and they dry out. They need to be greased just slightly, just to stop that squeak. It's over 100 years old. She's given me an engineering degree. (LAUGHS) I've had a lot of false starts when I first got her. Now that I know how she runs, um, we're pretty good at keeping on top of all the little things that might go wrong. - I'm just going back over this drafting triangle. It allows you to control how much wool is going into your yarn, so it controls whether it's thick or thin. Let's get into it. I have started working for New Zealand Textile Experiences as a tutor with them. I just keep a list of people that are interested in a particular topic, and then when I think I've got enough people to make a class, I'll ring them all up and we sort something out, and hey presto! (CHUCKLES) - I've come from Greymouth, and I'm quite new to spinning, and I need to learn to be able to control the wool instead of letting the wool control me. (LAUGHS) - I tend to spend very finely. And so Anne's been pushing us. Basically the challenge is to do fat work as well. - Is that because I was treadling too fast? - Yeah, faster than I could keep up with you. (BOTH LAUGH) - It's going good. I didn't know about the drafting triangle before, so this is good for me, yeah. - That's much better. There we go. I enjoy the wool craft. It's an avenue for my creativity. I think it's immensely important for anyone to be creative. It gets people looking outwards. Is it thick or is it thick? And so I enjoy helping people along that journey, teaching them some basic skills, basically trying to let them go so that they can experiment and extend themselves in whatever direction they want to go. Come on, Jesse girl. - (BAAS) - But sometimes at Fleecewood Farm, creativity has to wait. - It's a chilly spring morning, and Anne Grassham has left her farm near Wakefield to help at a local craft workshop. - Anne, welcome to Creative Fibres 101. And it's going to be fabulous cos Anne's got such a wealth of knowledge. - She's been invited to talk about fleeces. - It's nice and fine. Excellent for making jumpers, that sort of thing with. They've organised what they call a learning weekend. So it's really focused around doing workshops and learning. And they asked me to tutor this presentation of wool preparation and selection. So what you'd use it for for all sorts of different projects. The English Leicester characteristics are length, lustre, and a very open weavy kind of crimp. That one's got a bit more curl in it. You use it for carpets, but actually I will use it for an outer jumper. And what I was trying to do was give them ideas as to what they could do so that they're not just thinking, 'Oh, I'll get a fleece, 'I'll wash it, I'll spin it and make a jumper.' I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, but wool's a lot more versatile than that. There's so many more things you can do with it. And so, yeah, I just basically want to fire up their imagination a bit. - Morning tea's a chance to see what's been made in the other workshops. - It's always inspiring to see what other people have done. I think that's what creativity is sort of` is based around. It's like you get ideas from different places, and you pull them together to make your own unique take on whatever it is you want to do. I thrive off the buzz. (LAUGHS) When people get excited about things I'm interested in, I get excited too, and it's one of those win-win situations. You know, I get wound up, they get wound up, I get wound up, they get wound up. You skirt a fleece depending on what you want the end use for that fleece to be, ideally. - She'd love to see wool craft as popular as it was in the 1960s and '70s. - It's hard today. It is still women dominated. A lot of the women are working, and they don't have the time available, and some of them the finances, as well, to really get into it. So times have changed. - Anne also helps out at the school in Wakefield. Native trees and birds are a focus here. (LOW CHATTER) - Hi, guys. - Oh, Anne! Hello. Good morning. - All right. I've got some more plants for you to pot up today. - Fantastic. - Yeah, I just dug them up this morning. So have you got a few pots ready there? - Yeah. - OK, and you know what you're doing? - Principal Freya Hogarth says children want to do their bit for conservation. - The teachers in 2022 introduced the children to a documentary on Radio New Zealand called Fight for the Wild, and they were keen to think about how the children might learn how to grow natives, have a bird cafe, encourage native animals and species back into our school environment. - And we need to give them a good soaking. The local newsletter that comes around, the school was asking for sources of native trees for the children to plant up. - It's looking good in here, guys. - And I've been growing native trees, little seedlings that the birds bring in and potting them up and then growing them on and planting them out around my farm as shelter belts. And they're just fantastic. And I just thought, 'Well, I've got more than I need these days.' And so I offered to supply these native seedlings for them, and then I offered to help with potting up as well. - Yeah. - I just love nature and it's just fun to have it right outside my classroom, and I just love to check in on it every single day. - I really like nature, and I think that doing this is a cool way to do it at school as well as at home. (SOFT MUSIC) - Back at Fleecewood, there's a hungry mouth to feed. - Come on, Jesse girl. Jesse! - (BAAS) - What have I got for you? That's right. You've got to bang on it a bit, don't you? There you go. This year we've only got one so far, thank goodness, because they do become quite a bit of work after about six weeks of feeding several times a day. (CHUCKLES) Last year was really good, had none, but a year or two before that, I think I had 20-something. I had two sets of quads and five sets of triplets, and the mums really can't comfortably feed more than two, so that was a whole swag of them. Anybody'd think you hadn't eaten for a week. Hey, had enough? That's it. OK. - Anne's determined to stay on this farm as long as she's able. - I've had more than one person ask when I'm moving back into town cos it was getting too much for me. (LAUGHS) But, you know, it's like I've had a hip replacement, I've had a knee replacement. I'm planning to stay here as long as possible. I'm immensely proud, actually, of what I've been able to do with the land in the 35 years that I've been here. - (BAAS) - I was never driven by money, so it's always been about what I wanted to do and what was meaningful to me. Developing this property has been immensely satisfying, and now I don't have quite as much energy as I used to have, so it's, to some extent, more of a maintenance role. But I thoroughly enjoy living here. It's a fantastic lifestyle. - Next time ` a couple not afraid to try new things. - When you don't really know what you're doing, just ask for help. Don't be afraid. (WHISTLES) Bonnie, come! Good girl. (DOG BARKS) - There was only one way, and that was all-in for me. There was no option B. Poetry in motion, really, isn't it? - That's next time on Hyundai Country Calendar. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024