('COUNTRY CALENDAR' THEME) - (WHISTLES) - Always a favourite on every rural road ` Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023. - We don't see our farm as a farm; it's a whole ecosystem. - Oh, you want a cuddle, do you? - Farmers caring for their animals, the land, a river and their community. - It took us a while to become landowners, and it was so exciting for us that we just wanna do the best damn job that we could do. (PEACEFUL MUSIC) - Race ya! Come on, Billie! - At its headwaters, the mighty Manawatu River is just a small stream. It marks the boundary of Te Miro Farm and is central to the owners' lives. - (GRUNTS) - I think I know where they're all hiding. - Penelope Drysdale homeschools Billie and Joe at Te Miro, near Norsewood. - Before we sit down in the mornings, they're not ready to just sit down and engage ` They kind of need to go out and get fresh air in their lungs and burn off some steam. Oh, I just saw Matara come out. - Did you? - Yeah. She's just gone back under the ledge. - Ha! - Joe will be straight down to the river, every time. - Mum, do you know why the line has to be white? - Why? - So the eels can't see it. Look, there's one! - He's decided himself that it's far more fun fishing with just a bit of meat on the end, rather than a hook. Here she comes! And he just loves it. It's like his little happy place. - Let her swallow it. - Nah, I thought I'd let her swim under the rock. - All right, have fun seeing Lula, babe. - OK! - Billie will be out there with her pet sheep. She just adores them. And you can just tell the time and effort that she's put into them ` they are so friendly. - Penelope started homeschooling Billie and Joe after the first Covid lockdown. - We wanted the kids to be the most practical and resilient adults. And I knew having them home in the early days of their education and having that really idyllic life and adventures was going to do that. We have the most amazing learning opportunities for our children that they would never get by sending them off to school. And working alongside us, they appreciate how hard we work for... for what we can give them, you know? They have become very in tune with the farm, and we're just way more in tune with each other. It just creates such a rich family life, despite it being highly chaotic sometimes. Any time of the day, go hang with Dad. What an amazing opportunity for Blair, to actually be able, now, raise his children and have that input that he wanted to have. - Hey, Bill. Hey, you remember I gotta do two first and let two out? - Yeah, I got it. - Yeah, you got it, Bill. That's it. I can teach the kids to get out there, and we add school to it as well. So she counts the calves as they come out, and she's having to add, and it makes them feel helpful as well. (COWS MOO) - Penelope and Blair bought the farm nearly five years ago and immediately began the long and difficult transition to organics. - This is herbal digestive drench, so it's got flax oil and few other bits and bobs in it, for the worms. We can't use normal drenches, so, yeah, we're learning as we go. I definitely have been tested probably the most of my farm career, actually, without having those tools. - Worm burden in your young stock can just stunt them ` it can be awful, absolutely awful. So it was one thing that made us really nervous, wasn't it? Like,... - Mm. - 'Are we gonna be able to do this?' We've done quite a lot of faecal egg counts this year, and the herbal digestive drench is working. - Yeah, Billie. Billie, two more to go, mate! - OK. - Nutrition for our cows and our young stock is key to the success of our organic system. We don't have the conventional tools and supplements in our toolbox, so if we end up with a mineral deficiency, it's not easy for us to correct that, so hence why we do constant herbage testing, to monitor to the nutrient status of the plant. Hey, babe, I might just take Joe, and we'll shoot off and get those herbage tests, so I can get them on the courier. Right, Joe-Joe. Let's go, my bear. We'll find a nice spot up here, buddy. Before I had the kids, I was working for Outgro ` they're, like, a biofertiliser company. If you see a good spot to dig, though. I absolutely loved my job. I got out on the road, I saw farmers, I helped them put together nutrient plans to get, you know, the best out of their land and soil. So it's really nice that Blair and I can work as a real team. He's an incredible farmer, and... one thing I can bring to the table is my skills around soil and plant-nutrient management, to ensure they are in the right balance for the cows, to perform like we need them to perform. - I'm looking for worms, cos they make the grass... healthy and happy. This plant's a good plant! It's clover. Cows munch on it all day. - Oh, that grass is looking good! - One, two, three, four, five. - What's that big plant there, Joe? - Stinking dock. - (LAUGHS) Stinking dock! We don't want this stinking dock in there, do we? (LAUGHS) - No. - Aw. Today Joe and I are out here taking a herbage sample. This paddock was in a mixed forage crop in the summer, and Blair has been through and under-sowed some areas, you can see. So we are just checking that this is on track to where it should be. We're happy with it. It looks beautiful. - One, two, three, four, five! - The herbage sample will be sent to a lab, and Penelope will use the results to plan which organic fertiliser to apply, or not. - One, two, three, four, five! - There's no point in wasting money on nutrients that we don't need. So by doing the constant monitoring, we know that we are applying what our soil, our plant and our cows need in three months' time, because it's not what they need now ` there's no point in taking a herbage sample and going, 'Oh, the cows are low now'; well, you're gonna be up shit creek. A lot of what we do in organics, we leave up to Mother Nature, but we like to have full control over everything. And, you know, humans, we're real fixers, so to stand back and let it fix itself, it's kind of bloody scary. Hi! Could you do something for me? # You've got what I need... # Thanks. # You got everything I need # You're like medicine to me... # VOICEOVER: Wonderful stories enter our stores every day. Find your wonderful. New World. (GENTLE MUSIC) (COWS MOO) - Blair and Penelope Drysdale's Te Miro farm in Tararua District, south of Hawke's Bay, is not typical dairying country. - Some of the back of the farm is a little bit marginal. I find it a real challenge. It's not for everyone. You just try to have a lower stocking rate, really, on the hills. They do dry out in the summer, they grow less grass, so naturally you've gotta have less stock on the hills, cos you can't feed out on the hills. - In the five years they've been farming here, they've had two severe droughts and a cyclone. They've also gone through the rigorous process of gaining organic certification. - When we first came here, our production was down nearly 25%. - Yeah, our cows took a huge hit when we came to Norsewood. - It takes time to build up the fertility and to get it right, and you only get it right by learning. And learn the hard way, mostly, but if we're not winning, we're learning. - We do a lot of learning. (LAUGHS) - We do a lot of learning. I always thought organics would do a lot less production, but we're ramping up to nearly where we were before we came here; looking like we're even probably gonna surpass that, so, yeah, no, it's all looking positive. - When we bought the farm, we kind of had in our head, if this is not us and this community's not us, we'll give it 10 years. And I think it was about six months, and we were, like, 'Oh, this place is awesome.' - It's great. I'm happy to bring our kids up and for them to call it home here too. - We've found our forever home. Yeah. - Mm. When we went organic, we actually really didn't know what we were doing, so we did get out there and seek advice, and, um, one of the best things that we've actually learned is the free-choice minerals. - Blair adds a natural remedy to the water for high somatic cell count and minerals to an ad-lib feeder. - There's baking soda, which we've found has been very good for milk production and, uh, just helps with the rumen of the cows to digest everything. Um, and also stock lick, uh, which is the grey stuff there, and we just go through tons and tons of it. They love it, the cows. It's dolomite, so magnesium; a lot of salt in there, kelp flour, and then the other one's the guano phosphate. They're not that fussed on the guano, but until we can get the guano in the paddocks, if they really need it, then they'll take it. - The herbage tests came back from Hill's, and they are looking epic. Yeah. So we'll be able to tap back off that copper and zinc... - (WHISTLES) Mm. - ...on the next application and maybe just focus on a little bit of cobalt and selenium, just where it's a bit lacking. - Yeah. The phosphorus still quite low. - Yeah. Yup, definitely. We'll be looking to include a bit of guano. - When we first got to the farm, they were very, sort of, high-use synthetics, fertiliser and chemicals. We've had to two record-breaking droughts, and we've also had grass grubs just taking that opportunity ` when everything's down and out, they've just come in. So yeah, it's certainly been difficult. Mentally, financially, everything ` it's just been, yeah, horrendous. - That potassium will be making them hungry for that salt, so I was gonna get some fert on order this week. - We are slowly but surely getting there. Definitely optimistic. - Nah, nah, it's happy days, hon ` they're looking... it's looking great. Um, even the soils are looking really, really good, so we're making progress. - Yeah. Hallelujah. Finally! - (LAUGHS) (GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC) (MUSIC CONTINUES) - We put on a big blend of guano in lime, boron trace elements and plenty of fish ` all organic products, just to keep feeding all the microbiology. - As soon as they took over Te Miro, alongside restoring soil health, Penelope and Blair got busy weeding, fencing and planting all over the farm. - We cut out a lot of pine trees. They are a weed, and we were trying to control the weeds, not encourage them to grow. There's lots of blackberry and broom and barberry, and the petoniasta was, and still is, quite next-level. And, you know, the weed control on the farm is hard work, because we can't go and spray our blackberry ` until we can really establish a nice canopy of trees, we have to dig it out. - We've planted over 40,000 plants on the farm and the river. We've spent well over six figures out of our own pocket, you know, and we've only been here for not even five years. It's shelter, it's keeping nutrients out of the creeks and getting the birds back. - Regenerating that thriving ecosystem ` that's what our farm vision is. We don't see our farm as a farm; it's a whole ecosystem. Not just as our cows grazing pasture to produce milk, you know? We're just trying to work with nature a little bit more and... and hope that all those other species in our ecosystem can benefit everything we do. - Penelope and Blair's sense of kaitiakitanga of the land extends to the community and the river. - The front boundary of the farm is the headwaters of the mighty Manawatu River, which ends up over in Foxton. If it starts well, it should end well ` that should flow through to where it exits at the sea. - Can anyone tell me what sort of critters we've got sitting in the traps? Yep. - Stoats. - Yep. - Penelope and Blair have brought the whole community onboard, from government agencies, local council, local hapu and the local school. - Today we have got the senior kids out from Norsewood and Districts' School, doing a little bit of pest control, and they will be planting manuka and harekeke, that we've grown in the nursery. So it's a really special day for those kids, because those seniors sowed those harekeke seeds last year, and now they are getting to put those plants in the ground. - We feel that we need to educate the young people, to get them out and involved, because it's gonna take a generation to do all this work ` there's a lot of work, planting in the Manawatu River, all the way down to Foxton, you know, so we need people, and we need people to be passionate about it. That's the only way that we're gonna change it. - I never knew anything about any of this when I was a kid, but our kids, it's just second nature to them, all this stuff. - And while one group works on planting, releasing or trapping, another is sowing seeds for next year's planting day. (CALMING MUSIC) VOICEOVER: Monday morning. Doesn't look too bad from here. (GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC) - It really has changed a lot. - Organic dairy farmers Penelope and Blair Drysdale see their farm as an ecosystem. As well as extensive fencing, planting and trapping, they constantly monitor the health of their soil, animals and the river on their boundary. - We're gonna pull the water in in front of us, and then we'll squirt it behind us, and so we just do that 20 times. - Today, Arapera Paewai, from Te Kauru Hapu Collective, and Adrian Cookson, from Ag Research, have joined Penelope to test the water. They're extracting environmental DNA, to learn what species influence the river as it enters the farm, and again downstream as it leaves. - We are drawing up a sample of water from the middle of the awa. And then we're screwing on the filters and pushing the water through. And we have to do that 20 times. And we do six samples per site, so it is a lot of squeezing of syringes. (LAUGHS) It is basically to capture the sediment and DNA ` that's what ultimately goes the laboratory. - We send it down to Wilderlab, and they extract the eDNA out of the filter, and then they use, uh, fancy sequencing methods to target specific aspects of the tree of life. We get some really good ideas of what's in the water, based on their DNA. So the fish, the insects, but also the pollen from the trees as well and the faeces from the birds. So a really good idea of what the biodiversity is in the catchment. Righty-ho. So get the extra water out of the filter here, so we'll just push it, force some air in in here. Pop the filter back on. If we understand what's here, we can get a feel for what we're actually looking to protect. And here at Te Miro Farm, the water quality is very good. So, this little one here has got the preservative in. We're getting a lot of different organisms here that wouldn't be here if there was high levels of contaminants coming into the water. Penelope and Blair have shown some real leadership here as kaitiaki, to actually ensure that the water quality is improved, taking this holistic view of the farm and inviting researchers, such as myself and mana whenua and the schoolkids to actually come on board. It's a massive win for everybody who's involved, so why wouldn't you wanna jump on that waka and get involved? - It's what gives our farm soul. (CHUCKLES) - At first, Penelope and Blair received funding to get their on-farm and riparian planting programmes underway. But now they're self-sufficient, growing all they need in their own nursery. - Time flies. - Look at these! Whoo! - Yeah, I know! - One of our goals was to create a community restoring the mauri along the awa here. And, oh, this nursery has such good mauri. (CHUCKLES) Morena, everyone, and welcome to the Te Miro wananga nursery. 'It's just a really lovely place, 'where people can come together 'and do great things together.' - Ka noho a Tane. - ALL: Ko Te-ku-whakahara ka puta ki waho ko Maire-rau-nui. Tanuimia e tama ki te aroaro. - In fact, they produce enough plants to now give away half. Today they're giving 2000 plants to te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Tamaki nui a Rua, for planting on one of the Te Kauru Hapu Collective's many restoration projects. - But you'll see the difference. - The kura principal is Whaea Sharon Paewai. - In 2009, a world conference was held for the quality of the rivers of the world. And out of 300, our Manawatu, our tupuna awa was, um... was rated one of the worst. It took on the name our River of Shame. So we decided this was something we had to fix up. - Whoo! - Hold them up, bro. - Running an expanding nursery, inspiring community restoration projects, planting thousands of plants, trapping pests, conducting scientific research, homeschooling the children ` and running an organic dairy farm ` it's a lot. - It all slots together so nicely. And if it ever became too hard, it wouldn't work. Part of our family and part of our homeschooling is about learning as we live, and all of this stuff that we do in the nursery provides a wonderful education for my children outside the schoolbooks. I think back to when I was little, and there was no way I had the knowledge around plants and how to grow them that my kids have. It can get a little crazy, and I... have always been terrible at overcommitting myself and saying yes to everybody. But now I just say yes to the things that make me feel really good and I know are gonna benefit my farm and family. (GENTLE PIANO MUSIC) We just wanna do the best damn job that we could do and do best by the land as we can, while we have it in our ownership, you know, whether it's for our children and future generations or somebody else that comes here, you know. - If I could downsize our dairy farm and milk a few less cows and spend more time in growing plants and putting plants in the ground, then I definitely would. - Yeah, but ultimately, we are a dairy farm ` like, that is our bread and butter. That is where we make our money and that's also where our passion lies. - We gotta pay the bills. - Yep. So we are proud, passionate farmers,... - Definitely. - ...at the end of the day. (TINKLY PIANO MUSIC) (COUNTRY MUSIC) Captions by Faith Hamblyn. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023.