Story written and photographed by Melissa Banks for Shepherdess magazine.

Compiled into an exhibit that debuted at the Nelson Provincial Museum titled Te Ara o Hine Rēhia, Melissa Banks’ black-and-white documentary-style photographs draw you into the world of kapa haka, unveiling the emotion and spirit that goes into each of the performance’s artistic threads.

WAIATA TIRA. The waiata tira is a non-compulsory discipline of performance, the points for which don’t count towards the overall score. Often performed with a conductor in front, the harmonious tira serves to warm up performers’ vocal chords, settle the nerves and focus the attention of the audience on the new kapa to the stage.

Kapa haka is role-modelling at its best: mātua showing their tamariki that their culture is beautiful, powerful and important; tamariki showing their mātua that their years of effort for language and cultural revitalisation are worth it; kaumātua showing their mokopuna that their legacy is one that has been handed down through generations; mokopuna showing their kaumātua that despite the experience of colonisation, their language and their culture will not perish.

Te Ara o Hine Rēhia takes you on a journey through the different items of a bracket that make up a kapa haka performance, featuring performers from Tamariki Toa of Nelson Central School, Te Pītau Whakarei of Nelson Intermediate School, Pūaha Te Tai of Nayland College and the adult group Kura Tai Waka, representing Kurahaupō Waka.

My whānau are my favourite photography subjects, so a lot of my photography has naturally followed them, as we support the multiple kaupapa that they are involved in.

The process of bringing up our tamariki in te ao Māori has meant we seek out kaupapa and other whānau with similar values and aspirations to ours. Kapa haka has played an important role in our journey and the beautiful whānau we have met along the way have helped to support us.

A key goal of the exhibition was to demonstrate the immense amount of work that goes into preparing for a kapa haka performance. The fantastic response to Te Ara o Hine Rēhia shows that it tells a story that is interesting and important.

WHAKAEKE. The whakaeke is where the kapa announces its arrival. It shares similarities with the pōwhiri process, often containing karanga and haka and utilising whakapapa to connect visitor and host. An item of contrasts and energy, it can also be used to pass social comment on a topical issue of the day.

MŌTEATEA. Mōteatea provide a connection to the past, traditional songs chanted without choreography or harmony. Unscripted actions, facial expressions and changes in rhythm are the performers’ tools to convey meaning to the audience. Mōteatea pass history and mātauranga orally through the generations.

WAIATA-Ā-RINGA. Waiata-ā-ringa are one of the more contemporary aspects of modern day kapa haka, introduced in the early 1900s. The wiri is represented heavily in waiata-ā-ringa. The wiri originates from Tānerore and Hine ā Rohe, the children of Tama-nui-te-rā and Hineraumati. We attribute the creation of haka to Tānerore who can be seen dancing on the horizon on a hot day. In the waiata-ā-ringa, hand actions accompany melodic tunes and creatively crafted lyrics to convey a message to the people.

POI. Poi were traditionally made of natural fibres like raupō and harakeke leaves. They were used to strengthen warrior’s wrists and keep them supple for battle, develop hand-eye coordination, and keep time on long waka voyages. In kapa haka, the poi discipline is firmly the domain of wāhine. Sweet smiles and graceful movements belie the complexity and intricacy of the poi sequence. The perfectly synchronised strikes of the poi provides a percussional beat to the rhythm of the waiata.

HAKA. The haka is the item where the males take centre stage, with the fierce support of the women behind, and are given an opportunity to showcase their ferocity and strength. As a natural provocation, the haka is often used to challenge or provide social commentary on topical issues. Good pronunciation and synchronisation of actions is important to ensure that the underlying themes and message of the haka are understood by the audience and judges alike.

WHAKAWĀTEA. The whakawātea is the natural complement of the whakaeke. Both are often highly choreographed and full of contrasting energies. This is the group’s last chance to leave an impression. As the whakaeke contains elements of the pōwhiri, the whakawātea can contain elements of the poroporoaki process of farewell. The hosts are often thanked for their hospitality and whakapapa connections are re-emphasised before departing the stage.

More: Māori Language Week 2024 runs from 14 – 21 September and this year’s theme is ‘Ake ake ake – A Forever Language.’ The 2024 theme represents the resilience, adaptability and endurance of te reo Māori, and reflects the commitment to embracing and learning the language long into the future.

Glossary
Harakeke, flax. Hineraumati, the summer maiden. Ihi, essential force, thrill. Kapa, team, group, company of people. Kapa haka, Māori performing group. Karanga, formal ceremonial call. Kaumātua, elders. Kaupapa, topic, project. Māmā, mother. Mātauranga, knowledge, wisdom, understanding. Mātua, parents. Mokopuna, grandchildren. Mōteatea, traditional lament, sung poetry. Poi, (traditionally used for wrist strength training) a light ball on a string of varying length, swung or twirled rhythmically to sung accompaniment. Poroporoaki, farewell speech. Pōwhiri, welcoming ceremony. Pūkana, dilating the eyes. Raupō, bulrush. Tama-nui-te-rā, the sun god. Tamariki, children. Tā moko, traditional tattoo. Te ao Māori, the Māori world. Te Ara o Hine Rēhia, “A Journey into the World of Kapa Haka.” Tira, choir. Wāhine, women. Waiata, song. Waka, canoe. Wana, excitement, thrill, exhilaration. Wehi, the response of awe in response to ihi. Whakaeke, entrance. Whakapapa, genealogy. Whakawātea, exit. Wiri, trembling hands.

Story written and photographed by Melissa Banks for Shepherdess magazine. Shepherdess magazine was started around a kitchen table on a dairy and beef farm in the Horowhenua. We continue to come to you from this kitchen table, and from many other farms, home offices and lounges across provincial Aotearoa. The magazine is here to connect, empower and inspire women across rural New Zealand, by offering a place to tell stories of our rural communities. Find out more about Shepherdess here shepherdess.co.nz

Unable to return to the career she carved out in Southeast Asia, Sonya Prosser took a job at Walter Peak High Country Farm on the shores of Lake Whakatipu. Now, she’s merging her lifelong dedication to conservation with her newfound agricultural skills to plant the seeds of a new future for her family and wider community in Rarotonga.

“I’ve always liked hard work, and I’ve never been afraid to get stuck in and get my hands dirty, which is what all my jobs have had in common,” Sonya says. “But the biggest common factor is definitely conservation, which I’ve always considered to be my main purpose in life.”

This purpose first emerged in Sonya’s teenage years, when she began volunteering at Orana Wildlife Park, just outside Ōtautahi Christchurch. “I’d grown up watching David Attenborough and reading about Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, and I developed a real love for great apes,” she says. “Mum was really good at helping me follow that by taking me out to Orana Park while I was still in high school, and that led to a job there pretty much as soon as I finished. ”

By the time she was twenty-one, Sonya was working as a zookeeper at the Melbourne Zoo, primarily working with primates and large carnivores. “I spent quite a long time working with them in captivity and it was marvellous getting to know individual animals and having them get to know you,” she reflects. “I do miss it, but eventually I realised it was time to move on because I really did feel the pressure of playing god with such magnificent creatures, having to make these big decisions for animals that are in captivity.”

Sonya harnessed that preservation mindset with stints at conservation organisations across East and Southeast Asia. “I came back to New Zealand in 2020 for a holiday and Covid hit,” Sonya says wryly. “I was due to fly out the day that everything closed down. I wasn’t able to leave and then my Laos business visa ran out. It became impossible to return to my previous life, so I made a new one.”

After taking a handful of free courses through the Southern Institute of Technology, Sonya landed a job three years ago in “absolute paradise” – Walter Peak High Country Farm. Located at the base of Kā Kamu-a-Hakitekura Walter Peak near Tāhuna Queenstown, the property is a working Merino sheep station that also includes guided farm tours and dining. Sonya is part of a team that looks after the farm infrastructure, such as maintaining the grounds and gardens and running farm demonstrations. “I’ve been pretty lucky to be able to jump into all the roles that are part of our rural department, beside shearing sheep,” Sonya says. “That’s everything from stock work to running the dogs as part of the working dog demonstrations we do.”

Not surprisingly, working with the dogs has been Sonya’s favourite part of her time at Walter Peak. “Spending time with them, working with them and seeing the joy they get out of doing their job has definitely been the highlight,” she says. “Part of that is also getting to know their personalities and working through some challenges with them. They do get bored from time to time and will play up in front of the guests, so it’s making sure to take them out and do some real work with them.

Besides that, Sonya has loved learning more about horticulture. “At the moment, we’re growing and tweaking an eco-tour and a kitchen garden to supply the on-site restaurant,” Sonya explains. “We do have a bit of a microclimate here so we’re working with our executive chef to see what we could grow here that’s a bit unusual and can contribute to what he wants to put on the menu in terms of local produce.”

Plants on the wish list include kawakawa, horopito and watercress, and the team are also planning to revegetate certain areas with the native species that would have grown there originally. It’s a different type of conservation work than she’s used to, but Sonya can already see the potential to use her new knowledge over in Rarotonga in the the Kūki ‘Āirani Cook Islands. Her father signed a plot of family land over to Sonya and her sisters in 2023, and she is hoping to use it to make a difference for the local community.

Sonya’s plans are part of a relatively recent reconnection to her heritage.

“I was raised by my mother, who was born in England from an English mother and a New Zealander father of Scottish decent,” she says. “My father is a Cook Islander. When my mother died in 2022, I felt more freedom to connect with my Pacific heritage, which resonated with me due to the parallels between Pacific culture and the cultures I had lived in in rural Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia.

“At the same time, the land that Dad was entitled to came up for confirmation, so I went with him to Raro to get the land signed to myself and my two sisters. I was like, ‘Wow, what am I doing? This is where I need to be.’ I connected with family there and felt a real draw to the place. I was surrounded by cousins and aunties who are strong, intelligent, driven women. I was particularly inspired by my cousin Jacquie, who is a Goldman Environmental Prize recipient.”

For now, Sonya is content to keep enjoying her time at Walter Peak and planning how she can split her time between New Zealand and Rarotonga.

“For a long time my purpose was primate conservation or big cat conservation, and then at Walter Peak I felt like I had a holiday for a little while, with no real purpose other than to keep those flowers flowering,” Sonya says.“ But now I’m looking at it differently and realising that I can use all that knowledge about soil health and growing food and bring it to the Cook Islands with me. I want to build off-grid and get involved in organic growing and sustainability.

“The amount of food that could be grown to feed local people is amazing, but it’s not reached its potential yet. I’m looking into it at the moment to see if there’s a way that my skills and my land could be used to make some kind of impact here in the future. I think I’ve found my purpose again.”]

Glossary. Horopito, native shrubs with leaves often having large red blotches. Kawakawa, pepper tree.

Story written by Anna Brankin (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe) and photographed by Francine Boer for Shepherdess magazine. Shepherdess magazine was started around a kitchen table on a dairy and beef farm in the Horowhenua. We continue to come to you from this kitchen table, and from many other farms, home offices and lounges across provincial Aotearoa. The magazine is here to connect, empower and inspire women across rural New Zealand, by offering a place to tell stories of our rural communities. Find out more about Shepherdess here shepherdess.co.nz

It’s easy to see Dansy and Greg Coppell have a lot going on. As well as being parents to Freddie, 7, Fergus, 5, and Bonnie, 11 months, Dansy and Greg juggle their sheep and beef farm in St Arnaud, a building business in Māpua and Repost – a Marlborough-based recycled-fence-post venture. It’s not always smooth sailing, but thanks to her supportive family, Dansy has taken the reins at Repost – and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Working together on the land has always been a given for Greg, 39, and Dansy, 36. Dansy grew up on a lifestyle farm in Kent, England – she and Greg began their relationship when he was visiting on an OE. “Every weekend we’d head to my parents’ place and they’d give him jobs like cutting wood, building chook sheds or repairing stock fencing. It helped Greg with his homesickness. As our relationship deepened, he invited me to meet his family in Motueka. I knew after that first visit to New Zealand that if we were going to stay together, I’d have to come this way.” 

Basing themselves in Ōtautahi, Christchurch, both Greg and Dansy worked in earthquake-recovery roles – Greg as a builder and Dansy as a senior communications manager for the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team. But in 2013, Dansy’s beloved dad, Colin, was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

“When you go through an experience like that it puts life in perspective, and we started thinking about our future and where we wanted to raise a family. We’d always loved going to Māpua when we were visiting Greg’s family. So we moved there and started again.” The next three years were challenging, with Greg and Dansy continuing to visit the UK to see Colin and support her family.

“When Dad passed in 2017, it was another catalyst for us to focus on our future. Greg’s a fourth-generation farmer, but his family had decided to sell the family farm due to other ventures. He had gone straight into building from school, but had always wanted to return to farming, and we wanted the kids to have a similar rural lifestyle to what we both had growing up. Greg was always on Trade Me looking at farms, but they were always out of our price range, or it wasn’t the right time,” Dansy explains.

“After my dad passed, Greg said, ‘Let’s just try.’ Then Springers Block Farm came on the market. Greg visited it a few times with his dad, who we call ‘Pop,’ and said, ‘I think this is it. I think I can make it work.’ Freddie was around two, and I was heavily pregnant with Fergus. The owners wanted to meet us on farm to find out what our plans were. We weren’t the highest bid, but they really liked our vision for the farm. I still didn’t think it was going to happen. All I was thinking about was how uncomfortable I was with this huge baby. We completed the deal a week after Fergus was born. It was just a crazy time.”

While their 500 hectare sheep and beef breeding farm is in St Arnaud, the family has kept their home base in Māpua. “We’re not the typical farming story because we don’t live full time on the farm. After Fergus was born I was on farm a lot, but I struggled with the isolation. I had built a community of friends and support in Māpua, and we made the decision that we wanted the kids to go to school there. We’re lucky that we’ve made it work, not in a traditional way, but in a way that works for our family. Pop is up at the farm most days. He loves it because he gets to be on the farm without the financial stress of ownership.” 

It was also Pop who set Repost in motion. “Repost began because we needed to find a cost-effective way to do a lot of fencing on the farm. Greg’s dad told us how he had repurposed old viticulture posts for fencing. Greg took his eight-wheeler down to a vineyard and spent a whole day with Pop, just filling it up with posts.”

In viticulture, posts are strung with multiple wires to hold up the vines. During harvest, lots of posts are damaged and are then unusable as grape trellis but the posts are perfectly good for fence posts. To repurpose posts for farming, fourteen nails and clips per post must be removed. “Greg went through three grinders and a lot of blisters getting the nails and clips out of that first lot. Greg and Pop drew up the first concept for the hydraulic nail puller on the back of a newspaper, and that led to the next machine, which led to the next machine. We call the nail puller our champion – we couldn’t do Repost without it. At first, we were just doing it for our farm, then a few family friends, and then word just got out. Farming businesses often start with something that fixes a problem for you, then you realise your idea could help a lot more people and then you kind of leap, hoping it’ll work out,” Dansy says 

So far, they’ve repurposed 514,000 posts, saved 5,232 tonnes of chemically treated wood from landfill and helped build over 4,240 kilometres of fencing from their bases in Te Tauihu-o-te-waka Marlborough, Hawke’s Bay and Pahīatua, where Greg’s older brother and his wife, Nick and Lesley Coppell, farm. “We didn’t fully understand the waste solution for viticulture at the start. We were just trying to get affordable posts out there to more farming families. We’re grateful Stu Dudley, our business partner, came on board, because he was our connection into the wine industry. He was working for Villa Maria at the time, and they took a chance on us. We needed that first vineyard to work out how it was going to work. Now we are scaling up as quickly as we can to meet demand.”

In the past year, with Greg and Stu putting their focus more on their other ventures, Dansy has taken the lead with Repost. “I was busy raising two kids, helping keep the farm running, as well as doing the books and other bits and pieces for the building business. Then in September 2022, Greg and I went out for a date – which is quite rare for us. Greg started telling me all the things he was worried about with Repost. It triggered me like a spark. I told Greg, ‘I really want to get more involved – I’ve got some ideas that I think can make a difference.’” 

Dansy got to work, capitalising on skills she’d honed earlier in her career, by streamlining their paperwork, health and safety systems, online ordering process and roping in her sister, Gabby, to support with PR and marketing. She updated the Repost website, and put a greater emphasis on social media, reaching out to farming communities and generating sales through booking spots at Fieldays and applying for grants and awards to grow Repost’s profile. “I simply had momentum pushing me forward. It reignited the career I had before Dad got sick and before we started our family. It’s almost been quite fun to get that brain capacity working again. It’s a labour of love and that’s why it doesn’t feel like work. Even if you get tired, there’s an energy that’s instilled in you to just keep going. I’ve really honed my efficiency skills – while Bonnie is having her lunch nap or Greg gets back from the farm and the kids are in bed – to make decisions and debrief.” 

Through all the hard work and heartache, Dansy knows she and Greg have landed in the right place. “For us as a family, spending time at the farm is our happy place. It’s hard work running a farm, but we treasure the time just being together, having picnics, making bonfires, building forts or helping out on the farm. We’re creating amazing memories for our kids. As parents you want to give your kids the beautiful parts of your own childhood. Greg and I love that we can do that. It’s nice to take stock and know that I’m really happy and Greg’s really happy and the kids are thriving. It’s a lovely time in our life.”

Story written by Felicity Connell and photographed by Gabriel Bertogg for Shepherdess magazine. Shepherdess magazine was started around a kitchen table on a dairy and beef farm in the Horowhenua. We continue to come to you from this kitchen table, and from many other farms, home offices and lounges across provincial Aotearoa. The magazine is here to connect, empower and inspire women across rural New Zealand, by offering a place to tell stories of our rural communities. Find out more about Shepherdess here shepherdess.co.nz

Laura and Richard Morrison run The Gullies, a 250 hectare beef and sheep farm ten minutes out of Tūtaenui Marton, where they live with their two young sons – Fergus and Henry – dogs, cats, a hand-reared calf and a series of orphaned lambs. Laura believes art can lead the agricultural sector into robust but nuanced conversations – helping people tackle sensitive subjects and bridge the gap between agriculture and the rest of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Laura is a bit of a big-picture thinker. She sees connections where others wouldn’t and creates welcoming spaces that spark fresh thinking. About two years ago, Laura and Richard bought a 250 hectare block of land from Richard’s family, setting out on their own to run the farm they’ve named The Gullies. Home to Aotearoa New Zealand’s original Wiltshire flock and Burnbank Herefords, The Gullies work with ethical livestock genetics with a focus on meat production.

Having recently stepped down from her part-time role at Federated Farmers – “All irons are now in The Gullies’ fire,” smiles Laura – she is finding new and exciting ways to marry agriculture with art. Laura, 39, and Richard, 45, manage an Airbnb on the farm – known as The Cottage – and as part of The Gullies’ social commitment to giving back, Laura established The Gullies Arts Residency in 2022. An artist stays on farm at The Cottage for eight weeks during the residency, taking inspiration from the environment as they work. The concept is to “find that sweet spot between engaging with artists and giving them the space to share their ideas.”

At the end of 2023, Laura opened The Gullies Art Store, also in Marton. The former Victorian butcher’s shop provides a brick-and-mortar satellite for The Gullies, celebrating well-made things – art, good design and rich textiles. “It’s a real blend of old and new, just things that I hope work well together,” Laura says. Large framed photos of the farm greet visitors. “Straight away we can strike up a conversation. My personal crusade is seeing justice in the way that a public conversation is had around why farming is essential, why it matters and why we need to sustain it.”

Burn-out and exhaustion are real in the agricultural sector. Traditionally, farmers won’t speak up until their back is against the wall, Laura explains. But she’s keen to see them take inspiration from artists when it comes to transparent, proactive– sometimes awkward – conversations, saying, “Artists and makers are often able to navigate really sensitive topics, without thinking that it’s too emotional to talk about.” An open-studio day then brings the public through the farm gates, with the Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua Whanganui – which has shown unwavering support – hosting a public talk. The Gullies also commits to purchasing at least one artwork created by the artist inspired by their residency, and creates a limited-edition print run, with profits funding future residencies. A tree-planting ceremony at the end creates a living connection between the artist and The Gullies.

In 2022, The Gullies’ inaugural resident artist was Andrew McLeod, followed by Caroline McQuarrie in 2023. “Caroline and Andrew are just so articulate. They get the residency; they get farming. They engaged in farming practices and spent time with the animals. They spent time asking Richard questions and understanding genetics,” Laura says. “It’s just walking that path together and continuing to see that unlikely bedfellow relationship flourish.”

Andrew loved the farm, and Laura got a kick out of watching Andrew and Richard hang out, having long chats. Botanical, agrarian elements appeared in Andrew’s work. Observing the Morrison family running The Gullies inspired the themes of Andrew’s painting, Family Portrait. Taking artist-community connection to the next level, Andrew is now engaged to a local, and moved from Auckland to Whanganui to be with her. The couple is preparing for an April wedding. “It was just so cool to have him here,” says Laura. “A real honour.” Meanwhile, Caroline explored locally sourced wool and engaged with local weavers through Marton’s arts and crafts group. “It was a real joy to see her throw herself into life in the Rangitīkei,” smiles Laura. As a photographer and weaver, Laura says Caroline has “a really logical mind,” and quickly cottoned on to the mechanics of farm work. Family and friends visited each artist, broadening the Morrison family’s social circles. “The artists become part of your family, but they’ve got their own space,” Laura says. Laura believes the best artwork comes from artists who are prepared to put their vulnerability on the line, and she is determined to provide a safe space for her resident artists to do so. She has “zero interest” in educating people about art or agriculture. “I just want the two to meet, and let the sparks fly for themselves.

Leaning into vulnerability and sharing experiences has helped Laura through the toughest of times in her own life – she suffered two early miscarriages and the loss of a baby boy halfway through her pregnancy, five years ago. Time may help, but “you never get over it,” Laura says. “You just don’t. There’ll still be some days where I’m driving along, and all of a sudden, the little baby that I held– his image, his body, the sunrise that day, being in the ED when we lost him…These crystal-clear images race back. Now I don’t see it as overwhelming grief, just more like these next few minutes belong to him. That’s my time – a truly bittersweet little snatch of time. It’s so beautiful. I get to hang out with him for a few minutes while I’m crying, thinking of him, and remembering him. It’s deeply private and special. Sometimes I picture him hanging out with the boys, and then other times it’s as he was on that day.” Laura makes time for these moments. “You have to, or it will reach out for you. You can’t run away from yourself.” Navigating the road to acceptance requires the right tools, and Laura encourages women to seek them out. “It’s a path that needs to be trodden, ”she says. “It’s just part of my story now; it’s part of Richard’s story; it’s part of the boys’ story.” Integrating their experience of pregnancy loss into everyday life hasbeen empowering for the Morrison family. Laura treasures the people who don’t “scuttle away” when it comes up. “It takes a lot of bravery not to shy away from those hard conversations.”

And those hard conversations circle back to where art meets agriculture and the fiercely intelligent way everything connects in Laura’s mind. Previously, Laura saw farming The Gullies as Richard’s gig, while she juggled her Federated Farmers role with responsibilities at home. Now, thanks to good communication with Richard and the courage to listen to her inner voice, Laura has a clearer picture of what she and Richard want to achieve. “I feel more invested with the residency, The Cottage, the store, the marketing of the genetics and wanting to have those bigger conversations around ag. I feel like there’s more of a partnership now, on and off farm, which is gratifying.” Heart-led and family-driven, the future of The Gullies, and all who come into its orbit, is looking bright.

Laura spoke to Shepherdess last year about losing her son to miscarriage as part of our THREAD digital storytelling project. You can read her here.

Story written by Lauren Jackson and photographed by Michelle Porter for Shepherdess magazine. Shepherdess magazine was started around a kitchen table on a dairy and beef farm in the Horowhenua. We continue to come to you from this kitchen table, and from many other farms, home offices and lounges across provincial Aotearoa. The magazine is here to connect, empower and inspire women across rural New Zealand, by offering a place to tell stories of our rural communities. Find out more about Shepherdess here shepherdess.co.nz

The small Southland township of Manapōuri – population around 200 – has an unusual claim to fame: it has possibly the most bookshops per capita in Aotearoa, thanks to Ruth Shaw and her husband, Lance. However, following the publication of her memoir, The Bookseller at the End of the World, it’s Ruth and her incredible life who has become the main draw.

With their brightly painted exteriors and eclectic mix of books and knick-knacks, you can’t miss Ruth’s Two Wee Bookshops and The Snug. “I won’t let Lance use the word ‘famous’ because I’m not famous – I’m well-known,” Ruth laughs. “I’ve now got bus tours booking in, with forty people turning up at a time, which is absolutely crazy. The bookshops only fit five people at a time. We’ve had to put up a marquee so people have somewhere to wait.”

Now in her late 70s, Ruth acts – and feels – decades younger. Never one to be defined by convention, she has led a remarkable life, full of adventure and trauma, loss and incredible love. Trained as a nurse, she’s been a cook, an ocean-going sailor, a pig farmer, a social worker for sex workers and drug addicts in Sydney’s Kings Cross, and a Fiordland charter boat operator. For Ruth, there’s no room for what ifs – she has always been focused on what’s next.

Her quiet self-belief stems from her loving, but somewhat unconventional, childhood. Her father was an early entrepreneur, and the family was involved in his various ventures. He instilled in Ruth the belief that she could do anything, including getting herself out of difficult situations. “Dad always told me, ‘If you ever run out of money, you only have to look as far as your backyard, and you’ll find something you can do.’ And he was right. If something did go wrong, he would get cross, and then he’d say, ‘Well, just learn from it, Ruth.’”

Her memoir covers some confronting topics, including rape, the forced adoption of her first son, the death of her second son, domestic violence and her struggles with mental health. “I actually thought that there was already a lot written about that kind of trauma, and I didn’t think that the reaction would be so immense. I have boxes full of handwritten letters from elderly women who have never spoken about what happened to them, because it was all so secretive. Their letters bring me to tears. I’ve also had men tell me that reading the book has helped them better understand what the women in their lives have been through,” Ruth says.

“When I was writing the book, I thought that people would think, ‘What a bloody mess this woman is! When is she going to wake up and stop being such a drama queen?’ And that’s when the idea came of alternating the bookshop stories with my life story, for my reader’s mental health, and for mine too.”

Ruth says she didn’t write the book for money or notoriety. “I wrote it because Lance kept on saying, ‘You’ve got to write it, Ruth.’ I said, ‘Well, if I write it, it’s going to be everything. There’s going to be no secrets.’ That honesty was hard, because my family didn’t know about a lot of what went on. But I just get so much joy from the people that come and hug me and thank me. I end up crying every day. I’ve got a big box of tissues in the bookshop now, and Lance will come and say, ‘Love, you’re sitting here crying!’”

At the heart of the book is Ruth and Lance’s love story. They first met on Stewart Island in the early sixties. Lance was the best-looking guy on the island, according to Ruth. Ruth’s family were Catholic, and although Lance was prepared to convert for Ruth’s sake, the Church’s insistence that any children they had would have to be brought up in the Catholic faith went against his strongly held principles, and their engagement was called off. Both left the island, heartbroken.

In the mid-eighties, they reconnected in a typical New Zealand one-degree-of-separation story. After years of travelling around the Pacific and Australia, Ruth returned home to nurse her sister, Jill. Sharing a hospital ward with Jill was a friend of Lance’s. The two women made the connection and put Lance in touch with Ruth. He drove eight hours to see her again. “I knew as soon as I saw him that the love was still there,” Ruth says.

Nearly forty years later, they’ve now been together twice as long as they were apart. It hasn’t all been plain sailing. “Lance had a very rough experience with his previous marriage – his wife left him abruptly without an explanation. He knew things weren’t quite right with the marriage, but he didn’t know how to fix it,” Ruth explains. “A Dutch friend told me that their colloquial phrase for someone who has been in a previous relationship or divorced is ‘a licked-off sandwich.’ When we reconnected, I was a licked-off sandwich, and Lance was too! We thought that the love we had for each other would give us both everything we wanted. Even with that strong love, the first few years were very tough. But we knitted back together. We’re so different in many ways, but we now trust that our relationship is going to last. We sing the same songs and finish each other’s sentences.”

Manapōuri, too, has grown on her. “I didn’t know if I would be able to live in Manapōuri at first. I thought it would be too small and too conservative. I was surprised at how I settled. I absolutely love the nature and the peace here, and how every day the mountains and the lake are different. I love that I can just walk a hundred steps across the road and every time I see the lake, I’m grounded. I could not live without the bush and the birds now,” Ruth says.

“People ask me to write something in their copy of the book. Often, they tell me they have been through a hard time and at long last they’ve come out the other side. I write this for them: ‘In all of our lives we struggle. We stumble across rocks and stones and then suddenly our feet sink into soft, warm sand. And we know then that we’ve survived, and we’ve found courage. Sometimes we never think we have courage, but if we get bashed around enough and we can stand up and get bashed around and stand up, we know then that we’ve got courage, and we know that we can survive. And we know that we’re going to feel that soft, beautiful sand, and that is when we can get joy out of the small things.’”

*Ruth’s newest book, Bookshop Dogs, is out now from Allen & Unwin. Subscribe to Shepherdess’ Social Club.

Story written by Felicity Connell  and photographed by Francine Boer for Shepherdess magazine. Shepherdess magazine was started around a kitchen table on a dairy and beef farm in the Horowhenua. We continue to come to you from this kitchen table, and from many other farms, home offices and lounges across provincial Aotearoa. The magazine is here to connect, empower and inspire women across rural New Zealand, by offering a place to tell stories of our rural communities. Find out more about Shepherdess here shepherdess.co.nz

Karen McLeod, of Ngāi Te Rangi, was raised on a dairy farm, and it was to dairy that she returned sixteen years ago. But viticulture has always been her passion and, with the help of Rabobank, she and her husband have bought a vineyard in the Hawke’s Bay Bridge Pā Triangle – more than 300 kilometres from their Whakatāne farm. But with a bit of balance, the family makes both ventures work.

She shared her story with Shepherdess.

BOTH myself and my husband, Troy, grew up in Whakatāne but moved away to study and work in the cities. After we had our daughter, Ani, we moved back. She’s sixteen now. She was premature – I had her at twenty-eight weeks – so we knew we needed support and that I wasn’t going to be rushing back to work. That was why we came back and moved on to my parents’ dairy farm. We thought that lifestyle was a bit better for us.

We started by doing one year working on the farm – just to check that Troy was okay with the lifestyle. We went to sharemilking in our second season, and we’ve been milking ever since. We bought our own little dairy farm that joins onto the farm that we sharemilk on, which is my parents’ farm. We wanted to have a little bit of separation between our banking and their banking, so when we bought our herd, we banked with Rabobank. Cameron Peat was our agri manager back then. He’s now a dairy farmer himself!

Viticulture was always an interest of mine, and I did soil sciences for my undergrad at university. When I did my OE, that sort of piqued my interest in New Zealand wine because I saw New Zealand wines on the international stage in these amazing restaurants. So when I came back from London – I lived over there for nearly three years – I went and studied at Lincoln and did my postgrad in winemaking and viticulture. My long-term goal was always to get into the wine industry, but I knew that you had to have a bit of money behind you to do that.

The vineyard came about because – although I’m really busy at calving time on the farm – I’m not so busy in the off-season. I had the time to start looking at another venture. We’re interested in growing premium grapes – that’s where New Zealand excels. We wanted a high-quality grape-growing area, so it had to be in Hawke’s Bay. About the time we started looking, TK Vineyard popped up on the market. It was the perfect size for us and the perfect varieties, and it was in the Bridge Pā Triangle, which is one of New Zealand’s top premium wine-growing areas. It ticked all the boxes, apart from the location. It’s not close to where we live. But, if you want to grow premium, you have to be down there. That’s just the way it has to be.

They actually work quite well together, dairy and viticulture. Dairy is hugely busy through winter. July, August and September are our busiest months, when both Troy and I are seven days on farm. I just focus on doing the calves now – I’ve got myself out of the shed – and doing the admin side of the business. Once the calves are weaned, then I have a lot of time on my hands. The grape growing season starts in October, and you get really busy through the summer months. That works well for us because, by summer, both of us can be off farm.

We’re definitely based in Whakatāne. My daughter goes to high school here so we can’t go down to Hawke’s Bay too much – it’s a three- and three-quarter-hour drive. But once things start kicking off in the vineyard, we’ll go down every few weeks for a block of three or four days. Before Christmas, we go down and get a lot of the vine work done. My parents come down, my mother-in-law has been down and my nieces and nephews come down. It’s become a bit of a family tradition. We take a group down for harvest as well – that’s always a nice job.

Our goal is to buy the rest of the dairy land we farm but don’t currently own. We are constantly discussing these plans with our agri manager at Rabobank and they are helping us work towards this goal. It helps that Rabobank has a nationwide network of specialists and experts in agribusiness that are available to call on.

On a personal level, I am planning to step away from on-farm work and focus full time on the wine. During calf-rearing, from July to October, I still run the wine business as well as coaching netball and volleyball, and Troy runs a junior golf programme, so you could say we are juggling a lot of balls! My goal for the future is to focus more of my energy on growing premium grapes and producing the best wine possible.

More: Rabobank is a specialist agribusiness bank. Their team of agri managers supports hardworking clients like Karen with strong local knowledge and the latest food and agri insights from across the globe. Talk to a Rabobank agri manager today: rabobank.co.nz/banking

Story written as told to Sionainn Mentor-King  and photographed by Vivian Gehrmann for Shepherdess magazine. Shepherdess magazine was started around a kitchen table on a dairy and beef farm in the Horowhenua. We continue to come to you from this kitchen table, and from many other farms, home offices and lounges across provincial Aotearoa. The magazine is here to connect, empower and inspire women across rural New Zealand, by offering a place to tell stories of our rural communities. Find out more about Shepherdess here shepherdess.co.nz

In Focus Podcast: Full Show | 10 May

This week we chat with with Katrina Roberts, who is the new Dairy Woman of the Year. She’s a Waikato vet, working with dairy farmers to not only maintain cow health but also improve the efficiency of their farm systems. Katrina also has a background in research and is keen to show aspiring veterinarians that cattle beat cats hands down when it comes to job satisfaction.

Federated Farmers arable chair David Birkett joins us to talk about the arable industry awards, which are open to nominations now. As well as grower of the year awards for maize, cereal and seed there are also special awards recognising teams, environmental endeavours and agronomy.

And, senior reporter Hugh Stringleman wraps up the dairy commodity season for us, following this week’s GDT auction.

Growing up as one of five children on a calf-rearing farm in Muriwai, just off the west coast of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Emma Poole’s love for animals and the outdoors was instilled in her from a young age. Now, the twenty-eight-year-old farmer, vet and mum has made history, becoming the first woman ever to win the FMG Young Farmer of the Year competition in its fifty-five-year history.

At Massey University in Te Papa-i-Oea Palmerston North, Emma first fell in love with two things: the Young Farmers community and her husband, Chris. “I’d enrolled in an agricultural degree before I did a degree in veterinary science in 2014, and Chris and I were doing a paper together. He was the chairman of the Young Farmers Club at the time, and one day he asked me to come along, so I did,” Emma says. 

“After meeting heaps of like-minded people, I became pretty immersed in it all and ended up joining the committee. Then in 2017, our district didn’t have enough people competing for FMG Young Farmer of the Year and they suggested I go along to represent the club. I didn’t really think anything of it – I just thought I’d give it a go – but I ended up making it to regionals! I had no idea what I was in for, but I fell in love with the contest and all its quirks, and I thought it was just amazing. After that year, I knew I’d be back.”

Capturing true rural ingenuity since 1969, the FMG Young Farmer of the Year competition has become an established part of the farming calendar, now seeing up to 300 competitors across the country put their farming skills and knowledge to the ultimate test, vying for a place in the national Grand Final. This year was Emma’s third time going for the prestigious award – she also came in third place in 2019 – while last season it was her brother, Tim Dangen, who walked home with the trophy at the Grand Final, with her husband, Chris, in a close second place.

“I think the only difference between coming third and coming first was life experience. I’ve compared it to the movie Slumdog Millionaire where every time you’re answering one of the questions, a piece of experience comes back to you from some point in your life – so the greater the breadth of your experience, the more likely you are to be able to answer something. There was also a lot of preparation involved, including nighttime readings, listening to the country radio every day at 12 o’clock to keep up with current events, and lots of listening to podcasts while I was driving around in my vet ute or at home.”

Home for Emma is the small town of Pirongia in the Waikato, where she, Chris and their nineteen-month-old son, Beau, live on a rolling dairy farm underneath Mount Pirongia. They work as part of a team of eight, milking 1,100 cows across two different farms and rearing an additional 1,000 calves each year in equity partnership with Chris’s parents. “I think it’s a pretty special place to live because we’re always at the mercy of the mountain’s weather systems,” Emma says. “Quite often you’ll see the rainclouds come over and absolutely bucket down on the farm, but it’s always a gift when it comes because we’ll be getting rain when no one else will. So, while we’re at the mercy of her temper sometimes, I guess we’re also the beneficiary of some of those moods. I just love being able to look out the window and all I see is green. I think it’s really uplifting because what you see in front of you is the potential to create food, which is the core of what everyone needs in life.”

Growing her own food is something Emma has become increasingly good at, and when she married Chris in 2020, they grew their own vegetables and meat for their farm-style wedding. “I wouldn’t recommend it! I had Excel spreadsheets working out sowing dates and getting crops right, and it was a lot of effort.” Emma laughs, but it’s clear she’s not afraid of putting in the hard yards – if there’s one lesson she’s learned from her parents, Lyall and Robyn Dangen, it’s the value of hard work.

“Mum has worked as a nurse in a West Auckland hospital for around forty-one years. It’s a pretty incredible amount of service, but it more importantly reflects how hard she works, and I think we really learned that as kids. Then my dad has done everything he can to keep the farm going, and in those years when there was low farm income because of things out of our control, he diversified and found ways to make it work. Hard work was the biggest lesson they taught us, and also that family is at the core beyond all else.”

Being the middle child in a “chaotic family of seven” meant Emma’s childhood was never lacking in excitement. Growing up on her parent’s calf-rearing farm in Muriwai, she fondly recalls the times spent with her siblings, playing in the woolsheds and religiously attending the ag days and calf clubs. “They were always the biggest days of the year for our family, and because there’s a lot of years between the oldest and youngest of us kids, Mum and Dad went to twenty-six consecutive ag days without missing one! I think people were a bit sick of us by the end because we just knew what to do. Out of all of us kids, there’s only one boy and I was sort of the nominal younger ‘brother’ to Tim, which probably contributed to my skill set today. It was good fun, and I wouldn’t change anything for the world.”

Now as a parent herself, Emma hopes to demonstrate these same virtues to Beau, who is already showing signs of becoming a future Young Farmer. She smiles as she recalls his first word – “tractor!” – which may have stemmed from their early mornings outside together, feeding the calves and watching the machinery working across their land.

“What I really want to focus with Beau on is making sure Chris and I demonstrate to him what happiness looks like each and every day. There are a lot of things changing in the world, so I think it’s really important as parents that we role-model what happiness is. For us, we know that we love having jobs on the farm. It maintains our own happiness, and we reflect that back on Beau.”

It is through these teachings that Emma has earned the admiration of not only Beau, but the entire nation. Since becoming the 2023 FMG Young Farmer of the Year winner and taking home the $90,000 prize, she’s been overwhelmed with support from both urban and rural communities and is blazing a trail for women in the farming sector.

“I’ve certainly had a lot of young girls come up to me since winning and say, ‘This is pretty cool, what you’ve done and I’m going to give it a go because of that.’ I said going into the competition that even if I inspired just one other woman to get out there and showcase what she’s got, then it would be a win at the end of the day. This year, about thirty-three per cent of the contestants were female, which is a higher proportion than what we see of females in agriculture in general, so hopefully we can just keep building on that.”

More than 600 spectators poured into Winchester Showgrounds in South Canterbury to watch this year’s Grand Final, where the seven finalists showed off their smarts and stamina by lifting haybales, herding sheep and building fences, as well as working with tractors, quad bikes and practical tools.

“I suppose historically, you’d think that females might be better at the technical side of things, and the males better at the practical side, but they’ve gotten the contest to a place now where there is equal opportunity for anyone to display their skills in both of those areas. It’s not just about brute force anymore, it’s about figuring out a smart way to do things efficiently, which is what farming is all about. It’s so neat that they’ve encapsulated that in a contest.”

And now that the competition is over and Emma has stepped back into the ebb and flow of normal life, including working two days a week as a large-animal vet in Te Awamutu, she acknowledges that it’s not the end of her Young Farmers journey and there’s still plenty more to be done.

“I’m definitely not a celebrity on the farm. The animals don’t know who you are, and it doesn’t really matter to them. There’s still jobs to be done!” Emma laughs. “But my life has certainly changed in that it’s given me an audience and a platform to speak from. It gives you that sense of credibility, and when I’m having a discussion with someone and they remember, ‘Oh you’re that girl that won that thing,’ it helps build my confidence and gives me the chance to speak up and say what I think.”

More:  FMG is proud to support Emma and other hardworking, passionate farmers across Aotearoa with developing crucial on-farm skills and forging lasting connections in their communities. Registrations for season 56 of FMG Young Farmer of the Year are open now. Head to www.fmg.co.nz/youngfarmer to learn more.

Story written by Elise Cacace and photographed by Vivian Gehrmann for Shepherdess magazine. Shepherdess magazine was started around a kitchen table on a dairy and beef farm in the Horowhenua. We continue to come to you from this kitchen table, and from many other farms, home offices and lounges across provincial Aotearoa. The magazine is here to connect, empower and inspire women across rural New Zealand, by offering a place to tell stories of our rural communities. Find out more about Shepherdess here shepherdess.co.nz

Esther Kidd, 59, of Ngāti Porou, is the queen of the Waihōpai Invercargill woolshed. 

From developing a rapport with farmers, getting the shed ready for the day and teaching up-and-comers – all while managing her own work – she’s a self-described “hardcore person in a hardcore industry.” 

The 25-year veteran and Leading Charge Hand with Spain and Smith Shearing Contractors lays out what it takes to get through a day, and what keeps her going. 

She tells Shepherdess what a typical day is like for her in the woolshed.

4:30am. I get up early every morning so I can take my time to get ready and not forget anything at home. I get picked up by my bosses around 5am, we get to the yard around 5:15am and wait till everyone gets there and then we are all deployed across Southland. Sometimes people have a bloody good sleep in! Everyone has to be there at half-past-five because of the distance we have to travel. If they’re late, they’ve gotta buy a box of alcohol for the team after work.

7am – We try to get to the shed by at least 6:45am. I have to set up the shed for the rousies and other people check the gear so we can all start at the same time. They’re called wool technicians now. We work for two hours and then have a break. So nine o’clock smoko. There’s four runs. Half hour breaks for smoko; an hour for lunchtime. Three meals are supplied. Morning smoko could be something hot, like sausage rolls. Then lunch could be a roast. Afternoon could be something hot, or cakes or biscuits.

During the main shear you’re hardcore – you’ve got thousands of sheep. In winter it’s cold; you’ve got to work hard. Pre-lamb is by the weather. If you’ve got two good sunny days you might do 1000, maybe 1400-1500 in a day. In summer you’re sweating profusely. If it’s 28 degreesC outside, you can guarantee it’ll be 35 inside.

You get an adrenaline rush when it’s a hardcore day. I’ve got a big job – I cover the whole shed. Training people up on the job. 

My job is to prepare the clip for the farmer, to make sure people are doing what’s required of them. To keep the peace if there’s an outburst of anger or whatever. 

The most important thing people should learn is listening. 

When I’m training people on the job, I’m training over machine noise as well as the stereo. I practically have to yell. Learners – I put them right beside me. I’ve got to work, too. I’m not walking around, I’m working at the same time. And I’ve got to keep an eye on the bales, on the presser, on the number of sheep. It’s very exhausting, mentally as well as physically.

6:30pm. I get home and then I’ve gotta cook tea and do my washing and do the dishes. I’m the only one who works in overalls. Simplistic; doesn’t take long to throw in the dryer. I sit down and then I fall asleep. I should go straight to bed, but I sit down on the couch and try to unwind. And then my husband leaves me there! During the main shear I’m probably in bed by 8pm.

1am. I wake up and go to bed. Then I do it all again the next day – every day, every day, every day. What keeps me going in this industry is that I’m a Christian. God has kept me in the industry. Spain and Smith are such good people to work for. Very kind, compassionate and understanding of different peoples.

Story written as told to Claire Williamson and photographed by Francine Boer for Shepherdess magazine. Shepherdess magazine was started around a kitchen table on a dairy and beef farm in the Horowhenua. We continue to come to you from this kitchen table, and from many other farms, home offices and lounges across provincial Aotearoa. The magazine is here to connect, empower and inspire women across rural New Zealand, by offering a place to tell stories of our rural communities. Find out more about Shepherdess here shepherdess.co.nz

Jessica Clarke, 22, and Cecelia Blake, 23, are best friends and bull beef finishing specialists on Rangitaiki Station, a Pāmu farm, about 50km southeast of Taupō.

Still early in their farming careers, the two talk about what makes their friendship so special, and the story behind why cattle farmers might need to wrangle a sheep.

Jessica: I’ve been here at Rangitaiki nearly two years, and this was my first job out of uni. I’m from Taupō, born and bred. Cece got the job almost a year ago – she came up for the interview and spent a couple of days with me in my side-by-side around the farm. We’re literally the same person, it’s crazy.

Cecelia: Jess trained me up! It was her block that I took over when I started, because she had moved on to a bigger block. She spent a lot of time with me for that first month. I’m from the deep south – Riverton, in Southland. After twenty-one years down there I was looking for something different.

Jessica: We’re both block managers in our own right, so we pretty much work by ourselves but we do work in the yards together. We’re on the same team, so we help each other with yard work. I probably see her every day, to be honest, in passing or in the office.

Cecelia: I’ve always been rural. I grew up on a sheep farm and ended up working in dairy farming, milking in the morning and after school. Then I went full-time dairy farming for a couple of years. That lifestyle didn’t really work for me, so I went into sheep and beef down on a coastal farm. I absolutely loved the location, but the sheep aspect – not so much.

Jessica: I grew up on a lifestyle block with my parents, and my grandparents had a station out in Wairoa. So I didn’t have that much of a farming background, but I grew up around farms and always just helped out and loved it. Me and Cece always talk about it – I went to uni and did my bachelor of agricultural business, whereas she had the more practical background, going from farm to farm. So we both bounce off each other at work now, it’s so good.

Cecelia: I’ve got the practical and she’s got the theory. We learn off each other a lot, and it’s never like, “Oh, you’re dumb for not knowing that.” It’s supportive. I really value her honesty and her attitude. Like she’s always a go-getter and is so friggin’ reliable. If I need anything she’s just a phone call away. How many people are like that any more? She’s like the other half of my person.

Jessica: If I’m going away for the weekend and I want my dogs fed, Cece will just be like, “Sweet as!” And she’s a very honest person as well, she’ll say it how it is. I’m not afraid to ask her to do something for me because I know I’d do the same for her. We try to get off the farm, too. We play squash on Wednesdays.

Cecelia: We go to the pub; we’ve been mini golfing a couple of times. We went exploring to Jess’s parents’ place!

Jessica: Because we’re bull farmers, we’re only supposed to have cattle on our blocks, but some sheep got out on my block and they’d been out there for what looked like years. We had a free afternoon one Friday and I said, “Cece, shall we go try to catch these sheep?” They were woolly as. And Cece, she’s the sheep farmer, she was like, “We’ll get a crook and a dog and do it.” In the end we didn’t even need to hook them – Cece just ditches her quad and runs through the middle of the paddock and jumps on this sheep. She flips it over and hog ties it up with her dog’s collar! I was like, “Who is this person? And how does she know how to tie up a sheep!” And then she’s off getting another one. It was a great afternoon. We were sheep farmers for the afternoon.

Cecelia: It was the funniest thing ever, and we rocked back to one of the boys’ houses so they could shear them. One of the old shepherds came over and was like, “You guys caught these? And got them in the trailer?” I think when we say we’re bull farmers, that’s what gets people. A lot of the men are like, “Go girls!” and say we have more hair on our chests than the rest of them. And we love it. But it would be hard without each other.

Story written as told to Georgia Merton and photographed by Michelle Porter for Shepherdess magazine. Shepherdess magazine was started around a kitchen table on a dairy and beef farm in the Horowhenua. We continue to come to you from this kitchen table, and from many other farms, home offices and lounges across provincial Aotearoa. The magazine is here to connect, empower and inspire women across rural New Zealand, by offering a place to tell stories of our rural communities. Find out more about Shepherdess here shepherdess.co.nz

Hannah Vallance has an infectious passion for farming which has been nurtured and shaped by her family. Shepherding has taken Hannah from her upbringing in Puhoi, a small community 50 kilometres north of Auckland, to South Canterbury’s high country and beyond.

Now settled in the Wairarapa, Hannah is head shepherd at Bush Gully Station, and was recently named Wairarapa Shepherd of the Year.

“From the word ‘go’ farming has been it for me. Mum and Dad have always encouraged me to pursue my love for the outdoors. When I was little I would go to the saleyards with my dad, Brian Titford. He gave me a notebook and encouraged me to work within a budget to buy my own sheep. From about fourteen, I raised my own beef calves to sell on as weaners for extra pocket money. I also showed them and other young stock at the local Puhoi, Helensville and Warkworth A&P shows. It was a great way for me to learn responsibility and organisational skills, ” Hannah says.

“Caring for animals, learning to budget – those things were really instilled in me and my three siblings from a young age. Those animals were truly my responsibility. If I wanted to go to a friend’s house, I had to negotiate with my siblings to get them to feed them for me. We weren’t just given things. Our parents taught us from a young age that we had to work hard for what we wanted.”

Given her upbringing, it’s no surprise Hannah is the sixth generation of her family to care for the land. Hannah laughs as she explains her mother, Sheryll Titford, is “obsessed with genealogy” and has traced their family roots on both sides, some of which go all the way back to the small village of Dol in Croatia and Bohemia, in what’s now the Czech Republic. “Dad’s side of my family were Bohemians who made their way to New Zealand. They found themselves in Pūhoi, where my parents still farm today. The farm is only 500 acres, but it was enough to build my passion. Growing up I was always the first to put my hand up to go with Dad, no matter what we were doing. Actually, maybe not so much fencing! But I was keen for anything. I used to wag a bit of school when there were big things happening on the farm, like hay making or shearing. But lambing and docking was my favourite.”

Hannah, 26, met her now-husband, Callum, while studying a diploma in agriculture at the agricultural training centre in the Wairarapa. Studies completed, the couple’s shared love of agriculture took them to the South Island, where Hannah landed herself a job as a shepherd at Four Peaks Station in South Canterbury. After three years, they sold up their dogs and utes, and headed off on an eighteen-month stint across the United Kingdom, allowing their appetite for learning to lead them. A series of diverse jobs followed – working on a sheep and beef farm in the Scottish Highlands, indoor lambing and a contract pressing 300 tonnes of wool for a wool buyer.

“It was cool to compare New Zealand farming to overseas,” Hannah recalls. “When we got back to the Wairarapa, we found ourselves looking at how we farm and considering ways we could integrate what we’d learnt into how we do things at home. And now we have some awesome friends for life over there. Travelling is a must-do thing.”

Hannah had just moved in with Callum, who had just started a new job at Drumcairn in the Wairarapa, when the first Covid lockdown hit New Zealand. She rang around the area to find herself a job, and landed a shepherding gig at Bush Gully Station, a 1,400 hectare sheep and beef farm in Hinakura, near Martinborough, owned by brothers Matt and Dan Nicholson. “Matt and Dan are awesome supporters. Coming to a job without dogs isn’t ideal, but they helped me get a team going. They encourage a farm-life balance, though my idea of fun outside of farming is dog trials,” Hannah says.

The idea of entering Wairarapa Shepherd of the Year – an intensive competition that tests theory and practical skills – had been brewing in Hannah’s mind for two years. “One of my girlfriends finally convinced me to enter. I’d thought about it for so long but never fully committed – I would just hover over the submit button. This year my friend sent me the link and said, ‘C’mon Hannah, do it for the girls!’ She joked about shouting dinner and a beer if I won, so I ended up entering.”

The competition is based on the day-to-day tasks of being a shepherd. After applying, Hannah was interviewed by a panel of judges. From there the challenge is whittled down to four contestants, who compete over the course of a day on a series of different tasks like general knowledge, fencing and stockmanship. “I’m quite confident in my livestock handling, so with my daily work I felt well-equipped. For the general knowledge I read over the farming papers. But I did practise my fencing, as I knew that was my weak point. I probably talked too much to the judge during that section!”

In the competition’s ten-year history, Hannah is the first woman to win. “This year saw the most female shepherds ever enter. Three out of the top four were women, which was really cool.” And in April this year, as promised, Hannah was shouted her dinner and beer at the local pub in Gladstone.

Hannah has big goals. First, there’s the natural progression of moving from head shepherd to block or stock manager. “Day to day, I’ve taken on more of a leadership role – delegating jobs to our junior shepherd and casual workers as well as running the farm when the bosses are away. Both are new challenges, but I’m absolutely loving it.”

Further down the track, she wants to own her own sheep and beef farm with her husband, and also start a family. “People always say to us to go dairy farming: it’s where all the money is. But we aren’t about money at all, we’re about enjoying our lifestyle and caring for and working the land. Every day is different on a sheep and beef farm mustering, dagging sheep or lambing. There’s such a camaraderie in the sheep and beef industry, everyone pitching in to get things done. We love to take a weekend off and go fishing, or have a beer at the pub with friends.”

From a little girl at the saleyards, notebook in hand, to the hills of Wairarapa, Hannah’s clear on where she’s been and where she wants to go. “Tagging along with Dad to the saleyards, all the old fellas would say, ‘Where’s your son; which son is going take over the farm?’ And Dad would point to me and say, ‘There she is!’ There’s never been anything else I’m more passionate about than farming. It’s beautiful. Heartbreaking, too, but beautiful. I just love it.”

Story written by Jessica Dermody and photographed by Tess Charles for Shepherdess magazine. Shepherdess magazine was started around a kitchen table on a dairy and beef farm in the Horowhenua. We continue to come to you from this kitchen table, and from many other farms, home offices and lounges across provincial Aotearoa. The magazine is here to connect, empower and inspire women across rural New Zealand, by offering a place to tell stories of our rural communities. Find out more about Shepherdess here shepherdess.co.nz