Country Life

Dozens of curly haired kids browse under the watchful eyes of their nannies at Joseph Burstons' Angora goat farm in North Canterbury. Dairy farmer George Moss used to be a climate change skeptic, now he's a climate change ambassador the the dairy industry. In Taupo, Marty Hubbard used to grow thousands of lettuces - they rotted during the first lockdown when markets dried up overnight.

A new training programme is being rolled out for shearers, pressers and wool handlers.

An exquisite palate of seasonal colour covers Birch Hill Flower Farm in North Canterbury. Nicky Paul grows an array of spray-free flowers to sell at her local market.

Harry Millar is a catchment farm advisor for the Hurunui District Landcare Group. He provides support and expertise to farmers to understand and develop farm environment plans and meet their evolving regulatory requirements.

Nets are going on in a Hawke's Bay vineyard. Grapes are at or just past the veraison stage. In Canterbury there are large areas of grass seed crops cut waiting for warm dry weather for harvesting.

Would-be shearers are seeing if they can fill up the comb and cut down the number of blows it takes to shear a sheep. We meet a catchment farm advisor for The Hurunui District Landcare Group and Nicky Paul is in her second season of producing of spray fee cut-flowers at the Birch Hill Flower Farm. She also runs workshops and garden tours at the North Canterbury property.

Transforming an old limestone quarry into a vineyard has been a labour of love for Marcel Giesen and Sherwyn Veldhuizen. Their viticultural journey at the site near Waikairi in North Canterbury began in 1997 and now, several blocks of grapevines grow with little intervention on the surrounding slopes.

Christmas is the season of traditions and for many people one of those is to collect a Christmas tree to decorate their home over the festive season. It may be a branch of pohutukawa, a pine tree in the flush of growth or spruces and cypresses trimmed to perfection. At a Christmas tree farm on the outskirts of Greytown, 14 varieties have been grown from North American spruce to a special Korean variety.

Teemu Kinnari is the 14th generation to toil on the family farm. It has been in the family since 1667.

Manawatu and Rangitikei farmers will spend much of summer cleaning up the mess after this week's flooding, and in the south, boysenberry crops have suffered in the wet.