Country Life

Helensville dairy farmers Scott and Sue Narbey have been adding up how much this year's drought has cost them.

The honey production season has been better this year, but there are still large numbers of beekeepers trying to get out of the industry because they are not making money. Chris Honnis is a small Waikato beekeeper who will stay in the industry he loves, but he says it is in the doldrums.

It's still horrifically dry in Southern Hawkes Bay and some Gisborne mandarins are being held on trees until demand picks up post lockdown, while in the South Island green kiwifruit are being harvested in Nelson, while Marlborough through to Northern Southland is desperately dry and supplements are hard to find and expensive.

Rob Lyons and Joe Swann are mechanical engineers from Ireland and Scotland, making Triumph motorbikes. While in NZ on a mountainbiking trip, they found themselves stuck here because of Covid-19. They have turned their hand to agricultural work, picking grapes and are now heading north to do kiwifruit. They've been living the country life with the river for a shower and a park in Masterton, their backyard.

Country Life has a bit of a dry programme today : there is the personal impact of the severe drought in Southern Hawkes Bay ... a convoy of trucks taking stock food from Wairarapa to Hawkes Bay, and a Helensville couple count the cost of the drought.

The Norsewood cemetery reveals a lot about the hardy Scandinavians who came to NZ in the 1870s. What they found here is far from what they were promised but many lived to a ripe old age despite the grim conditions.

SMASH has been set up to help dairy farmers, particularly those with smaller operations, run successful businesses.

Dayanne Almeida is a self-professed 'sheep nutter'. Since Country Life met Dayanne three years ago she has bought her own flock and has become entranced by deer.

Ni-vanuatu workers on an orchard in Central Otago are desperate to return home to help rebuild their villages after Cyclone Harold struck last month but Covid-19 has got in the way.

Hawkes Bay is in dire straits with a continuing drought, Northland which was in one of the worst droughts on record, has had rain. A parched Marlborough received rain last weekend and South Otago is looking a picture.