Country Life

Steve Moffatt's parents were the first commercial rose growers in New Zealand, starting in 1949. Business has blossomed since Steve joined in 1972, and now they're cutting more than 3 million stems a year.

in April, hundreds of hectares of farmland were underwater and thousands of cows were trucked to other regions. Country Life discovers many farmers are still picking up the pieces.

Meet Sister Christine Henry. She is a Brisbane nun and registered nurse who has spent the past 10 years travelling more than 950,000 kilometres to help families in the bush.

Most of the North Island hoped in vain for passing thunder storms to drop rain this week, but only Gisborne, parts of Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa were lucky. In the South Island rain did fall in Canterbury but for many it was too little too late. Even the West Coast held a pre-drought meeting this week.

Inundated and Indisposed: A Story of Flood Recover Part One, Inundated and Indisposed: A Story of Flood Recover Part Two, La Vie en Rose, On the road with Sister Christine and the Regional Wrap.

Allan and Phil Oldfield are professional blade shearers from Geraldine. Shearing has taken Allan around the world in the past year. While shearing a mob of finn-cross sheep at Russell Brodie's farm at Rangitata in South Canterbury, they enlighten Cosmo Kentish-Barnes about the art of shearing with giant scissors.

Clive Thompson's foray into mushroom growing started when he was at school. More than 50 years later he is still at it and now picks seven tonnes of mushrooms a week from his growing sheds near Carterton in Wairarapa. He specialises in brown button and brown flat mushrooms. Clive will be looking forward to his one day off soon; his mushrooms are picked every day of the year apart from Christmas day.

The Forest Owners Association says there are terrific opportunities for farmers to get into forestry now the government's announced an ambitious scheme to plant an extra billion trees in the next decade.

The East Coast's been warm with no wind which farmers have loved but they're all mindful it's getting dry. That's not reflected in sale yard prices yet however, the store market for lambs and cattle is strong. The top of the South Island is very dry. Farmers are flat out weaning lambs and trading cattle are going to the works as everyone gets down to capital stock.

John Grether grows 400 hectares of mandarins, lemons and avocados in California's Ventura County. For the time being his orchard is safe from the raging wild fires but some of the people he works with have lost their homes.