Country Life

Mild, calm weather has been good for vegetable crops in the Pukekohe district and in Otago, electric pruners are chopping through the work in apricot orchards.

The chair of Deer Industry New Zealand, Andy MacFarlane, says deer farmers have a spring in their step because of strong venison prices, expanding markets and good, stable returns for velvet.

Double Dutch, Coming of Age - Big River turns 20, A View from Above, Deer Diary and the Regional Wrap.

Kurow stock agent Madison Taylor, crayfisherman Dennis Burkhart and farming on Motutapu Island.

Motutapu Island in the Hauraki Gulf is pest-free DOC-owned land and home to brown kiwi, saddlebacks and takahe – but the main activity comes from a commercial beef farm.

As a child, Dennis Burkhart pulled up crayfish pots by hand with his brother Trevor. In 1975, the pair bought a small processing factory and now their company is of NZ's leading exporters of live crayfish to China.

On Central North island hill country farms second shearing continues and farmers are cracking on with maintenance. In Canterbury large numbers of dairy cows have moved from dairy farms to support blocks and runoffs.

Kurow stock agent Madison Taylor is the Heartland Bank Young Auctioneer of the Year and has competed as a bareback rider in an annual Trans-Tasman rodeo challenge.

In order to control rats, stoats, possums and feral cats on Banks Peninsula, ecologist Alison Evans has started a library in Little River that loans traps and cages to locals free of charge. She also runs a pest control programme in the Okuti Valley Scenic Reserve, a rare remnant of Podocarp forest that is home to nesting morepork.

Jan McIntyre is a former dairy farmer turned blueberry grower who lives between Morrinsville and Matamata in Waikato. She teamed up with jersey farmers from down the road and now uses their cream to make artisan ice-cream.