(COUNTRY MUSIC) (DOG BARKS) - (WHISTLES) - Always a favourite on every rural road ` Hyundai Country Calendar. (DOG BARKS) Two former vets return to the land. - It's my favourite place in the world. - Yeah, so we came back to farming, and I saw less of you, really, but, you know... (BOTH LAUGH) - And now they're selling their lamb's wool direct. - Beautiful New Zealand throws from wool from our farm. We really wanna take it overseas and show the rest of the world what New Zealand wool has to offer. Captions by Faith Hamblyn. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024. - Heel, Bandit! Heel, Rock! - It's docking time in Central Hawkes Bay. (WHISTLES) Lamb! Lamb, Rock! Lamb, Rock! (WHISTLES) - Kate and Jeremy Cullwick have returned to their farming roots to raise the next generation. - Way they go, Bandit! Stick up! Sheep! - (BARKS) - This sprawling hill block, named Tapahia, is Jeremy's family farm, which they've recently taken over. - Box it in! - (BARKS) - Stay on the netting, Bess! Stay. Just don't come right across, Jack. Right there. Easy. Slowly does it. Stay. Stay. Mum and Dad moved here in the mid-'70s. Had a great time growing up here. (SHEEP BAA, DOGS BARK) - We've got two kids. Oscar's 12 years old, and Bess is 10. (SHEEP BAA, DOGS BARK) - At docking time, everyone pitches in, including some ring-ins from next door, to help with the heavy lifting. - Bess! - Away we go. - This side, buddy. - That's it. Kate's putting a ring around the balls, turning them into cryptos, and I'm giving them a vaccination, uh, to prevent them getting scabby mouth. Oscar's earmarking them, so we can identify them from the neighbours' lambs, and Poura's doing the tails ` he's been doing that for many years, and Bess is spraying them with dip to prevent them from getting fly struck. - Jack's doing all the muscle work. - He's the heavy lifter. - Yeah. Doing great, Oscar. Good boy. Really good. It sounds a bit funny, but it's an awesome family day out, because everyone's learning the importance of hard work. Busy lives these days ` any time together is really, really good. And we just turn it into a fun family day, if you like, I guess. (SHEEP BAA) - But farming wasn't this couple's first career choice. Both spent many years working as vets. - The idea of being a vet appealed to me, and I love working with animals. I practised for 11 years and really enjoyed it. At the end of the day, the heartstrings were pulling to come back here. And Oscar. - My journey into vet was completely different, and I actually started later than he did ` before that, I was a travel agent. Whoo! Lucky last. We just happened to meet at a Sheep and Beef Conference, which is terribly romantic, um, but it certainly did the trick, didn't it? - It did. - Yeah, talking about drench and worms and things was just... - Yeah, happily ever after. - Yeah, absolutely. (SHEEP BAA) - But running their own farm was always back of mind, and the chance to go farming allowed them both to step away from the demanding requirements of being a vet. - We had two young children at the time and just feeling pulled in different directions, and my job as a vet, and that was all part of the decision to come back. - Yeah, so we came back to farming, and I saw less of you, really, but, you know... (BOTH LAUGH) - We were working for ourselves, more or less, though,... - Yes. Yeah. - ...which is the difference, I think. - They farm both sheep and beef, spread out over 740 hectares,... and they're in the early days of building their Angus beef stud. - It's rolling country, it moves a lot ` it's not suited to cropping or intensive farming. We find that the breeding operation suits us best. - In a tough spring, feed is prioritised for the mothers and new calves, which means Jeremy is often shifting breaks to ration the grass. - We've got, uh, 22 Angus commercial heifers here that we're break-feeding behind the wire. They're calving at the moment, so once they've calved, we shed them over the wire to the good feed. Winter's been tough, and winter feed's been at a bit of a premium, so we rationalise the feed, and once they've calved, they go on to the good stuff. - But along with raising beef cattle, they have a passion for identifying the best stock to breed from. Kate's parents used to run an Angus stud near Gisborne, and now, Kate and Jeremy are continuing to breed the renowned line here, in Central Hawkes Bay. - We're running 130 Angus cows here, of which 60 are registered Angus cows. We purchased those from Kate's parents, Pat and Evan Watson, at Waimata Angus. They retired, and we had the opportunity to buy some fantastic, pure New Zealand Angus genetics. So, we've just had a, uh, new calf born overnight to a stud heifer, so just gonna go in and get a birth weight on it ` zero it down. - On a stud farm, recording each calf against the correct mother and logging its birth weight is critical to the breeding programme, and the sooner it's done, the better. - So, there's the newborn calf, just out to the right of the rush, on the other side of the dam, there. You do have to do it within the first 12 hours, preferably, and certainly the first 24 hours. After that, the calf starts to get pretty mobile, and you can't catch it and weigh it. Tagging or marking the calf at birth, it's pretty simple here ` we go up and capture the calf,... (COW MOOS) 44 kilos. ...identify its mother, write down its weight, and then we have the animal recorded. There you are, U-10, nice bull calf, 44 kilos. (GRUNTS) Trying to keep it as stress-free for the calf and mum as possible, so we get the calf weighed and back on Mum soon as we can. (QUAD BIKE ENGINE IDLES) Once we've got a group of cows and calves, that we've tagged, in a calving mob and doing well after their first week, we'll shed them off further out on to the farm, on to some good grass. We are looking to sell sire bulls to commercial farmers, so that's an exciting new development. And both Kate and I are really loving the stud Angus cattle. - Do you wanna bring them up? - Can you get the gate? - It's certainly adding another dimension to farming, isn't it? Like, you know, it's a really exciting time for us. We're really, yeah, passionate, and it really gets you going, eh ` it's really, really fantastic. - And while this is Jeremy's home turf, they've recently taken over Kate's family farm up in Gisborne, which they manage remotely, alongside their Central Hawkes Bay farm. But their East Coast dream took an unforeseen turn when, just weeks after they took over, Cyclone Gabrielle struck. - It was devastating to see. Absolutely. I mean, where we're standing now, we would be underwater. And it was just an absolute torrent through here. Just horrific. (GENTLE MUSIC) Kate and Jeremy Cullwick are both born and bred on East Coast farms. While they now live on Jeremy's family block in Central Hawkes Bay, they also run Kate's family farm, 350km away, near Gisborne. - Turangawaewae, definitely, it's a place that belongs to my heart, um, and, um, I do get... quite the emotional feeling coming back here, every time now. It's very, very special. - Running both operations means they often make an 11-hour return trip to check in with their manager, Shane Hawkins. - How they looking, Shane? - They're looking pretty good mate. - Yeah? - Yeah, they're all strong and healthy, eh. - Oh good. - Most of them are calving now. - Shane is our mainstay. He knows the place better than we do now, and it's been incredible having him here. We're able to manage it from a distance ` we wouldn't be able to do it without him and his team. - Kate's family has deep connections here, including a family cemetary that dates back to the 19th century. - It's my mother's family who settled here, so that's 1887, and I'm only fourth generation. There were a lot of children, and there's some big families, and, yes, this is very special. Might pay to tidy it up a bit, Mum. - Yeah. Thank you. - That connection's even stronger, isn't it, when you've got ancestors buried in the earth, and you've got this very sacred little place here, uh, that we tend to as much as we can. That's looking better. - That looks much better, yeah. - When the opportunity came, Kate took on the lease of the farm, to preserve the family heritage. But in 2023, just two weeks after handover, the farm was hit by Cyclone Gabrielle. - Oh, absolutely shocking. Completely. It was devastating to see, you know, from what it was formerly, prior to the cyclone ` absolutely. - Yeah. - Yeah, I mean, where we're standing now, we would be underwater. Um, and it was just an absolute torrent through here. - Yeah. - Just horrific. - I think probably the second time we visited was harder ` um, it sort of sank in that it's not going away any time soon. And I literally, um... It hurts... in the gut, you know ` really is physical hurt. Um, yeah. - Lot worse than what it was after Hale. - Well, yeah, a bit bigger. - Silt. - Oh my gosh. - Silt in the woolshed. It's crazy. - It's a shame to completely write it off ` I'm sure we've got timber in here which is just beautiful timber that can be reused in some way ` but as a woolshed, no, no longer. - Essentially, with all the damage here, there's no future to have any infrastructure in this flood zone any more, so we've gotta relocate everything up to higher ground. Um, and that's gonna take time and money, and we're working through that at the moment. Yeah, it's hard to believe silt came over the board in here. It's been an incredibly wet year. I mean, Gabrielle was a significant event, but the rain hasn't really stopped for six months afterwards. And, you know, Shane and the team, they've had to work through this, and it's hard yakka, when it's just raining every day, and you're knee-deep in mud, so it's tough. - Back in Central Hawkes Bay, Kate and Jeremy regularly donate produce from the farm to the local food bank, via a charity called Meat The Need. - A few years ago, I became involved with Meat The Need, and there's a whole lot of us around New Zealand that are ambassadors, and we help meet the need in our local regions and just try to spread awareness and delivering the protein to the food bank. - Hello. - Morena, ladies. - Morena, Kate. How are you? - Yeah, good, thank you. How are you? - Good. - Busy. - More Meet The Need. - As always, yes. We've got two boxes for you today. - BOTH: Oh. - Farmers don't actually have to do much at all. It's basically a conversation with their stock agent. You're sending off your lambs; you say, 'Right, I want one lamb to go to Meat The Need,' and they do the rest. And the works then organise that to be packed, and Meat The Need distributes to the local food bank. Jackie, Donna and a wonderful group of volunteers, they're doing the packing, they communicate with the organisations and the supermarkets and with the actual people in need and facilitate it all. - People are really struggling at the moment, and it's, you know, people who are working families, people who are on even... We're getting a whole new, um, cohort of people, if you like. People are really finding it tough. - But it does vary. So, some days, it can be five to eight; other days, up to 12 ` yeah, so it does vary every day. We don't know exactly how many we're gonna have. - I have a very simple philosophy ` we can, so I do it. And somebody needs to do it, and I'm really passionate about helping people, that, I feel very, very lucky in my life, and I really wanna help those people that haven't had the same chances as I have ` it's as simple as that. - Right, so, this family's all done. - Yeah, cool. - And there's another job that often brings Kate into Waipukurau. Four years ago, she embarked on a new business venture with her Auckland-based sister, Prue ` an online homeware company called Foxtrot Home. - Prue and I always wanted to start a business together. She was working in Auckland in marketing, and I was a stay-at-home mum just wanting something a bit extra. So we looked at doing something small, and we're both very passionate about homewares. Actually, I think it was quite ahead. Oh, no, that was good. - Oh, yeah, yesterday was all right. - Yeah. One of the things that we were looking at were linen tablecloths, and, actually, the supplier sent us a duvet, instead of a tablecloth. And we thought, 'Wow, 'this is just amazing quality, and maybe there's something in this.' So we decided to buy a little bit of stock and just see how it went, and the sales picked up quite quickly, so, yeah, we thought we were on to a winner. - We just started on Trade Me, and it very, very quickly grew. Within a couple of months, we could see we needed a website, and the rest is history. I've got these ones. - Yep. - Let's put them out together and see what they all look like in a row, because that will fit in there. - Yeah. The linen that we buy is all made to order. Kate and I choose a lot of our own colours, and then we will research to find the correct pantone, and then we'll get that dyed and made into duvets and sheets and everything for us. - Yeah, no. - Oh, my gosh, that's gonna be great. Isn't that great? - Yeah, it's beautiful. - Oh, yeah, I love that combo. - The business has grown so fast, they now have two warehouses in Auckland and a distribution centre and showroom in Waipukurau. - Wow. - Yeah, that's nice. - Yeah. - Yeah. Would that be good, that one? - Absolutely, yeah. This is what we do, you see, so you can see these together. - Oh nice. Yeah. - It's very striking. - That's cool. - Yeah. You used to say blue and green would never be seen, but we completely throw that out the window. And you can see that. - I absolutely love Foxtrot Home. First and foremost, I get to work with my sister every day, which has just been an absolute dream, to be honest. Mm-hm. - Raised ` just evenly spaced, but a little bit raised. - Yeah. I think being able to work together but be geographically separate has actually helped us to be able to develop a really good business relationship. - BOTH: Yeah. - And the linen business is expanding with a new product originating much closer to home. (GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC) Kate and Jeremy Cullwick run an extensive sheep and beef operation in Central Hawkes Bay. And they've passionate about protecting the existing native stands on the farm. In a remote gully, they've fenced off 12 hectares of scattered native bush, which they're expanding with new planting. It's now protected by a QEII covenant. - It's been a collaborative project, through the Porongahau Catchment Group, as well as the Hawke's Bay Regional Council. - And leading the planting team is local contractor Ben Williams. - What do you want to take, Ben? - Well, we'll we take these. - Ben's been fantastic. He's done a lot of work over the years. And we let him take the lead there. It was quite a challenge for them, but they got the job done. - A heck of a lot quicker than if we'd done it. - Yeah, no, we couldn't have done it ourselves, that's for sure. - (LAUGHS) - But the family's taken the lead on one part of the farm. They're planting a favourite picnic spot themselves. Jeremy used to play here as a child. - It's always been a special area, even growing up here, that we considered to be a neat spot, with my parents and sisters. How's your hole digging going? Great. We'll put this five finger in here. - I like the waterfall, because it's fresh water, and, yeah, it's just amazing how it's natural like that. - And it's a good place to be with your family. (GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC) - Mid-December is shearing time. The new season's lambs have been weaned and are unrecognisable from three months earlier. And now they're due for their first shear ` right on Christmas. - (WHISTLES) - (DOG BARKS) - This is the busy time of the year for us on sheep and beef farms. And to be honest, I wish Christmas was in the middle of winter, really, because we've got all this work to do, and everyone seems to try and get it done by Christmas Day. (WHISTLES) - (DOG BARKS, SHEEP BAA) - We're mustering in 3500 lambs for shearing over the next few days, bringing a cut each day. (WHISTLES) - (DOG BARKS) - It's always challenging, mustering newly weaned lambs back in for shearing ` they give you the runaround a bit, and the dogs are pretty tuckered out at the end of the day. They spook easily. So you think you've got them nailed and they're gonna smoke through a gate, and they get right up to it, and then they decide at the last minute, 'No, that's not for us.' Or they hear some noise or a ghost and run back at you. No. Heel, Bandit. Hee, Bandit. Heel, Bandit! - Up at the yards, the lambs are held off grass to keep the wool clean. Then they're brought upstairs to the shearing pens in small mobs, as the shearers get through them. But this is the first time they've ever been in a shed, and the mob needs some encouraging to climb the ramp and fill the pens. - The lambs are a little bit wary when they come into the shed for the first time, particularly once they step on to the grating, they're always spooking at what's underneath. But they get used to it pretty quickly and settle in, and they're pretty comfortable. They are a bit smaller, so they're easier to manipulate, and the lambs are not too stressed. The Romney's a pretty relaxed, laid-back sheep most of the time. - Kate has a special interest in this lamb's wool ` she and her sister, Prue, have worked it into the product line for their homeware business, Foxtrot Home. - During Covid, I happened to stumble across some information online about wool being made into blankets in New Zealand, and it was just this massive eureka moment. And very quickly, obviously, that evolved into the idea of taking wool from our farm and checking which wool we could use. - So, the lambs' wool's finer wool to the ewes' wool. The lambs' is 29 to 30 micron, depending on how well they've been fed during the spring, and ewes' wool's 37 to 39 on our Romneys. The lamb's wool's beautifully soft and, yeah, really nice and lovely to handle. - Beautiful staple length there. - Probably close to 10cm. - Yeah. We scour it locally, and then it goes to Wellington, to get dyed and spun into yarn. And from there it goes to Auckland, to be knitted into our blankets and throws, and then it comes back here to be dispatched at the end of that chain. All right, we can flip it over. - Yip. - Yeah. OK. Think it's looking great. Awesome. We're excited about the future. We've got a lot of great ideas, regarding wool and where to take it to. We really wanna take it overseas and show the rest of the world what, uh, New Zealand wool has to offer. - It's absolutely outstanding, to be able to sell our lamb's wool to Kate's business and have it made into these cool blankets. It gives me a huge amount of satisfaction to be able to pick up one of her blankets and know that it came from our farm. - I've been really fortunate, uh, that I've been able to help out this winter when in lambing, and now seeing them shorn and watching that wool, and knowing that it's gonna end up in the blankets and be sent to all around the world ` there's no words to describe that. It's natural, it's beautiful, and we're really extremely proud. (GENTLE MUSIC) (SHEEP BAA) - Next time ` he's a latecomer to the land. - Farming's complicated. You've gotta keep an eye on the environment, that you're not doing any harm there, but also run a profitable business, and also enjoy what you're doing. - It's a challenge he thrives on. - It takes quite a bit to bring all those different aspects in together, but that's the bit I really enjoy. - That's next time on Hyundai Country Calendar.