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Coolest trailer carrying seedlings poised for planting.

As the farmer set off to work with four professional tree planters, I thought about the behind-the-scenes effort that’s often required to produce results.

Years of grit, guts, luck, courage, team work and a heap of money was behind our thrilling America’s Cup win. On average, each race took a few minutes short of 25. I’ll set the average at 20 which is perhaps a tad low, but remember nose-dive day? It counted but we didn’t cross the start line.

Our fast and, as it turns out, frail Aotearoa set sail 33 times – 10 in the Louis Vuitton Round Robins, seven a piece in the semis and finals and nine nail-biters against Oracle. This multiplies tidily to 660 minutes or just 11 hours of racing after an investment of gazillions of dollars and labour hours.

Now let’s look at the Melbourne Cup. In 1990, Kingston Rule finished in a record three minutes, 16 and a half seconds. Even the slowest time is less than four minutes. Vast amounts of skill, work, luck and money got those horses to the starting line – then finish line first.

Now to tree planting, less sexy but ain’t that life. No shiny silver cups, no roaring crowds or pots of prize money.

To have professional tree planters rock up, as if by magic, and plant 1000 baby native trees in two hours on the shore of the Kaipara Harbour has taken years of work by man with a mission Mark Vincent, countless volunteers and the farmer who’s fenced the shoreline, bought trees, divided flaxes, planted, planted and planted – and got involved with Otamatea HarbourCare.

It’s the brain child of Mark Vincent who’s created a native plant nursery, acquired seeds and seedlings and all they require to grow, nurtured them, got sponsorship, organised working bees and planting days, inspired celebrities to get on the end of spades (Te Radar, Paul Henry and our Kaipara mayor), delivered trees to planting sites, dug too many holes and done too much more to list here.

All this earned Otamatea HarbourCare the credibility to get funding for professional tree planters. They came courtesy of Reconnecting Northland and its Go with the Flow: Northern Kaipara Harbour Project.

Reconnecting Northland is the first WWF-NZ and NZ Landcare Trust project of its type and is designed to restore “natural processes and ecosystems”, while Go with the Flow is about restoration and working with landowners.

And there we were last Thursday with potted plants jam-packed on the oldest and coolest trailer I’ve ever met. Odd fact that relates to this yarn – the farmer bought it from the second female to ride in the Melbourne Cup, Linda Ballantyne, who used to live nearby.

In just two hours the four guys planted 1000 plants. Snap! Job done! But mostly tree planting is DIY and not quite so speedy. On Wednesday 16 August we’re having a planting day here at Batley and need new blood in our team, even if just for this project. You needn’t dig holes. That’s the domain of strong blokes. I generally follow along and pop in trees. Easy.

Beforehand you’ll have morning tea and learn about our 150-year-old house at Batley on the Kaipara Harbour near Maungaturoto and afterwards we’ll gather for lunch. Please say yes.

The harbour needs you, you’ll help our beleaguered planet and make a positive difference. Questions are welcome and RSVP is essential. Please message the Otamatea HarbourCare Society’s Facebook page.

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Spark staff, from left, Rachita Dahama and Gurpreet Jaura planting the coastline at Batley on the Kaipara Harbour.

People power to plant the edge of the largest harbour in the southern hemisphere is being provided gratis by one of our country’s largest companies.

Spark NZ, through its charitable arm the Spark Foundation, enables its staff to spend a day a year contributing to a worthy cause. Last week, 11 Spark people turned their attention to waterfront land at our place where hundreds of native saplings sat ready to be planted.

Mark Vincent, the initiator of Otamatea HarbourCare, which has a goal of planting many kilometres of harbour waterways, had grown them in his nursery with the help of volunteers. The week before Mark had attended another planting day, this one with children from diverse backgrounds. Although they were horticulture students, they turned up in school uniforms. No gumboots in sight.

We were luckier, despite many of our guests having begun life in other countries – or their parents had. Most were quietly spoken, making communication a test; when a young man waved a paper cup and said ‘Rubbish bin’, I thought he said ‘Aspirin’ and offered him a Panadol. We worked it out.

We also struck luck with the weather. Friday dawned still, clear and beautiful. Our guests arrived when the tide was in and began taking photos of our calm and glittering Kaipara Harbour.

While eating pikelets and muffins (cooked by the farmer’s mother), we introduced them to the place – they were beside the Otamatea River, the central arm of the harbour and in a house that began life in 1866. And that’s one reason Mark chose Batley for the first Spark Foundation day – we’re on the waterfront and the house and area abound with wondrous stories. The first settlers, for example, had seven daughters but only one reached adulthood. Twins were still born, three girls drowned and another died of pneumonia and is buried on the hill behind our house.

After planting, we served lunch to our rather exhausted guests. Practice has taught us that soup is the answer when feeding a large or unknown number of people. It can be eaten standing up if necessary and can cater for all diets. We served pea and ham, seafood chowder and Thai pumpkin.

While we were from different worlds, we women bonded over the pumpkin soup. It’s simple and delicious. First, split your pumpkin. This doesn’t need a knife or the slightest effort. Drop your pumpkin, with force, on a hard surface like your concrete drive or path. It will break in two, easing the business of cutting it into pieces.

Already another batch of pea and ham soup is in the freezer and I’m primed to crack another pumpkin on our concrete courtyard. Our second group of Spark volunteers is due soon.

Margaret’s Thai Pumpkin Soup

(I name recipes after those who give them to me – our visitors took away a recipe for Rae’s Thai Pumpkin Soup.)

1.5 kg pumpkin (I bake the pieces, cool then peel them).
2 onions, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
4 cups chicken stock (use vegetable stock to cater for vegetarians)
1 Tb red curry paste (Gregg’s is good and the only one I use)

Simmer the lot, whizz till creamy then add a can of coconut cream. It is especially lovely with coriander sprinkled atop its surface.

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Photo by Geoff Walker

Dear Readers,

I can hardly believe it, but I’m having to backtrack on a bold declaration made in a previous column. Early this year I declared full of certainty that while Jas the puppy could bark and jump and beg, she would never, ever make me play. I backed up this emphatic statement by saying that I’m 13 years old, which puts me in my 70s in dog years, well past the time of playing just for fun.

Obviously I jump up and down with excitement when it’s food time, when my boss gets home, when my boss takes me for a walk or when I find her in the garden. But these situations don’t qualify as playing.

Playing is what Jas the puppy does. It involves jumping, spinning and dancing for no reason whatsoever. Why, I used to wonder, does Jas think dropping into what you humans call the ‘soliciting play’ position will make me play? Just in case you’re not clear, soliciting play when done by dogs involves poking the front legs forward, dropping the chest on the ground (which happens when the front legs are thrust forward) and poking one’s backside in the air

This ingratiating position also involves vigorous tail wagging, although this barely rates a mention as vigorous tail wagging is automatic for dogs when we’re pleased. On the odd occasion I’ve felt pleased and have tried not to wag my tail, it’s been an epic fail. That tail of mine has a mind of its own.

Anyway, on the fated day when I played for no reason whatsoever, I’d followed my boss Rae into the paddock when she went to give the horse a snack. Already, I was acting strangely because I often only follow her part way to the horse.

You can’t kid me that this counts as a walk. A walk is when she devotes her attention to me and I follow her. Walks are mostly along the beach and moving bulls. They used to include paddocks, but I’m now suspicious when she goes into the big paddock by the house because she might just be going to visit or catch the horse. Last week, I was suspicious as usual, then I realised my boss was off to gather mushrooms. I had to run to catch up.

Anyway, on this day she’d fed the horse and was walking home when this unearthly desire to play overcame me. It was as if I’d been taken over by the character of Jas the puppy who was standing nearby. I jumped, I lunged, I spun around and I dropped into that ingratiating solicit play position and begged my boss to play. She grinned and I thought she was going to laugh at me but she jumped and frisked and lunged and ruffled by furry neck and together we played in the paddock. Golly, it was fun.

For once Jas didn’t play at all. This silly and thrilling moment was just for me and my boss. Then the feeling passed and even though my boss patted me on the head and told me she loved me, it hasn’t happened since.

It was, I’ve decided, a moment that may never be repeated. Note my use of the word ‘may’. Once I’d have said never but now I’ve learned never to say never. Oh, perhaps I’ll amend that because I know myself too well – I’ve learned almost never to say never.

Your friend, Floss.

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Special notebook – made with love and Batley House skirting board

It was surely a world first. A bloke who contacted me to buy a copy of my book asked for a hunk of the house as well.

“Sure,” I replied. “I’ll see what I can find.” Dave suggested weather board, but a scavenge in the wood heap in the back paddock turned up something I thought would be even better. As I inspected the piece of skirting from the bathroom, back when it was white and that old-fashioned pale green, I wished for the creativity to do something clever with it. A small hole added to its rustic charm. The farmer says it accommodated a water pipe.

I posted it with a copy of ‘Love at the End of the Road’ and, soon afterwards, Dave reported that the gift had been a success. He knew this because when Vicky received my book and the notebook he’d made using the wood as a cover, she was overcome with emotion. The reason for her tears – Vicky lived here in the 1960s and 70s when children from families in strife stayed at Batley House which had started its life a century earlier as a home, boarding house and store.

A few weeks later, Dave, Vicky and her sister Michele visited. Twice they’d been to Batley, but had been hesitant about returning to their former home. This time, here they were in our living room remembering not just what the house had been like back then, but what their lives had been like.

When they arrived in 1967, Vicky had a special honour. Lance and Olive Field, who had foster children and cared for children from troubled homes during school holidays, drew the line at babies – except for Vicky. She and her four siblings were wards of the state. Their father was in prison and their mother wasn’t coping. Of course, they had to be together.

“We loved it here,” said Michele as they remembered being called to meals by a bell and siren, the massive vegetable garden and the loving care and guidance provided by Lance and Olive. There had been excitement chasing possums in the night, and thrills sliding down the bank in front of the house on a wet plastic sheet. One boy, going rather too fast, flew high and landed on the road. The children loved to swim. One day Lance had screamed, “Get out of the water.” The kids, not used to hearing his voice raised, obeyed – and just as well. A five-metre shark cruised along nearby.

Lance and Olive showed the children nothing but kindness. The only time he got angry was when he put a stop to the mischievous kids’ attempt to dig up the grave on the hill behind the house.

“We thought it was a Maori princess,” recalls Michele. It’s the grave of Grace Masefield, a daughter of the first settlers who died in 1874.

Batley House was the only place the five children stayed together. In other homes, Vicky, Michele, their two sisters and brother were separated and sometimes endured harsh conditions.

“We felt privileged to come here,” they said. “We didn’t have a home. When we thought of a home, this is where we’d think of.”

And now, almost half a century later, Vicky’s notebook is a permanent reminder of the place she and her siblings call home, the place where they were cared for and loved.

Love at the End of the Road is now an ebook: /Rae-Roadley/e/B013Q6NKWY

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Here I am looking dorky in my Elizabethan collar and with my leg in a bright green bandage.

Dear Readers,

Who’d have thought one little lick could have started all this? Dogs lick. It’s what we do. Then I licked again and again until – and I was fascinated by this – a lump formed. I’m just regurgitating what the vet said here. I usually only regurgitate after I eat grass, but these are unusual circumstances which are, apparently about flea treatments. Because I’m special and sensitive, some of the usual stuff doesn’t quite work.

Anyway, here I am looking like a dork. I know this because the lady at the vet centre who I used to like looked at me and smiled and said, “Oh Floss, you look so funny.” Just because people can’t speak dog lingo, doesn’t mean I can’t understand every flipping word they say.

My boss, who I’m also cool on at the moment, has been heard marvelling about my good nature because when she gets me out of my cage to pee and poo I can’t wait to get back in. I don’t do this because I’m nice. I do it because I don’t want to be seen looking like a dork and I can avoid Jas the puppy. They call my neck gear an Elizabethan collar which confirms that the royal family, who my boss finds fascinating, are dingbats.

My leg, meanwhile, has a few teeny problems because I’ve ended up with insufficient skin to contain it. Ugggh. Doesn’t bear thinking about.

The only excitement during my incarceration has been thanks to the farmer. Soon after I’d had my right foreleg bandaged he came home with his right forepaw in plaster. What a guy! He fell off a truck while loading wool bales – just to make me feel better. Some bone that links his thumb to his wrist, apparently.

Then, when the farmer let me out to do ablutions, he forgot to put me on a lead. I was off up the back paddock at a gallop – finally in a private place to do what should be done in private. Then there’s the dodgy door he made for my pen. I had many long hours to check out that door before the day of my escape.

As usual, my boss was walking Kate and the annoying puppy along the beach. But I could no longer overlook her disloyal behaviour because she was with her friend Fluffy. Some people get us mixed up and call me Fluffy. I love that.

Then Kate barked, “Come on, Floss. It’s fun on the beach.” That did it! I ripped some slats off my door, wriggled out and was off, peg legging it along the beach, not giving a dog’s biscuit who saw me.

Finally, on the same day, the farmer and I set off to get our appendages released from prison. He came home bare pawed, but I was still bandaged – and furious.

One night, I bent my horrible collar, gripped the end of the bandage with my teeth and pulled like you wouldn’t believe. I was free!

I love going in the car, except once again I found myself at the vet centre with the lady who tells me I look funny. Turns out I knew best. They let me come home with no bandages, but I’m still locked up. Something about my skin being very fragile. Let me tell you, it’s not nearly as fragile as my patience.

Your friend Floss.

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Floss, a vet’s dream (broken leg, infected foot, devoured a chocolate cake, spayed) being smooched by Cheetah, a budget cat so far, neutered with a quick snip – fingers crossed he’ll keep well and safe.

If you surrendered to a loved one who wanted a pet for Christmas it’s not too late to supplement your gift. Yep – I’m talking money. When animals break or get sick they need to be repaired unlike other gifts which can be returned or trashed.

Animals are for life – or that’s the idea – although I do know of two dogs and a cat that went to new homes when their owners couldn’t cope.

Over the years, some of our pets have notched up big veterinary bills.

Lilac had hyperthyroidism (she went to heaven in May). The symptoms were odd – she stopped hissing at the dogs, was no longer hostile to the cats. When picked up, she’d unfailingly slump, purring, on anyone’s shoulder. She’d always thrown up hair balls, but not food, and her fur seemed sticky, like she’d been in paspalum.

The clever vet’s guess was confirmed by a blood test.  Lilac gobbled tablets for the rest of her days – we chose not to shell out $600 for radiation treatment  – but regular blood tests meant regular outgoings.

Tara the cat’s decaying teeth made her breath smell like a Chernobyl drain – until a vet did dental work. Dot the cat is allergic to fleas – and perhaps something else, still undefined – while miniscule mites gnaw Floss’s skin (dogs are even more costly than cats) unless I use a special flea and mite killer.

The ills of the farmer’s dog Mo (now deceased) sent her to four-figure vet bill class. She had a growth removed from a mammary gland and snapped something in her leg that required surgery. Kate still suffers occasional pain following a hip op after she got run over, while Floss got skittled as a puppy, had an infected foot and scoffed too much chocolate cake. Chocolate can kill dogs, and the cocoa in cakes delivers a vicious punch. The loss of the cake paled in comparison to the cost of the Sunday treatment to make Floss puke.

So if you gave a pet for Christmas perhaps you could add a savings account. And if you got given an animal, it might be wise to drop hints about its running costs.

Happy 2014 and a big, warm thank you for reading my blog.

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The suspected lamb whose bloody birth was seen by a passerby who assumed the sheep had ‘sprung a bearing’.

Spring has sprung, the grass has ris’, daffodils are blooming and lambs have bloomin’ popped out everywhere.

But unfortunately it’s not always a lamb that pops out but what farmers call a ring or bearing. In fact, it’s a prolapsed vagina.

The farmer reckons about three of his sheep a year suffer this misfortune which, generally, can happen just prior to lambing, often if a sheep is fat, has a full rumen, a full bladder and the lambs are about grown. The sheep’s internal accommodation is packed to the max – then some. Pop!

The Ministry of Primary Industries begins its webpage on the subject, thus: “Bearings (prolapses of the vagina) in ewes can be a problem every year as lambing approaches, even on the best-managed farms.”

There’s a delicate balance – insufficient feed in the weeks before to lambing can also be a culprit. Scanning can determine which sheep are expecting multiple lambs and need more food – but not too much.

In basic terms, the solutions for a prolapse are: clean it, let the bladder empty, shove everything back inside the sheep and hope it stays there – or euthanasia.

In the two cases I’ve seen the vagina didn’t stay put, despite the use of a special contraption and both had to be killed.

Case number on was a pregnant ewe and case two was Ashley, a too-fat former pet lamb. I made very sure no bits of little Ashley ended up in our freezer.

The worker’s grand-daughter had named her two pet lambs after the Olsen twins. After weaning, Mary-Kate joined the flock while Ashley hung around our garden gate and scoffed.

Last week at nine pm, the farmer took a call from someone who’d driven past earlier that day. She said she’d seen a sheep with its ring out, had left a note in our letterbox and asked whether the situation had been handled.

The caller was off a farm, she said, and she and her friends were appalled. Plus, she insisted, she saw the farmer drive past the suffering sheep without stopping, and she’d be in touch with the newspaper and SPCA if the sheep wasn’t taken care of.

Ashley’s friend Mary Kate sometimes got tangled in weeds.

As I said in Love at the End of the Road,  farming is a high-vis business, and it’s Murphy’s Law that the day an animal dies/gets caught in a fence/breaks a leg/springs a ring is the day you’re off the farm or busy elsewhere.

The caller got so worked up, the farmer found no air time in which to say he wasn’t driving the ute she’d seen. The wife of a former farm worker who’d been to visit was at the wheel, and other visiting farmers hadn’t spotted the troubled sheep either.

The farmer’s next question, after the indignant caller hung up on him, was to me. Had I seen the note she’d left, given I’d just cleared the mailbox – after dark and during a TV commercial break?

Nope, sorry. As I love after-dark missions, we headed off with headlamps to see if we could spot the sheep and check the other farm mail boxes. We failed on all counts.

The farmer and farm manager scored another epic fail the next morning. But while they didn’t find a suffering sheep, a ewe with newborn lambs was in about the spot of the perceived crime. It had been a bloody birth and the ewe was still trailing the ripped amniotic sac.

The farmer concluded the appalled group might have seen a ewe giving birth – when the placenta appears first it can look like a prolapse.

Farmers appreciate passersby who take the time to report problems – when they’re kind, well mannered and don’t jump to conclusions or act like know-it-alls – even if they’re right.

I can confirm living on a farm doesn’t qualify anyone to be a farmer. Once while driving from the farm, I was politeness itself when I phoned the farmer to report a suspected dead bull. There it was, lying on its side and still as a rock with birds hopping about on its bulbous tummy. When the farmer checked it out soon afterwards it was standing up and eating grass.

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I tried to ignore my boss’s skirt.

A Blog by my Dog.

Dear Readers,

My boss recently went on a cattle moving mission dressed like a real girlie girl – and being a female, I’m qualified to comment. Oh, the shame!

I was, of course, wildly excited when cattle broke through a fence and got onto the beach. Not only is this illegal, but they hardly ever get onto the beach these days because the farmer’s done miles of coastal fencing. Pity, because dealing with cattle kicking up sand is fantastic fun. They’re excited and a good stiff ocean breeze gets them even more worked up.

We were in the ute on the way to sorting out the bulls when my boss spotted the place where they’d broken out – although there was a clue: one bull with its foot caught in the wire was bucking and jumping.

The farmer dropped my boss Rae and me then drove on down the beach to get the rest of the cattle – and that’s when I noticed the boss’s skirt. I kid you not, she wore a flimsy, pretty wrap-around skirt. Full length. It was flapping all over the place. Cattle, as you know, only like people in jeans. I took off after the ute, figuring if I ran really fast I’d catch up and . . .

“Floss, come back here,” called the boss in the voice she uses when she knows I’m not inclined to listen. Damnation!

Turns out it’s also the voice I can’t help obeying. Why is that? If there’s a question in the universe I’d like answered, it’s that one. I slunk back, sat beside her and thought, ‘Why did you have to wear that dumb skirt?’

Pretty soon, the farmer was herding the cattle towards the boss who was holding a stick with one hand and the flapping skirt with the other. This wasn’t going to go well.

But the clever farmer urged the bulls off the beach and up the bank to the break-out spot – where they gathered in a muddled huddle. No way would they jump the single low wire into the paddock. Bulls are odd like that – happy to jump over a wire to get out, won’t do the reverse.

Meanwhile, the farmer moved quietly around the bulls which were all gaping at my boss and her skirt. I knew their attention was making her nervous.

“Stay there, bullies,” she called before yelling at the farmer, “I’m going to get the ute,” and took off at a gallop – or as much as a gallop as she could manage, what with the flying skirt and wearing gumboots. I followed. Couldn’t help myself.

After she got back and delivered a hammer and nails to the farmer, he lowered the troublesome wire and the bulls ambled into their paddock.

On the way home my boss’s words whistled past my super-sensitive ears: “Did the tangled bull free himself or did you do it?”

“I did,” said the farmer whose face had been twitching with amusement for some time (there was a lot to laugh at – my boss, her skirt, her nervy attitude, her ungainly gumbooted canter). “I wrestled it to the ground and unwrapped the wire. The judges gave me 9.5.”

I knew this was nonsense, but I don’t think my boss did because she just grinned and said nothing.

Yours truly, Floss

(Hope you enjoyed this – I do enjoy Floss’s point of view. I’d love it if you’d share this or comment here or on my Facebook page. Thanks.)

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Rex’s mum Zoe with the cake. Rex pours champagne and pretends he doesn’t really want to shake the bottle and spray us all with it like a Grand Prix winner.

It dawned somewhat belatedly that a grand cake would be essential for the bash celebrating a century of Roadleys on the farm at Batley. Strangely, this occurred to the farmer’s mother at about the same time – indecently early one morning when random to-do thoughts ahead of a big party hit overdrive.

“I’ll make it if you like,” I said, while thinking that, as giant fruit cakes for special events were more her domain, Zoe would be sure to say she’d make it. She even has about a dozen teatowels she keeps crisp and smart for such occasions.

Instead she said, “You’ll need my 10-inch tin.”

Ah well, she’d have to ice and decorate it as those skills are several stratospheres outside my domain, and at least I had a recipe. One Christmas my sister-in-law gave us such a delicious cake I’ve made it ever since. It’s called ‘Raewyn’s Christmas Cake’, because I name recipes after the person who’s given them to me, however TV3 news presenter Hilary Barry contributed it to Woman’s Day some years back.

The cake involves three simple steps, is bomb proof, and requires none of that tedious creaming butter and sugar business. But best of all, it provides an excuse (if you need one, and I do) to open a can of condensed milk, lick the lid and even dip into the milk itself – the cake doesn’t mind being short changed.

After contemplating the expansive tin, I made a double recipe, preparing a small tin for any left over mixture. There was none. If you’ve haven’t yet made your Christmas cake (and according to Christmas Traditions 101 you should have), you’ll probably like this one.

Raewyn’s Condensed Milk Christmas Cake

225g butter (melted)                        1 c hot water

1 Tb white wine vinegar                   2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice                              1 kg dried fruit

1 can condensed milk                      1 tsp baking soda

¼ cup sherry (or brandy or whisky… or even water)

1 tsp vanilla essence                        2 ¼ c self-raising flour

Put the butter, hot water, vinegar, cinnamon, spice and dried fruit in a saucepan. Bring to boil while stirring. Add condensed milk and baking soda. Cool to room temperature.

Add the remaining ingredients. Bake in a 20cm tin at 140 deg C fan bake for two to 2.5 hours. Cool in the tin. Douse with sherry, brandy or whisky.

Note: The mixture fizzes up in a thrilling fashion when you add the condensed milk and baking soda, so use a big saucepan.

Zoe, with the help of my other sister-in-law, cleverly iced and decorated the cake with a colourful Roadley crest.

Meanwhile, the farmer decided the event was worthy of a magnum French Champagne, except he didn’t want us to drink it. He wanted to achieve his long-held dream of shaking the bottle and spraying the crowd.

“You need to have won the America’s Cup or Formula I for that,” I said. “Or the Tour de France. If you take enough drugs you might have a chance.”

We drank the Moet & Chandon – of course – while a friend helping at the party ferried a platter of cakes to guests. She later told me many people had commented favourably about its taste (I’d jazzed it up with crystallised ginger and cherries) and moist texture.

“Who made it?” they’d all asked.

“Zoe,” she’d replied.

Sometimes justice comes in the most unexpected ways.

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100th Birthday Bash at Batley was a blast – 130 or so, finger-food picnic, treats for the kids, glorious sunshine.

The Roadley family – about 130 of us – recently celebrated a century on a block of land whose first owner holds a dubious honour in New Zealand’s short history.

Thomas Spencer Forsaith, who in 1839 signed on to buy 2000 acres on the shores of the Kaipara Harbour, will hopefully always retain his record of leading the country for the shortest time ever. If not, presumably politics will be in the same upheaval as in 1854 when Forsaith led a group of politicians who held control for a mere three days.

The following year, the Government concluded that while Forsaith’s land purchase was legal, he was entitled to only 823 acres rather than the 2000 he’d attempted to snap up 16 years earlier for waistcoats, trousers, fowling pieces, sugar, flour, tobacco, iron pots and other essentials of the era.

On 11 November 1912, Albert Roadley (the grandfather of Rex my husband, better known on this blog as ‘the farmer’) and his brother Jack bought the land, known as Forsaith’s Grant.

By then it belonged to Joseph Masefield whose life hit a milestone 150 years ago on 12 November. In 1862, Joseph and his wife May, arrived on the William Miles, one of the ships carrying settlers who’d signed on for land under the Albertland Settlement Scheme. Within a month or so, Masefield had a supply store at Batley, then named Oahau.

Both Masefield and Albert Roadley travelled to the Otamatea River – one of the arms of the Kaipara Harbour – to check out land. Neither liked the property they’d set out to buy, however they both spotted land at Batley while on board a steamer and decided they liked it.

Picnicking people at the party.

The run of significant November dates continues: 10^th – Celebrate a Century party; 11^th – Roadleys buy land at Batley; 12^th – Masefields arrive in NZ; and 13^th – 1820, Ngapuhi rangitira Hongi Hika is introduced to King George IV in London.

Hongi deserves a mention because he and his warriors killed the father of first person to get legal title to the two blocks of land which, along with Forsaith’s Grant, comprise today’s 1000-acre farm.

By 1820, Ngapuhi and Ngati Whatua had ceased their battles, but Hongi was plotting revenge. As he returned from England, he traded gifts from the King for muskets, then in 1825 he and his army headed south on a mission. When the fighting was over, Haututu was among the dead and, in an ultimate insult, his body was consumed at his kainga, just up the river from the farm, by victorious Ngapuhi.

It’s easy to look back and give the facts of history nothing but a passing thought, but in this context they have much more meaning.

At our celebrations, many members of the extended family met for the first time because we figured that when you’re celebrating a century you can spread the net wide. And we feasted both in 2012 style, with guests bringing a fingerfood picnic to share, and like the very first settlers, the Maori, we enjoyed the bounty of seafood-gathering missions.