rivettingKateTaylor

I’m glad I’m too busy to actually do this exercise, but I wonder how better off I am driving an hour to a main centre supermarket to beat grocery prices. I try to fit it in with another journey but it’s still a lot of petrol.

But after a chat with my neighbour over the school bus stop this morning, I think I’m doing the right thing. She was paying about $1 more for her milk than me, not to mention the bread, cheese, butter etc etc. How the purse strings are hurting at the moment. Living on our little farm we don’t have to buy meat either, except for the 5kg monster bag of chicken nibbles for $25) and my kidneys have convinced me to not pour a glass or three of wine every night so there’s a few more dollars off the weekly budget.

I love my morning chats. We solve the problems of the world out there between 8.25am when the bus pulls away until whatever time we realise we should be getting on with more pressing matters (like the lambs bleating pitifully even though the kids only fed them half an hour before).  Helen Clark should have an ear to our conversations – she would sure get a handle on what issues normal New Zealanders are facing every day. Like the price of milk or petrol, the lack of funding for our school, the speed the vehicles are travelling past us on the road or the way the media blast the weather forecasters if they don’t predict a “weather bomb” and blast them if they put out warnings but get it wrong. I’d rather be prepared for something that doesn’t really arrive in full force than not be prepared and get wasted. Civil defence is all about being prepared, as the TV ad campaign goes, and so we should be. Thank goodness I live in Hawke’s Bay where we are governed by a Regional Council intent on maintaining an awesome flood protection scheme (okay so I do some work for them, but I really do personally believe we are lucky to have so many stop banks and drainage systems).

Speaking of work, time to head to the other side of the ranges and see what the weather has done to the western side of the country. I’m off to Marton to do a followup on the young shepherd who won the the Beef Ambassador title at this year’s Beef Expo and then to Feilding to photograph the Young Farmer of the Year. And not leaning on a fence. His wife tells me that’s par for the course so far so I’ll make sure I’m unique. Leaning on the cattle yards maybe. Or his new Ford ute or new Honda four wheeler (is it obvious I do work for the Young Farmer Contest too?)

I had to fill out a profile recently on myself. It included a portion about why I am a freelancer. Freedom. That’s why. I love the writing I do for the likes of the regional council and NZ Young Farmers, even though it’s not hard nosed, cutting-edge journalism. I wouldn’t have it any other way.