Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | March 27, 2012

Where’s the humour?

It’s happened again.

Do you remember the furore over a smokefree ad featuring Piri Weepu bottle feeding his baby? Well buckle your seatbelt because this time it’s the vegetarians having a cow. (Don’t excuse the pun, it’s there on purpose).

www.stuff.co.nz has a story today about Pak n’ Save being forced to pull an advertisement promoting “meat week” at its supermarkets after vegetarians complained it was offensive. (Unless of course I pull my conspiracy theory out and figure Pak’nSave are getting lots of extra bang(er) for their buck…)

The story quotes Wellington vegetarian Tashee Smith, 24, saying she was upset the sarcastic advertisement made a mockery of her belief system.

It began with a warning to vegetarians to look away while they showed meat on a conveyor belt, which was “okay”, she said.

“Then the punch line of the ad says, ‘Alright vegetarians, you can look back now. It’s a carrot. Just kidding, it’s a sausage’.

“The whole tone of it I felt really was just quite offensive. It was made to offend.”

Of for goodness sake you silly girl. Get a life. Do you not have anything more important to do than complain about an ad taking the mickey out of vegetarians. Have you seen the Bugger ads takiung the mickey out of farmers? Have you seen Billy T James shows? Miranda? I bet Poms don’t like that – she so takes the mickey out of several English stereotypes.

There is a saying on my office wall. “No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.” It’s true.

If an ad about the sausage offends or belittles you, make a stand and don’t shop at Pak’nSave. New World never have meat specials does it? Or stop watching the channel you saw the ad on.  (quick Tashee, you better check your shoes, they’re not leather are they?)

Don’t ruin it for the rest of us. I love the idea of meat week – go the farmers!!!

Should we ban the organisation Beef + Lamb NZ because it makes vegetarians feel left out? NO!

Should we ban ads for ab circle pros because it makes me sad about my lack of abs? NO! (I’ll just nip inside and eat another sausage).

Just have a laugh at your own expense and get on with more important things.

 

 

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | March 18, 2012

Well said Bruce

I’ve been a bit busy this past week, this past fortnight…. this is one of the draft posts I have started and not finished! (until now)

Stolen from Feds PR (and as published in a column in the Sunday Star Times).

So… well said Bruce Wills, president of NZ Federated Farmers.

Congratulations, you owe $1,800

‘Local government’ to some people is a cure for insomnia, but before you turn the page consider this.  Our councils now owe $1,800 for every man, women and child in New Zealand.  In reality, it is ‘we the people’ who now owe eight billion dollars and that sum has quadrupled since 2002.  Local government needs reform and ably at the helm is Minister Nick Smith.  It’s no coincidence he’s also Minister for the Environment because the two are closely related.

Federated Farmers policy team is arguably New Zealand’s most skilled when it comes to local government issues.  We know the Local Government Act 2002 fired a debt starting gun because it provides councils with a “power of general competence” and an activist purpose, to promote “community well-being”. While we applaud Horowhenua District Council winning $2.1 million from the taxpayer to lift Shannon’s drinking water out of sub-Saharan Africa, how could things have gotten so bad?  While Horowhenua District Council is contributing $1 million towards the new plant, it has ear-marked $2.4 million to prime-pump Levin’s new cultural and community centre.  Such centres have their place but safe drinking water, wastewater and roads are the very things we expect our local councils to deliver.  These core services may seem as exciting as watching paint dry, but without them, urban life would be impossible.  Council debt has not only exploded but the property rates used to fund councils have soared well above inflation.  Certainly, it has appreciated a lot more than the price of milk that created a Select Committee Inquiry. Perhaps a start is to dust off the 2007 Shand inquiry into council rates. The use of debt to fund capital spending, a recommendation, seems to be the only thing councils embraced with gusto. 

Local government is also an area where inconsistency reigns supreme.  Do you realise some local councils have a two-faced resource consent when it comes to managing wastewater disposal?  One is for business as usual, but the other is an ‘emergency consent’ when the system can’t cope as a result of heavy rain or even equipment failure.  No other individual, business or farm enjoys such a ‘get out of jail free’ card.  Yet two-faced resource consents have allowed some councils to starve core services of cash, such as critical wastewater upgrades.  Instead, ‘nice to have’ projects mean when the day of reckoning finally arrives, crippling rates result.  Kaipara District’s wastewater upgrade in Mangawhai has seen public debt go nuclear.  At $86.8 million, in its 2011/12 Annual Plan, it’s a heck of a liability for only 19,000 people.   

The only awareness most people have that sewerage has entered water is when a sign goes up warning them not to collect shellfish or to swim.  Not that the media or for that matter canoe paddling politicians stop and ask why.  For many farmers, a council ‘emergency consent’ is nothing more than a legal licence to pollute but one in which we seem to cop the blame for the results.  One senior council manager provides a real insight into council thinking.  In response to being challenged over why his council applied to pour treated effluent into the Manawatu River, he wrote; “total exclusion of treated effluent being discharged into the river is an admirable goal but ratepayer affordability is also a critical factor which is always taken into account when assessing council initiatives…”

Community well-being starts by prioritising spending that delivers the basics extremely well.  Is it no surprise some are now railing against big Chief Executive salary packages?

He mentioned the Shand Enquiry into rates….  here is a story I did for The National Farming Review last year. Interesting reading – if I do say so myself!!

The National Farming Review – rates

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | March 18, 2012

James and Jane join a new club

The Ballance Farm Environment Awards have only just come to the East Coast – the second annual dinner has been held in Napier.

Joining inaugural 2011 East Coast winners Steve and Jane Wyn-Harris are 2012 Supreme Winners James and Jane Hunter, Porangahau, Central Hawke’s Bay.

It was mostly James – he and Jane have only been married for six of the past 20 years James has been working on the farm settled by his great grandfather, so she says she wanted him to have the credit.

Field day Wednesday April 11. Don’t miss it! Here’s their photo, press release below.

James and Jane Hunter

 

An “absolute passion for the land” has earned Hawke’s Bay sheep and beef farmer James Hunter the Supreme title in the 2012 East Coast Ballance Farm Environment Awards.

James, who farms 660ha (574ha effective) of coastal hill country near Porangahau, received the award at a Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA) ceremony on March 15.

As well as the Supreme award, he also collected the Beef+Lamb New Zealand Livestock Award, the Gisborne District Council and Hawke’s Bay Regional Council-sponsored East Coast Farming for the Future Award, the Massey University Discovery Award and the WaterForce Integrated Management Award.

BFEA judges praised the passion and commitment James and his wife Jane have shown for ‘Rangitoto’, describing the family farm as a “high-performing, well-run and planned unit”.

“Their knowledge of trees, wildlife, soils, stock and the overall performance of their farming business both financially and environmentally is outstanding.”

Rangitoto runs a mix of breeding and trading stock. Stock carried on the farm last year included 2045 breeding ewes and replacements, 500 trading hoggets, 98 breeding cows and 150R2 bulls. The farm also grows crops such as chicory, red clover and rape, with the performance of the summer crops contributing to excellent stock performance.

Judges commended the priority given to the protection of the coastal hill country land, and the Hunter’s obvious commitment to Rangitoto’s enhancement and sustainability.

James has been “very proactive in protecting waterways, creating interconnected dams and filtration zones wherever possible and protecting all native scrub and tree vegetation”.

Rangitoto has 19ha of wetlands and dams, 28ha of pine woodlots and 41ha of mainly regenerating native bush which is protected by QE II covenants. Over the years, three generations of the Hunter family have planted more than 10,000 poplar and willow poles.

BFEA judges said James is “always looking outside the square” and is not afraid to try new ideas. An example of this is the innovative use of sub-surface drainage to increase the productive potential of cultivatable mudstone slopes while minimising winter pugging and erosion.

James is a director of the QE II Trust. In the 2011 East Coast Ballance Farm Environment Awards he won the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Habitat Improvement Award and the East Coast Farming for the Future Award.

A field day will be held on Rangitoto on Wednesday 11 April, details to be confirmed.

Award winners in the 2012 East Coast Ballance Farm Environment Awards were:

  • Supreme award, Massey University Discovery Award,      WaterForce Integrated Management Award, Beef+Lamb NZ Livestock Award and      East Coast Farming For The Future Award: (sponsored by the Gisborne District Council and the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council), James Hunter, ‘Rangitoto’, Porangahau, Hawke’s Bay.
  • Ballance Agri-Nutrients Nutrient Management Award and LIC Dairy Farm Award: equity managers Nick and Nicky Dawson, Great Glen Farms, Patoka, Hawke’s Bay.
  • Hill Laboratories Harvest Award and PGG Wrightson Land & Life Award: Hartree Family (Greg, Rachael and Thomas), Black Oak Ltd, Puketapu, Napier.

 

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | February 11, 2012

homepaddock's avatarHomepaddock

A couple of years ago I asked where had the tussock gone?

There is even less tussock on the hills at the summit of the Lindis Pass now.

This land has been returned to the crown under tenure review and is managed by DOC.

The aim of the Lindis Pass Conservation Trust is to rid Lindis Pass Reserve of weeds, so that the snow tussock (Chionochloa rigida) can be enjoyed in its full glory. 

When it was farmed it was covered in tussock, now as these photos show it is not.

Is it an accident or deliberate?

Could the lack of stock and fertiliser have let hieracium and other weeds crowd out the tussock?

Does it mean that some of this sensitve land is really better farmed than not?

What’s going to save the hills from erosion by wind, rain and snow now the tussock cover has gone?

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | February 11, 2012

Agreed. We seem to be scared of the Chinese.

homepaddock's avatarHomepaddock

The Sunday Star Times put the sale of the Crafar Farms into perspective with a story on how much land has been sold to people from which countries in the last five years.

Figures released by the Overseas Investment Office show that of the 872,313 hectares of gross land sold to foreign interests over the past five years only 223 hectares were sold to Chinese.

People from the landlocked principality of Liechtenstein had purchased 10 times more land than the Chinese – 2,144ha in the same period.

The top buyers were the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and Israel. The United States had 194 purchases for a total of 193,208ha.

The figures do not show if there are any New Zealand ownership shares involved.

Nor do the figures show how many of the purchasers were sales from foreigners to foreigners and Inquiring Mind points out the difference between net sales and gross sales.

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | February 9, 2012

teasing or bullying?

My son came to me after a function the other night, distressed about a group of girls, including his sister, taking his soccer ball off him and throwing it around so he couldn’t get it.

Now he gets quite worked up sometimes and you could see the steam coming out his ears. I was tempted to tell him to go cool off in the corner, tempted to put my arms around him and give him a cuddle, tempted to tell him to harden up and tempted to give the girls a piece of my mind – all at the same time.

He probably annoyed them first but you could tell by the looks on the girls faces as I approached that there was an element of guilt. But I just called to my daughter and said it was time to go home.

It was my two kids that bore the brunt of it in the car on the way home, even though I said I wasn’t witness to what went on and couldn’t and wouldn’t comment on that particular situation.

But…. I said there is a fine line between teasing someone in the nature of piggy in the middle and bullying someone. Do they look like they want to be piggy in the middle (aside from someone who is a sore loser and can’t handle having their turn at piggy in the middle, however lengthy).

If they are crying or steam is coming our their ears and they look ready to box you, it’s probably bullying.

If you’re bigger/older/stronger than them and they stand no chance of competing with you, it’s probably bullying.

I told my two they need to be prepared to stand up for each other – in any situation, especially a serious one, but even at school. Think about how they would feel if they were that person. If they wouldn’t like to be in their shoes, it will probably be considered bullying by the teachers so don’t take part and if you have the guts, do something to stop it (telling the teacher is absolutely fine, especially if it is an ongoing situation).

This parenting lark can get serious can’t it?

I had a separate word to my oldest about practising to stand up against peer pressure now, so that when “the situation” involves smokes or driving in cars, it won’t be so hard to say no and walk away.

She didn’t slam the door and tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about, so I guess she’s not a teenager yet!!

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | February 4, 2012

Spend It or Lose It

My mother sent this to me this morning.

Having seen a local family reeling from the loss of a teenager in the past few weeks and having arguments this morning about the laziness of my kids (those two things really aren’t comparable), I am going to print this out and put it in a very obvious place.

It’s called “Spend It or Lose It”.

Imagine that you had won the following prize in a contest: Each morning your bank would deposit $86,400.00 in your private account for your use. However, this prize has rules, just as any game has certain rules. The first set of rules would be: Everything that you didn’t spend during each day would be taken away from you. You may not simply transfer money into some other account. You may only spend it.  Each morning upon awakening, the bank opens your account with another $86,400.00 for that day.

The second set of rules: The bank can end the game! It can close the account and you will not receive a new one and the game is over, without warning; at any time it can say, It’s over. What would you personally do? You would buy anything and everything you wanted right? Not only for yourself, but for all people you love, right? Even for people you don’t know, because you couldn’t possibly spend it all on yourself, right? You would try to spend every cent, and use it all, right?

Actually this game is reality. Each of us is in possession of such a magical bank. We just can’t seem to see it. The magical bank is TIME!

Each morning we awaken to receive 86,400 seconds as a gift of life, and when we go to sleep at night, any remaining time is NOT credited to us. What we haven’t lived up that day is forever lost.

Yesterday is forever gone. Each morning the account is refilled, but the bank can dissolve your account at any time…. without warning.

So, what will YOU do with your 86,400 seconds?

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | January 26, 2012

a drive to the other side of the Ruahines

It’s great when work sends you driving to the other side of the island (kind of – the other side of the mountains that divide the west and east!)

From Takapau, I drive to Dannevirke and then take the back roads along the foothills (Top Grass Road for any of you keen enough to google map) to the start of the now-famous Saddle Road (okay, not so famous on a global scheme of things, but the go-to route now the Manawatu Gorge has a rather large slip all over a rather large section of the road).

I had a lovely few hours sojourn in Feilding after an unscheduled two-hour break between two interviews.  Job #2 was a visit to a new dairy conversion at Cheltenham.

After that, was the start of my problems for a quick drive home.

Added to the fact that three hours in the car on my own is a perfect recipe for a music mindmap back to the 80s (think Bon Jovi, Eurythmics, Jenny Morris and spot of Def Leppard – very cool)… it was a perfect day for summer photos too. Check these three out.

borage crop near Cheltenham

"giant marshmellows" as my kids used to call them

This colour just caught my eye (I stop on the side of the road often)

 

I need one of those signs that the rubbish trucks have: beware, this vehicle stops often!

So, I decided it was going to be dark before I got home if I didn’t stop stopping, so I stopped.

So my memory will have to suffice of the shot of the kids playing in a creek as I drove over the bridge; the sheep grazing peacefully on a grassy knob apparently blissfully unaware of the giant wind turbine whisking away overhead; the windswept trees under the foothills of the Ruahines.

A few years ago I was walking along a local road and came over the brow to the most awesome sight of a layer of cloud stretching out before me. But I could see the landscape both under the cloud and away over the top of the cloud. Hard to describe, but the memory has been etched, well, in my memory!

It’s late. After driving to Manawatu yesterday and the destination of choice today was Gisborne (Elton John and Jimmy Barnes most of the way today. And a new fave. True Colours by Phil Collins. Love it.)

I made the call two hours ago that Federer would beat Nadal in five sets in the semis of the Aussie Open. One set each so far but I’m afraid me and my mental little camera are going to bed.

 

 

 

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | January 13, 2012

and so 2012 is underway

Yes, 2012 has arrived. It’s hard to fathom January is almost half way through.

How did that happen? The weather hasn’t been too willing to bribe me with cool wine on a sunny beach but I have had a few awesome games of tennis despite day #2 of our annual tournament being rained off, caught a few waves and indeed, opened a few New Zealand pinot gris bottles.  The newest *like* for me is Hihi Wine‘s Gizzy Fizzy. Very drinkable (and cheaper than Lindauer Summer).

I have just booked in a couple of newspaper features for April and May and received confirmation I will again be general photographer for the 2012 Young Farmer of the Year grand final. That job is so much fun because the contestants have to do such a range of tasks in the three days.

My mum will get to see her youngest daughter several times this year – the grand final is in Dunedin, we’re going on a winter sojourn to Fiji and I’m hightailing it south again for the 150th goldfields celebrations in Queenstown. The Bryants (my mum’s family) were a force in the original settling of the area – Richard Cogar Bryant, my great great grandfather, was the town’s first police office and harbour master. Since then, my family has had an ongoing association with Kinloch at the head of the lake, where he then settled with his family.

If you are a regular to rivettingkatetaylor, you will know procrastination is one of my strong points (weaknesses?!)

So I had better return to the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council possum control programme stories I am supposed to be finishing 🙂

 

 

 

 

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Posted by: rivettingkatetaylor | January 13, 2012

Go back!

Sorry about the laguage used, but I couldn’t resist the meaning behind this picture.

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