RURAL STORIES
Tales of farm babysitting
Manawatu¯ retired farm manager Gordon Jones has a tale or two to tell about his 50-year farming career.
Jones has put pen to paper after a life on the land to chronicle his 40 years on farms and stations and, later, 12 years babysitting other people’s farms.
His self-published books A Farm Manager’s Story and, most recently, Farm Minding, chronicle his journey.
The books recount his first job as a young shepherd in Cavie Grange in Taranaki, to his compulsory military training and finally his time at Smedley, New Zealand’s premier shepherd training station.
His career teaching stockmanship at Smedley was cut short when a stallion ripped open part of his leg. He was off work for five months and he began to lose interest. In his mid-50s, he decided that was it.
Jones and his wife Val started a farm minding business, where they trekked all over the country looking after everything from sheep farms to hereford studs, dairy farms, chicken farms and beyond.
After advertising in farming magazines, the couple agreed to their first job in Hunterville.
‘‘Val and I had often talked about starting a farm minding business when we retired from farm managing, but owing to [the horse accident] that time had come a lot earlier than expected,’’ Jones said.
He rang the Department of Labour to ask how much he should charge per week. He was told at least $1000 to $1500, even up to $2000 if farmers would pay that much.
‘‘After hearing that I wondered what he was on. Had he been smoking or was he from another planet?’’
The aim of the job was to look after each property well, attending to all stock movement and pets.
His eyes were opened while at a 300ha farm in Wairoa, when he was monitoring stock at the block’s southern boundary. He turned around to see one of the pet cats had followed him, like a sheep dog, all the way out.
‘‘[The cat] frequently was around the yard when I ran the dogs.’’
At another job, he was tasked with putting down a young calf that had contracted a terminal disease, called bovine viral diarrhoea, at a Feilding farm.
Each job varied from a few days to a few months, but when clients arrived home from their holiday they found the lawns mown, garden and house tidy, with a meal ready to eat.
After each job he typed up a resume - an account of what he had done - and stored it away in a folder.
Several years later, Jones revisited the documents and turned them into a book.
Those looking to purchase the book will need to contact Jones.