Hitting the tonne down on the farm
‘‘Iam willing to open myself again and add another commitment to the list of ‘what I do with my spare time!’.’’ The last sentence of the first column I wrote way back on February 20, 2016 and amazingly here I am mid-March 2020 pondering column number 100.
Woohoo... beginning four years ago I never considered that a century of two-weekly typing with single-finger tappings would roll around. Often I’m asked how it came about that a farming ex-veterinarian with nil journalistic experience contributes regular compositions to the paper.
I confess that one day after rereading yet more articles previously printed in recent farming mags, I sent a hasty email to the Nelson Mail editor offering my cheeky opinion that something fresh in the rural pages would be good. Her response was a positive ‘‘We would be delighted to be able to run a fortnightly column from a rural woman’’.
The rural editor replied somewhat more candidly that ‘‘I have read Joyce’s two columns and I think they will find a good farming as well as urban audience after a bit of tidying up. I like the way she focuses on farming cycles and weaves in market trends or family experiences. It would not take long for her to brush up on her sentence structure and style. The important thing is that the content is there.’’
And I assure you dear readers, and honest editor, that I am still tidying up, brushing up, sorting sentences and striving for style.
As well as learning linguistics to use, I have learnt a lot about language not to use. The greatest upwards knowledge curve was the week I strung together a strong reaction to behaviour I considered grossly unfair.
My phone rang with the editor requesting urgent reworking of whole document to remove the word ‘‘bully’’ and insinuation inferred. If the intent couldn’t be proven then the content couldn’t go in. I run close to deadline sometimes and, by the time I settled down, that column became stressfully late.
So today, cruising to deadline 100, I’m reflecting back at 49 months of archived efforts and realise how much has been recorded. Significant events for the country like elections national and local, earthquakes, floods, fires and tragedies.
Small happenings on the farm about pigs, twin calves, our Lucy Goose and a wax-eye-eating heron. There’s been a few birthdays and once I explained about helping Jock ‘‘clean/dirty’’ lambs in the woolshed.
Shared the grief of deaths and tributes to wonderful people who have impacted my life. Trauma of husband’s heart attack and lightning strikes, milestones of driver’s licence success, farm walks, vet class reunions, rural women and shearing school.
Every year brings four seasons and on pages I have covered pet days, spring activities, lamb rearing, inevitable weather issues, pregnancy testing and end-ofyear Christmas messages. Challenges and politics had an airing over ONLs, volatile product prices, wetlands, rates, fake meat and milk, the overwhelming wave of submissions, and one column where I expressed feelings of being a ‘‘bug on an elephant’s bum’’ and had a wee bite about well-funded activist groups spreading false ‘‘facts’’ like claiming wool comes from neardead sheep. There’s a word to describe their behaviour which the editor would probably cut.
Weaning has come around for both ewes, lambs, cows, calves and myself as I watched with pride our two precious children leaving school to move into jobs and independence. I still continue to focus on the positives, count my blessings, be grateful, enjoy life on and off the farm.
The four ‘‘f’’ words are still where my values lie ... Family, Faith, Farming and Friends. The editors initial words that ‘‘The column is a good way to get local content in the farming page’’ continue encouraging me to express myself, talk about what is happening, what matters, how we as farmers are impacted and what I do in my ‘‘spare time’’.
It is an ‘‘opinion’’ column and readers will be glaringly aware by now that many opinions rattle in my brain and spill on to pages. It is nice to be paid to have them in print! And even nicer to know that people out there enjoy reading my words and I so appreciate the surprising amount of positive feedback.
All I can say is thanks very much to you all and here’s looking forward together to future seasons, cycles, occasional struggles or stroppiness, shared experiences, learning and more practice structuring sentences.