Putting city spin on rural life
When she fell in love with a farmer, former city girl Sophie Brown’s whole world changed.
Sophie and her husband, Nick, live on a 530-hectare drystock farm in the rugged hills of Huinga, east of Stratford.
The terrain changes dramatically on the drive to the property, gently rolling paddocks peppered with dairy cows making way for steep hills dotted with sheep.
‘‘We live in a pretty amazing place and are privileged enough to do something Nick’s family have been doing for generations, farming sheep,’’ Sophie said.
Her video blog, is garnering national attention for her efforts to educate people about farm life. An episode posted on the NZ Farming Facebook page was viewed more than 35,000 times.
In one episode, the chatty 29-year-old introduces viewers to the 80 bull calves she’s rearing this spring.
‘‘We buy them off dairy farmers, feed them up and soon they’ll be scattered on the hills around the farm,’’ Sophie says, pointing off camera.
‘‘We’ve currently got ewes lambing, yearling bulls and we’re rearing calves for the first time. So it keeps us pretty busy,’’ she said.
The couple also graze dairy cattle and are trying their hands at beekeeping.
It’s a far cry from her old life in Christchurch, where the trained speech therapist met her future husband in 2010.
After a stint working and travelling overseas, the couple moved back to Taranaki in 2014. Sophie gave up her day job to concentrate on managing the family farm with Nick and said although she became a ‘farmer in training’ then, she only recently began calling herself a farmer.
‘‘I found living on a farm quite tough to begin with,’’ she said. ‘‘Most country kids are born with things like stock sense – I had to learn all of that from scratch. But I’m not the first girl to start dating a farmer, move to a rural area and have no idea.’’
Raising animals and knowing that they were producing some of the best quality food in the world were real sources of satisfaction, she said.
‘‘And ensuring that our animals have good quality of life along the way.’’
Sophie hoped her latest project would give city dwellers a humorous insight into how food and fibre are produced.
In June, she started filming video blogs which feature the couple feeding calves, fencing, and crutching. For the benefit of city folk, Sophie described the latter as ‘‘like a Brazilian for sheep’’.
Spectacular drone footage of dogs being used to muster sheep on steep hills featured in a vlog about scanning.
Sophie squeezes in editing sessions between weighing calves, drenching sheep and grubbing thistles and posts the videos to her
YouTube and Facebook pages, where they’re shared around world.
‘‘My aim is to help increase people’s understanding of what happens on farm,’’ she said. ‘‘Some of my friends have asked what you do all day on a farm - just chase animals and drink tea? But there’s a lot more to it than that.’’
Although some farmers had a tendency to view themselves as ‘‘just a farmer’’, Sophie said she tried to approach the job as a business person who also happened to farm.
‘‘You will run a better farm and be a better employer and employee,’’ she said.
Sophie and Nick are both active members Central Taranaki Young Farmers and Nick was this year elected chairperson of Taranaki Federated Farmers’ Meat and Fibre section.
‘‘This is our way of sharing positive stories about farming and showing how rewarding a career in agriculture can be,’’ Nick said.