Old Dogs New Tricks

by Peter Anderson

  Coming back into Christchurch Airport I said to Rick, ‘It’s usually faster to declare we’re vets and go through the MAF quarantine people. They’re usually very good to vets.’ So we did.

  Ten minutes later I am standing in one of the two queues in quarantine, Rick slightly ahead of me in the other queue. There are a hundred people or more in the two lines. I watch as Rick is asked if he has anything to declare.

  In a stentorian and very loud voice, loud enough for the whole concourse to hear, Rick says, ‘YES, I HAVE AN ARTIFICIAL VAGINA!’

  There was a shocked silence from the large crowd, every conversation stopped, and every eye turned towards the source of this statement, fascinated. The MAF officer, obviously embarrassed, could be seen leaning towards Rick and saying something, trying to hush him down.

  ‘I SAID I’VE GOT AN ARTIFICIAL VAGINA!’ he roared.

  ‘Oh, that’s what I thought you said,’ muttered the inspector, puce with the attention of all upon him, and Rick was pushed rapidly out the exit door to freedom.

  FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD — PA

  The earliest European settlers in Marlborough arrived by sea. With its sheltered waters, mild climate and plentiful supply of fish, the Marlborough Sounds became one of the first areas they inhabited. Although the terrain here and the natural fertility of the soil was not as suitable for farming as that of the Wairau plains or Awatere region, access to these areas from the south or from Nelson to the west was far more difficult. As a result much of these inland areas were bought by a few wealthier land acquirers, often absentee owners, who took over huge areas of the Marlborough countryside, while the smaller blocks in the Marlborough Sounds were settled by those escaping Britain, desperate for land of their own.

  A sailing ship could drop off a family in any of the hundreds of bays where a temporary shelter could be quickly erected in the bush. Stores brought in and fish caught kept a man or family going while he cleared the surrounding native forest by axe and burning. Eventually most of the beautiful Sounds bush was gone, homes built and the land farmed. Burnt areas were hand-sown with English grass seed and pastures readily established on these cleared areas. A handful of cows and a few sheep and a horse or two were enough and the early Sounds farmers were soon in business. Good crops of barley and wheat, and oats for the horses, were grown on the flatter areas and most of these farming families were relatively self-sufficient.

  By the middle of last century the fertility in the thin topsoil left after the bush had been cleared had all but gone. The cost of transporting stock and produce out and supplies in, either by long winding roads or by barge from Havelock or Picton, as well as getting expensive fertiliser onto the steep hills to maintain pasture production, made farming here uneconomic and forced many families off their land. Although one or two farmers on smaller properties stayed they did so by subsidising their main activity, milling the remnants of good native bush or by commercial fishing or later on mussel farming. However, most of the farms have been destocked and the land has reverted. The only areas still economic to farm lie in the easier country in the Kenepuru and the larger properties found in the outer Sounds.

  When I arrived in Marlborough at the end of 1975 much of the land not farmed was either covered in gorse or in the early stages of being planted in pine forests. The gorse has been a wonderful nurse crop for the native forest to naturally regenerate and in some areas these hills must be getting back to how they would have looked when people first arrived here. Unfortunately the run-off from the pine forests, in particular after clearing, has become an environmental disaster. There are real fears for the long-term effects on the seabed and the water quality.

  So what of the Sounds people? Their history and the environment have no doubt moulded them into what they are. Especially those who are descendants of the original farmers or those who have been working the land here for some time. As I’ve said farming really only continues these days in the Kenepuru Sound, which is off the main Pelorus Sound, and at the heads of both Queen Charlotte and Pelorus sounds and D’Urville Island. Driving to these areas takes time and steady nerves.

  Farming the Sounds has resulted in a very self-reliant people. Needing someone to help with building or plumbing or electrical repairs or veterinary help is almost a sign of weakness. When you’re asked to do some veterinary job in the Sounds it was often only because it was a dire emergency. But once there, all of these people treated us with wonderful hospitality and exceptional generosity. The pace of life appeared to be slower. In fact there was no merit in trying to hurry. These families became good friends and, once there, you didn’t want to leave.

  Colin and Mary Wells, Colin a descendant of Sounds boat builders and Mary of a pioneer Sounds farming family, bred ponies, goats, a rare breed of sheep — the Gotland Pelt — deer, alpacas, rabbits and Highland cattle. I often flew to their property in Nopera. Other than the odd emergency, such as a difficult calving, most work for them included the more routine develveting of stags and TB testing deer, or castrating colts. A visit to their well-lived-in house for a cup of tea was mandatory and usually only ended when rapidly failing daylight forced my departure. I always went home with a bucket of something, usually from the sea — oysters collected from the rocks earlier by Colin, or mussels from his mussel farm. He even encouraged me to dust off my golf clubs, unused since student days, and have a round of golf with him on the nine-hole Nopera golf course next to their property and the airstrip. These wonderful memories are saddened by my last recollection of Colin, who was dying from cancer, sitting in his truck joking away while watching his son Chris and I dehorn the 25 Highland cattle that were destined for the works. Because there was no decent race nor head-bail this job was proving somewhat difficult. I will always fondly remember this great Sounds couple and their family.

  Margaret and David Harvey farmed in Beatrix Bay, off the outer Pelorus Sound. Margaret and her daughter Sally bred event-type hacks. Most work at the Harveys’ was horse work and this particular day was no exception. A mare had foaled a couple of days earlier but still had a retained placenta. A retained placenta is serious if the mare cannot get rid of it within a few hours of foaling. A uterine infection and laminitis or ‘founder’ — inflammation of the laminae resulting in separation of the hoof from underlying bone — can set in and be fatal. Margaret knew this and wanted me out there ‘reasonably soon’ as the mare wasn’t looking quite so perky. I flew to the neighbouring property where Margaret picked me up. As we drove to her place, she happened to mention, referring to the mare, that there seemed to be ‘an awful lot of her hanging out’. Sure enough when we got there she was already starting to prolapse her uterus. Not a common event in a mare and potentially fatal. However, I managed to remove the placenta and replace the prolapsed uterus without too much difficulty.

  I think the mare epitomised the Sounds people. While faced with a critical situation both she and Margaret remained calm which made my job so much easier. Dealing with nervous owners and excited patients always adds another dimension to our job. The Sounds residents who have spent their whole life there seem to have a relaxed and controlled and pragmatic approach to life.

  Their kindness is another quality. When visiting Robin and Alison Bowron in Waitaria Bay I invariably left satiated in both mind and body. Alison is a great cook and also knows everything that is going on in the Sounds. I guess that is a spinoff from the days before the telephone and easier road access, when it was important that people knew what was happening at their neighbours. If anyone needed help it was going to come first from their closest neighbour — either via a horse track around the hills or across the bay by boat — so knowing what was happening next door was a survival thing. I usually came home from my visits to the Sounds with all the latest local news and gossip. The Bowrons had a very good airstrip on their property and I often used it for visits to nearby properties in the Kenepuru. One December afternoon I returned to the Pawnee to find a huge Christmas cake on the seat. No wonder
I always came home from the Sounds with a warm feeling.

  Food and friendship were not the only exports from the Sounds. Mary, the Bowrons’ daughter, is also a vet and is now a valuable addition to the team at The Vet Centre in Blenheim. I like to think her choice of career was caused by something that might have rubbed off from my visits.

  Other properties I frequently visited included those of Tony and Joy Redwood and Mike and Kristen Gerard, usually for routine-type work such as pregnancy testing cows, or in the case of the Gerards, visits have invariably been for the precious house cow struck with severe mastitis or calving difficulties. David and Rebecca Drake at Titirangi in the outer Sounds have a short, steep and quite challenging airstrip, especially in nor’westers, which a friend and I not infrequently fly to ‘for the hell of it’ and for a cup of tea in a unique and beautiful bay.

  My calls to the Sounds properties were always memorable and I looked forward to them — less so if I had to drive which I found rather tedious. Occasionally we went by boat but if I could I always flew. That too wasn’t without its mishaps. I have written about the problem I had landing at D’Urville Island in ‘A Long Day on D’Urville’ (page 73) and in Cock and Bull Stories you can read about the time the Piper Cub I flew into Clova Bay blew over and was written off while parked on the Gerards’ airstrip. But I have enjoyed getting to know these wonderful characters and admired their tenacity for farming in a difficult but beautiful environment.

  The Sounds also seems, when one appreciates the very small population living in the area, to have produced a disproportionate number of outstanding artists. No one can paint water like Rick Edmonds, nor portraits as can a very young self-taught extremely talented artist Rebekah Codlin. Award-winning authors from the Sounds include Joy Cowley, a prolific children’s book writer, and Heather Heberley from the famous whaling family.

  In recent times the Sounds seem to have attracted a wide range of characters from all over the globe. Perhaps it is the cheaper land, isolation, or a desire to get out of the rat race. I’m not sure but I do know I have experienced some interesting times with a number of them. Many of these folk would appear to have come from very busy and exciting lives in large cities and perhaps always dreamed of finding a quiet paradise by the sea. A lack of money does not seem to be an issue. On first meeting them I found they were invariably very excited about having shifted to this beautiful but remote part of the world and were not at all daunted by the isolation. In fact they seemed to have welcomed it as much as the friendly locals welcomed them. A few, however, turned out to be somewhat devious characters quietly trying to escape from a bad reputation acquired elsewhere in the country. The odd one arrived bringing some weird religion while others came because they found it an ideal climate to cultivate a certain herb.

  Some bought lifestyle blocks while a few bought larger sheep and beef properties. One of the conditions for overseas buyers to purchase farms has been that the purchaser invested in the land and maintained the production coming off it. While a few have invested heavily in these properties and made them once again highly productive, this has not been honoured on one or two of the larger Sounds farms. These people have usually built huge mansions and perhaps improved the farm tracks but farming has been let go and much of the land has now, rightly or wrongly, started to revert to native bush. The property becomes their holiday retreat which they return to for a couple of weeks, once or twice a year.

  Most of those taking up lifestyle blocks or smaller farms did so with the intention of making it their home. These were the ones with whom I had most of my dealings because, without exception, all seemed to ‘love’ animals, especially horses, but only a few had any real aptitude with them. Most did not seem to appreciate the difficulties isolation meant when it came to getting things done, particularly in an emergency. They were quite impressed and pleased with the fact that I could fly into the Sounds, often at short notice and in no time at all.

  Unfortunately some were used to a system where things happen quickly and jobs get done to order and immediately, and they were incredibly intolerant and very demanding. One horse owner and new Sounds resident travelled for an hour and a half to a property where Rob Ander, one of our vets, was busy pregnancy testing a herd and forced him to leave the job immediately to attend to her horse with colic. Rob followed her home and determined the horse had a parasitic-induced colic. She insisted there was no way her animals had parasites and that her neighbour was trying to poison her horses and Rob was totally incompetent. She ‘shooed’ him off the place and Rob then had to drive an hour and a half back to finish the cows. We never tended to her horses again.

  This woman never really appreciated the society she had shifted to, and was suspicious of outsiders or anyone showing an interest in her place or even going out of their way to be neighbourly. I could never understand why she thought anyone would want to poison her horses.

  One couple who kept horses also had a stallion because they ‘always wanted to breed horses’. For us, working with these animals could at times be a little difficult because they had never been handled properly and the colts never castrated. The breeding programme was soon out of control and I have no idea what they ever intended doing with the surplus animals. Selling unhandled horses is usually difficult and this couple cannot give them away because they ‘love them too much’.

  So there were some interesting times helping these newcomers from overseas and from New Zealand cities understand what was required to successfully keep horses and cows and sheep and deer. Many didn’t have a clue and luckily for most of them, kind-hearted neighbours would always be there to give some guidance and a helping hand. Managing any animal is so much easier if the owner knows a little about animal behaviour and knows how to handle and work with them as farmers in general do. But dealing with those who move to the country with little or no previous experience with large animals adds another dimension to the job.

  One couple had set up a reasonably large vineyard and farmed deer, both occupations that required hard-to-obtain help in the Sounds. Tiffany was a lovely young woman from Auckland who had spent recent years in California where she had been very involved in the wine industry. She brought her American husband back to New Zealand and bought a Sounds property that had around 200 deer running on it, including about 80 stags, as well as a few alpaca and a small flock of goats. She had also in a very short time of arrival acquired a Clydesdale gelding, a couple of hacks and several ponies varying in age and sex from young colts to an old wily arthritic mare. The delightful Tiffany obviously had this dream of owning a farm populated by a large menagerie, with the residents all happily living together and hadn’t thought too much about the care and feeding of them. Someone mentioned that the horses and ponies needed their feet done and perhaps they should have their teeth checked as well and the colts should be castrated. So I arrived on the property not knowing what to expect but very quickly realised it was going to be a long afternoon. Tiffany had no idea what was involved but obviously thought the vet would and she wouldn’t need to worry about how we caught them. The horses and ponies all inhabited the one largish paddock, there were no facilities like a decent set of stock yards, and few of them had been handled in recent times. As you can imagine it was a drawn-out job with two people, one of whom didn’t really know how to help, catching these animals one by one and dealing with them.

  I mentioned to her before flying back to Blenheim that she would have to look at getting the velvet off the stags soon and to let me know when she had organised someone to help her get them in and sort out the ones that needed develveting. I would come out and remove the velvet over two or three visits. This time Tiffany was well organised. A poor neighbour had spent many hours getting all the stags crammed into the nicely cleaned-out deer shed but by the time I arrived a lot of the velvet was damaged. Luckily I had with me John Howie, a Scottish vet who was working for us. John had a wonderful sense of humour but at the end of that day he had lost it all. Because of
the effort getting the stags in and the damaged velvet we decided to develvet all the deer that had velvet whether they were ready or not. Not an easy job with limited space and the logistical difficulties of releasing recovered stags and dealing with tranquilised ones. John was very much a cow man and had limited experience with deer and throughout the afternoon I could hear him mumbling about how much he hated working with deer. As far as I am aware he has never touched one since.

  Others have attempted to farm sheep and beef organically — difficult in a higher humidity environment, kind to all types of parasite. Unfortunately too often farming organically has been a convenient excuse for not doing anything, with animal health suffering and animal welfare becoming an issue. This was the case with one professional couple from Wellington who, despite their obvious intelligence and high social status there, became an embarrassment to the locals. The health of their stock deteriorated through shocking management and neglect.

  One woman had four horses that she housed in beautiful stables they had built and she fed and tended to them as if they were champion event horses. One was difficult to handle and another was very old and crippled with arthritis. She loved this horse so much that she had brought it with her from the States. I’m not sure if any of these horses were ridden or could even be ridden or that the owner could even ride. But she did love them and I always enjoyed rather amusing visits there. The facilities were magnificent and she and her husband treated me very well.

  One evening I received a call from John the husband. He said that Genevieve was back in the States and that the local girl who was tending the horses had found the youngest, Ted, with what sounded over the phone like ‘choke’. This is a condition where food, often hay, gets caught up in the oesophagus halfway to the stomach. While this is not usually fatal it is distressing for the horse. Sometimes it will spontaneously clear itself. However, John said that I had better come out because Genevieve would shoot him if anything happened to Ted. It was too late in the day to fly so to save the long drive he would come in by boat and pick me up in Havelock. This is what happened but by the time we got back to his place in the Kenepuru it was dark. The girl tending Ted was there to meet us and informed us that Ted was now OK and happily eating again. So we turned around and headed back to Havelock in his 9 metre twin outboard runabout at an incredible speed. It was so dark we couldn’t see a thing but John navigated using his GPS unit, the first I had ever seen. It was probably one of the most nerve-wracking rides I have ever experienced in any mode of transport. I had horrible visions of hitting one of the large logs I had seen floating in the water on the way out. John did not seem at all concerned but I was very relieved when we got back to the 5 knot stretch of water nearer Havelock.