Word of the day

Agastopia – admiration or love of a particular part of someone’s body.

Milne muses

“We gaze at mountain scenery; we watch the waves breaking on the shore; we walk through a beech wood in October. And we are filled with a sense of beauty. We return home feeling refreshed, like a thirsty man who has drunk a glass of water.” ~C.R.Milne #SaturdayThoughts #Nature pic.twitter.com/K0gvwPoGPF

— A.A.Milne (@A_AMilne) October 17, 2020

Rural round-up

Precision tech helps farmer get it right :

Mid-Canterbury arable and dairy farmer Craige Mackenzie’s philosophy is right input, right quantity, right place, right time — which makes sense for his business and for the land, waterways and climate.

Conditions often aren’t in his favour, but precision technology is helping to even the odds.

Getting to grips with highly variable weather and soil quality is a constant challenge on Craige Mackenzie’s cropping and dairy farm, near Methven, in Mid-Canterbury.

However, precision technology is proving a powerful ally.  . . 

Federated Farmers query references to indigenous fish in plan change – Matthew Littlewood:

Federated Farmers has asked that a wide-ranging plan change setting water use rules for South Canterbury remove all references to the protection of “indigenous fish”.

Environment Canterbury’s Proposed Plan Change 7 (PC7), which sets the limits for water quality, with particular focus on the Orari-Temuka-Opihi-Pareora (Otop) catchment, is now going through the hearings process.

The proposed plan has received 560 submissions.

At the hearings held at the Grosvenor Hotel in Timaru, on Tuesday, the farming lobby group addressed many of the proposed rules and regulations of PC7, with speakers to the submission including Federated Farmers’ South Canterbury president Jason Grant, past provincial president Ivon Hurst, farmer Peter Bonifacio and senior policy advisor Dr Lionel Hume. . . 

Sustainable approach helps boost productivity :

An East Coast farm is enjoying a dramatic increase in productivity, despite retiring 10% of the land – proving that farming sustainably doesn’t have to come at an economic cost.

Since 2015 when they started managing Puketitiri sheep and beef farm Taramoa – located midway between Taupo and Hastings – Dan and Billie Herries have continued the previous managers’ devotion to enhancing its biodiversity. 

Their hard work was recognised with a suite of awards in the 2020 East Coast Ballance Farm Environment Awards.

More than 20,000 native plants have been planted, all waterways have been fenced and a comprehensive predator trapping network now covers the whole property. . . 

That's calendar farming for ya……
Pushing the envelope before things are ready because the government says so!! pic.twitter.com/Bm6zbvcO8n

— 🚜🐄 🧢Bruce🧢 🐄🚜 (@fairleigh_ag) October 21, 2020

‘Phenomenal’ restoration of Milford Track for summer hiking – Tess Brunton:

Crews in remote Fiordland have been working hard to restore the Milford Track against a looming deadline.

The Great Walk was badly damaged when a metre of rain fell in less than three days in early February, causing widespread flooding, landslips and stranding hundreds of people.

In May, $13.7 million was earmarked to help the Department of Conservation (DOC) repair flood damaged tracks and other infrastructure.

DOC has set its sights on reopening the Milford Track this summer with all places booked out within an hour of bookings opening. . . 

Waikato Milking Systems enters domestic and international small ruminants industry:

A leading developer and manufacturer of dairy technology is moving to help New Zealand farmers switch over to the emerging dairy sheep and dairy goat industries.

Waikato Milking Systems recently commissioned three small ruminant milking parlours in the central North Island to farmers who are among the first independent commercial suppliers of goat and sheep milk in the country.

It included a 40-bail inline rapid exit sheep milking plant for Green Park Sheep near Te Awamutu, a 40-bail inline rapid exit for Schuler Brothers at Te Aroha and an internal 70-bail sheep rotary plant installed for Browne Pastoral near Cambridge. . . 

Repost from Glentanner Station, on the road again! pic.twitter.com/Q8K7H1Y7BR

— New Zealand Merino (@NZMerinoCo) October 21, 2020

Plant pathologist Pamela Ronald Named GCHERA World Agriculture Prize Laureate award Recognizes exceptional lifetime achievement in agriculture – Amy Quinton:

Pamela Ronald, distinguished professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of California, Davis, and with the UC Davis Genome Center, has been named a 2020 World Agriculture Prize laureate by the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agricultural and Life Sciences, or GCHERA. She becomes the first woman whose work is recognized by the award.

“This award is a really special honor and I’m very grateful,” said Ronald. “I’m happy to be part of a global community of agricultural scientists that has been able to make a huge difference in the lives of farmers.”

The award ceremony will be virtually held at 5 p.m. on Nov. 30 from Nanjing Agricultural University, Jiangsu Province, China. GCHERA also jointly named Professor Zhang Fusuo of China Agricultural University a laureate this year. . . 

Yes Sir Humphrey

If you walked into a nuclear missile showroom you would buy Trident. It's lovely, it's elegant, it's beautiful. It is quite simply the best. In the world of the nuclear missile it is the Savile Row suit, the Rolls Royce Corniche. It is the nuclear missile Harrods would sell you.

— Sir Humphrey Appleby (@YesSirHumphrey) October 7, 2020

Self-kindness inside grief (and any other kind of hardship)

Megan Devine on self kindness:

Being kind to yourself is one of the hardest things to do. OTHER people might deserve kindness and compassion, but you? You know too much about yourself – the things you did and didn’t do, the ways you failed or didn’t try hard enough – to ever be kind. Let’s find a way around this, okay? For all you’ve had to live, you deserve kindness. . . 

Megan Devine’s Refuge in Grief is one of the most helpful resources I have come across.

You can find it here.

Sunday soapbox

Sunday’s soapbox is yours to use as you will – within the bounds of decency and absence of defamation. You’re welcome to look back or forward, discuss issues of the moment, to pontificate, ponder or point us to something of interest, to educate, elucidate or entertain, amuse, bemuse or simply muse, but not abuse.

You can cut all the flowers but you cannot stop spring form coming. – Pablo Neruda