From the city to Fieldays

“You’ve never been to Field Days (pregnant pause) Never? (disbelief) Ever? (disgust).” e outrage was palpable. Because the good folk I work with are Coast & Country News acolytes –they know a Holstein from a Hereford, and a John Deere from a New Holland.

But no I haven’t been to Field Days. And to reinforce the point, I threw in the fact I have never even owned a pair of gumboots.

Heaven forbid!

It was like I’d told them I had just tested positive for foot and mouth, that I was philosophically in tune with the A ordable Water Reforms, or that as a card-carrying member of Federated Farmers I would be voting Labour on Saturday, October 14. Or all three.

Heaven forbid!

“ ere are tractors, and stu … and sheep shearing.”

What a sales pitch. It was the “stu ” that swung it for me, the thrill of the unknown and unforeseen.

Coming from a 17th oor apartment in Auckland I was going to say the agrarian life and I never connected. Well we did, but it was more of an unfortunate collision.

As a schoolboy I learned to drive on a red Massey Ferguson in the 1960s – one like Sir Ed went to the South Pole on in 1958. But he got more press than I did if I recall. en a succession of unfortunate events saw me scuttling back to the city. I was fed sweatbread patties for lunch – sweetbreads, pancreas and thymus glands. As soon as I discovered I had been eating o al I barfed, regurgitated the patties in the garden by the backdoor. e same afternoon I fainted for the rst and last time when the farmer pulled a hogget from the house paddock and unceremoniously slit its throat. en a couple of days later I tore down three chain of new fencing when I did a tight turn on the Massey Ferguson while tedding.

Enticing o er

I remember the sound …. ping, ping, ping, ping. It sounded quite melodic – the opening barrage of an overture – but it was also an expensive sound.

Anyhow at the promise of seeing “stu ” at Fieldays I am committing to going, I will join the 140,000 people of the soil expected at Mystery Creek this year. I have checked out some appropriate kit – some RM Williams burnished Macquarie boots at $899 and some $89.99 Red Bands in case it rains.

And that’s before the checked sportscoat, checked annel shirts and $140 Swanndri moleskins. Bloody hell – you’d need the income of a farmer to even look like one.

Bring on the “stu .”

Hunter Wells