Having taken an extended hiatus following, no less, posting of my 500th Daily Dose of Profundity, I now feel equipped to resume correspondence.
Meantime high country labouring in the Hurunui, toil I have been enduring on my sister and brother-in-law’s farm for the past while, has afforded me the clarity to view my predicament from an objective stance…
One might recall the recent ‘Kaikoura’ earthquake – curiously bitched and moaned about more by Wellington than anyone else – the epicentre of which was situated somewhere between Waiau and Culverden; just kilometres in fact from the aforementioned farm’s location. That particular quake, November 14, 2016, of a 7.8 magnitude, was the largest shake modern New Zealand has seen and, having been sleeping a mere 10 kilometres from 2010’s epic 7.1 epicentre, I could relate to the Hurunui locals’ collective sense of unrest. Yet on this fateful occasion (14 November, 2016), I just happened to have departed the Hurunui District in the days before this 7.8 monstrosity struck, thereby experiencing rural North Canterbury’s November 2016 quake at a comparable magnitude to that which I expect Christchurch city experienced rural Mid Canterbury’s 7.1 shake in September 2010; suffice to say, unnerving, but little more.
…Initially arriving at the Hurunui farm in September of 2016 with the intention of assisting with the tailing of an estimated 7000 lambs, it soon transpired that the younger brother of the wife of the farm owner was in fact a rather fine worker. Further to that discovery, the novelty five litre bottle of Beam that came out after tailing each night, and which he appeared to approach with the abandon of a seasoned drunkard as opposed to a youthful larrikin, was becoming alarmingly depleted…
Back in September, the fresh spring mornings heralded by an idiot rooster which appeared to have little comprehension of time at all, waking and getting up with the sun after sometimes only going down a number of hours earlier had an interesting effect on my constitution, yet really only cemented the adage: the best thing for a hangover is indeed hard work (also copious fluids).
…Five on two off; four on three off – I would arrive at the North Canterbury farm Friday morning (later every second week after a mid-morning visit to the NZ Blood Service to excrete 750mls of plasma), work through the weekend then Monday and most of Tuesday, where I would shoot off a smidgen early on Tuesday afternoon in order to ensure that I made it back to Christchurch in time for jiu-jitsu that evening…
Often working through over a thousand lambs a day the seemingly endless task of tailing was soon finished; I was nevertheless invited back the following week to help out with other farm tasks such as tractor work, or spraying the gorse and broom overlooked by the past farm owner, or weaning of the first of those tailed lambs, or as summer broke it was helping with irrigation – also maintaining the almighty diesel engines running 24 hours a day pumping water into the irrigation system – or grubbing noxious tussocks, or making balage, or shearing, and/or so on.
…The anxiety was getting up. I had too much to do, not enough time to do it, I was more tired than ever, I had become intolerably absentminded, and I was beginning to make stupid mistakes – both on the farm and off. On the plus side though, even after slamming out a few power-naps at some of the more delayed traffic lights on the way back into Christchurch, I was so exhausted at jiu-jitsu that night that my typically fervent pace was replaced with a more methodical, docile and apparently improved technique…
During the first few weeks as a (slave) farm labourer, to my horror I found that I had shed a mysterious couple of kilograms from my already streamline physique – that inconsequential layer of stomach flab had been still reduced and if I had been toned before, this 33-year-old-height-of-hirsuteness was now utterly ripped. However the frequent hunger, the constant sleep deprivation, the excessive boozing, the physically demanding nature of my current lifestyle along with the recurring bouts of anxiety that lifestyle evoked, seemed also to be talking their toll in more insidious ways.
…My house, my grounds, my poor old neglected property was in desperate need of upkeep, only I was too tired, to Goddamned exhausted to do anything about it. While it was really only my ridiculous sense of obligation, some kind of misguided loyalty coupled with a frustrating sense of OCD-induced never-give-up-ed-ness that kept me going back to the Hurunui every Friday, and while I certainly wasn’t benefitting financially, I did feel good about the work I was doing; additionally, in fairness, it was totally pandering to my (I suspect also OCD-induced) passion for efficiency and moreover, productivity…
I have this frighteningly erratic and downright vicious tremor of my arms, neck and, well, most every place within this poor decrepit frame of mine that – supplanting the typical old debilitating rattle the ruinous nature of which I am indeed accustomed – although I don’t tend to experience all that often when I do, quite simply I am aware that something needs to change. I think the reason I don’t see it so much is because this more extreme variety of bodily tremor tends to reserve itself for those negligent moments when I have undergone prolonged periods of being either, outrageously tired, stupendously hungry, horrendously nervous, uproariously excited, or just plain anxious, (yet after running through that list just now I am surprised that this ‘mega-tremor’, as I am just now coining it, is not seen more frequently).
…There was something about the way my brother-in-law ran those multiple-thousands of riverside acres – more like a thriving city business than a dirty old high country farm – that impressed me. I recall telling him as much during one of our nightly whisky sessions (bourbon having run dry some weeks earlier), and I guess that must have been around the same time I decided within myself that if I could help to grease the wheels of this farming juggernaut, if I was allowed to jump aboard this rurally destined freight-train as it careered inexorably towards the upper echelons of farming grandeur, if I could perhaps tether myself to its mighty smokestacks as it ploughed unabashed though the tempestuous seas of the farming world, then yes, I mused beneath a metaphorical cloud of too much pricy whisky, I would quite happily come along for the ride…
Tailing lambs was fine. It was great – I would use all my strength to lift, restrain, clasp then hold the young ovine brutes, as I shoved/pushed/slid them up onto the tailing chute (incidentally it was estimated at the end that I must have carried out this procedure somewhere close to 4000 times), where they would have their ears marked then finally, their tails chopped – it required the majority of my strength therefore leaving little room for any kind of tremor, or mega-tremor, to manifest; also tractor driving – towing a heavy roller, grubbing or drilling a paddock, also mowing then later raking into rows the grass in the paddocks that I had weeks ago rolled flat of any stones so the mower could operate free from obstructions – wasn’t particularly demanding work and aside from the mental strain, which was admittedly huge, my physical state was scarcely called into question.
…Indeed from under an enchanting fug of whisky vapour the prospective possibilities for me as a farm labourer were positively scintillating; out in the paddock the next morning under a beating sun trying to shift a break fence without sustaining mild electrocution while ensuring the live wire remained sufficiently taught throughout the movement to prevent the curious herd of cattle (thank you, yes, I have – heard of sheep?) from stepping over which would mean up to an hour of sprinting up and down hills in an effort to bring them back (which, in my defence, only happened once in about twelve), then shit damn, somehow the mega-tremor caused the wire to dislodge from the standard I was holding in an outstretched arm at waist-height thereby draping its electrified self around me so all I could do to avoid its wrath was rapidly retreat until the wire went slack – but not before succumbing to at least one gigantic belt – then just as quickly pick it up in the hogs-tail insulator and raise to waist height, hoping the curious cattle hadn’t noticed the momentary break in defensive continuity…
It was everything else that was required of me which, when working for myself I can pick and choose my tasks and typically avoid the worst, or slow down and go at my own pace but under someone else’s employ (as I felt I was even though technically I was not), I am driven by my own foolish sense of obligation. This obligation drives, nay compels me to work as hard and as fast as is reasonable, which given my cognitively traumatised plight is an entirely unreasonable burden for me to place upon myself.
…Nevertheless my skin, my flesh, my heart soon inured to giant wallops brought about by cattle fences as I found that, secure as those electric wires generally were in their insulators, no insulator was above the oscillations created by a mega-tremor of the foot stamping the standard into the ground or the arm lifting it clear of the feed-break, and as I found, holding the standard higher to increase tension only meant that when the wire did inevitably jump out, it was less likely to drape across my clothed arm and more likely to drape across my semi-bearded face…
Contemporaries must have noticed the reduction in my standard of appearance and/or mood, and at jiu-jitsu of a Tuesday night I often found myself fielding solicitous queries into my wellbeing; of course I would always respond reassuringly because the truth was, gruelling as my current regime was, damaging as it might have been to my condition, dampening as it apparently was to my mood, I still felt as though I was enjoying the challenge.
…I never did realise there were so many areas in farming life where a steady hand was vital – tasks such as shifting lateral irrigation sprinklers were fine but things like plumbing up the larger irrigation gun, with all its pipes and fittings (also important sequences which if not done correctly can result in the destruction of the unit’s inner workings hence my less than confident approach), and computer units with programmes and buttons which don’t react positively to being pressed four times in under half a second – but I guess it’s similar to most other things in this world at which I’ve tried, and failed…
My strength and natural fitness were proving assets in farm life and of course I no longer had to make time to undertake my daily exercise routine; I felt more physically drained after a day shifting break fences, moving irrigation, driving tractors, mustering stock, digging in fence posts, moving more stock then putting up another break fence to shift the next day – before slurping through a straw the customary whisky on the rocks – than I feel after cycling 80 kilometres in a nor’wester (actually, theoretically only 40 into the wind, providing the wind doesn’t change halfway – which it frequently does – the other 40’s with it).
…Yet growing up on a Mid Canterbury, mid-sized; low country, low rainfall, but extremely high wind, intensively arable farm, then having nothing much to do with farming for over the past decade as I shifted focus to mechanics, to landscaping, then onto literature, I was surprised at how easily I fell in with the high country farming lifestyle…
In my heart I love the prospect of devoting my life to the land; my head however says differently. My head isn’t so sure if my nerves can handle a life of continual hard slog; my nerves, subsequently, aren’t certain if my body can handle too much more of this infernal mega-tremor that they’ve unleashed upon it.
…Jiu-jitsu again tonight (last night). Having not been back to the Hurunui District since Christmas I am feeling mildly refreshed.
Mildly refreshed but very slack.
Article by Tim Walker
Edited by Rip Dahf Zeek
Photography by Hitch N Hills