Jennifer and David Rodrigue have a small herd of bell-wearing goats at their Waipū farm.
The goats browse on trees, shrubs and grass and produce milk that's transformed into award-winning cheese.
When Jennifer Rodrigue's customers have a hankering for goat cheese it seems little deters them.
She has a tiny on-farm cheese room, up a very steep driveway, down a quiet country lane, near Waipū.
"We had customers on Christmas day, New Year's Day. People come up here and they are on holiday and they don't actually know what day it is - they just need some cheese," Jennifer laughs.
When Country Life visited in March, Jennifer had been milking and making cheese every single day for 230 days. She had day 243 in her sights, the day she would hang up the cups for the season and finally have the opportunity to take a day off.
Her 17 spoiled goats would also have a break too but not before an appointment with a buck who Jennifer says at this time of year, mating time, is at his smelliest.
"They (the bucks) have been stinking themselves up," she says. "What they are doing is just urinating on themselves so they direct the urine up and under their chin, onto their forehead is where they would like to get it, so they can then go around the property and mark their territory rubbing that smell all over the fence posts.
"The girls like it and I have had a situation where they jumped fences to get in with the stinkiest buck instead of the one I put them with."
Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
Jennifer and her husband David have been farming goats for seven years. Originally from the United States, where they both worked in computer networking, they moved to a coastal community near Whangārei to dial back their stress levels before relocating to their small farm.
"We had always wanted to move onto the land and David and I have a deep-seated love for goats and wanted to do something with them. We didn't originally want to be tied to dairy. We thought we were going to raise meat goats and then when we started meeting goats we decided we couldn't do that so I had to learn to make cheese."
Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
At first, two were milked by hand. Now she has a four-stand milking platform. Next season the milking herd of predominantly Anglo Nubian goats will grow to two dozen.
Each goat produces about two and a half litres of milk a day and at the season's peak, Jennifer was turning 45 litres of milk into her range of chevre, feta, a hard cheese, a halloumi-style cheese, a goat-milk equivalent of camembert and other specialty cheeses.
"We chose to go with the Anglo Nubian because they are said to have a higher fat content and that produces more cheese so I do have high fat-producing goats and a very good yield out of my meagre volume."
While Jennifer takes care of the milking and cheese making David looks after the goats.
Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
M's the matriarch. "She's bossy. The others ... they don't mess with her."
Charlotte is one of his favourites. "She is very affectionate. She comes up and she will just stand next to me and rub her head on me."
Each of the goats has a Swiss bell around her neck - some brass, some steel, each tinkling with a different tone.
"I just love the animals," David says, "They're so cheeky.
"Some of them are incredible jumpers. We have goats that can jump over any fence we have here if they wanted to... They love my hat, they love straw ... If I'm not careful they'll eat this hat right off my head."
David says he couldn't be happier farming and contributing to the production of high quality, healthy food.
"New Zealand is just so good at that and I don't think Kiwis really appreciate it.
"It's a wonderful lifestyle to be with these rolling hills and these views of mountains and ocean and just to be in such a beautiful spot with these beautiful animals ."
Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
Goat cheese rapsberry bonbons Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
