Lee follows her herd of Red Devons at her farm in the Waimatā Valley near Gisborne Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
It's been five years since Lee Askew traded her police vest for farmer's boots to rear a herd of Red Devon cattle near Gisborne.
She farms them for her artisan meat brand Shemshi Red Devon Meat, sold at the Gisborne Farmer's Market.
Like policing, taking kai from paddock to stall is no easy job and Askew is among the many food producers who devote time, passion and sheer hard work to filling their baskets, chillers and tables every week at markets around Aotearoa.
On a drizzly winter's day she took Country Life to meet last year's calves in a paddock off a steep muddy track at her 66-hectare farm in the Waimatā Valley.
It was time to move them to fresh pasture.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon," she called as they tucked into the verge.
Askew was keen to go down a different route from the traditional Angus breed, popular among New Zealand's beef farmers.
The Red Devons, as the name suggests, are a deep dark red.
"They are very good foragers, (have an) amazing temperament and the whole point of it is they do produce beautiful beef as well."
Lee Askew Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
Askew was told by an aunt she was "born with wellies on," despite growing up north of London and working as a police officer in the UK, five years of those as a detective.
She emigrated to New Zealand in 2007 with her husband Brian when she heard New Zealand's police force was recruiting UK officers.
"I thought, wow, I've just got to go for this. It's fate."
As a 21-year-old she had fallen for New Zealand after spending a year here milking dairy cows.
On returning to the UK, she gained a diploma in Farm Management and worked as a consultant in the dairy industry before taking what she calls a strange plunge - joining the police force in Devon and Cornwall.
Red Devon cattle are good foragers and have an amazing temperament as well as produce beautiful beef, Lee says. Photo: RNZ/Sally Round
But farming drew her back and, while working with the police child protection team in Gisborne, she started working on the land again with Brian at her side.
He became ill with early onset dementia, however, and died three years ago.
"That was my number one challenge ... a pretty dark time."
"It was a no-brainer for me that I had to carry on. He would have wanted that anyway."
This year's cyclones have thrown up yet more challenges, but, drawn to the idea of self-sufficiency, she hopes more solar panels and a new generator will see her through tricky times in future.
Her herd had grown to over a hundred but she has scaled back to half that to keep things manageable and the stock well-fed.
Askew sends off two cattle beasts every two months to the Wholly Cow micro abattoir in Cambridge to ensure her stock have as stress-free an end as possible.
Every week is a busy one for Askew, dealing with the primal cuts, ensuring she has all the ingredients for her stall produce, loading the trailer and of course selling the slow cooked beef burgers and other meat goods at the Saturday market.
Comparing her time policing with rearing the Red Devons, Askew said both professions weren't short of variety.
"You have to think out of the box."
