Jason Christensen overlooking recent plantings on the farm. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
You can trace much of the Christensen family's 144-year-old farming history through the items on display at the Mount Bruce Pioneer Museum located in the heart of their dairy property.
It started with milking machines, which dairy farmer Henry Christensen started collecting in the 1980s.
Among other items like washing machines, a telephone exchange, old record player, and commercial butter-maker, the machines would go on to form the backbone of the museum in 1986.
It took him over 50 years to bring together the collection, thought to number in the tens of thousands.
It's grown over the years, with Henry being gifted items from estate sales or purchasing them off other local collectors.
"It keeps going alright," Henry told Country Life on a tour of the museum.
"Some of the oldest items would be over 100 years old."
An interactive pedal milking station at the Mount Bruce Pioneer Museum. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
Not afraid to leave his own mark on history, Henry was also an early adopter of new technology such as the rotary shed and he built the first in Wairarapa.
Told it wouldn't last more than a month, 50 years later it's still used for milking - though the deck is admittedly "pretty thin in some places".
That pioneering spirit lives on in Henry's son Jason, who now runs the family farm which was first purchased in1879. Jason is the fifth-generation in charge.
"Yeah it's pretty special," Jason told Country Life. "It was one of those earlier blocks that was divvied up in the 1800s. We've stayed here ever since."
Fernhill's rotary milking shed was one of the first to be built in Wairarapa. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
Fernhill, a 562-hectare farm nestled in the foothills of the Tararua Range, runs just under 300 Jersey cows for milking.
Before taking on the farm, Jason spent over a decade working as a ranger for the Department of Conservation, primarily on Mana Island off the Kāpiti Coast and later out of Waikanae.
"Everyday was different, it's a bit like farming. One day you could be greeting visitors, the next day you could be head down, bum up doing a whole lot of maintenance."
As the job changed to become more "officebound" and Henry started thinking about retiring, Jason made a return to the family farm.
"I came home for the quiet life," he says, adding it was one of the best decisions he has ever made.
His time spent in the bush proved influential in his approach to running the farm, continuing much of the conservation efforts started by Henry.
"Dad started early on, fencing off the river and bits of pieces. We've exceeded that to date and [are] trying to beat any regulations.
"I suppose a lot of that conservation side is pretty much ingrained in me, or indoctrinated in me, as we used to call it."
Some of Fernhill's diary cows during feeding time. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
Fernhill recently won two of this year's Greater Wellington Ballance Farm Environment Awards in recognition of the family's conservation efforts.
The farm has a swathe of riparian plantings on its hills and alongside its fenced off waterways. There are also seven blocks of QEII land.
They've used Manuka plantings to help "purify" the water and take more nutrients out. Redwoods and Douglas Fir trees have been planted along waterways to provide shade.
"As part of our catchment group we've discovered heat is one of the biggest issues for our catchment," Jason says.
There are no straight lines, with the plantings designed to replicate nature.
Old bait stations from Mana Island, made from yellow novacoil pipes, have been used to protect juvenile plantings. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
Many are planted in old Mana Island bait stations - made from novacoil pipes - to protect them from pests species like rabbits, pūkeko and hares.
"It also gives them a good head start because even on these drier summer days, when you do get a bit of dew in the morning it just runs down the side."
Just down the road from Pūkaha National Wildlife Centre in Mt Bruce, which is visible from the farm, Fernhill gets its share of birdlife including passing kākā .
Jason knows such efforts take time though. They've planted about 4000 to 5000 trees each year for the past decade.
"Not everything can happen overnight. You've got to be profitable to be able to afford that green component."
The plantings help offset greenhouse gases generated by the dairy farm.
From left: Jason and Henry Christensen outside the Mount Bruce Pioneer Museum entrance. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
"We're just guardians of the land," Jason says.
He thinks, his great-great-grandad who started the farm would be proud to see it's still in the family, though would likely be surprised by the many technological advances.
"Technology has advanced really 10-fold in the last hundred years. The advancements in technology and information gathering in Dad's era has just advanced so much from back then even - early cars and things like that."
All the more reason to keep the Mount Bruce Pioneer Museum running.
"It will be here for some time."
