Country Life

A scent of the past on Mahia Peninsula, Putting a steak in the ground with heritage breed & Nevalea Alpaca

Working dogs go under the hammer, Aiming for Sweet Success - from old carpet factory to vertical strawberry farm & Choice Cherimoyas

After pursuing a career in fashion, dabbling as a yoga instructor and a snowboard instructor, Laura Schultz has found where she was meant to be, was actually where she had been running from.

Veteran New Zealand actor Sam Neill returned to his Central Otago vineyard earlier this month to find vines shooting up, pet pigs waiting for a scratch and a young stand of native trees thriving on a ridge overlooking his Red Bank Vineyard. He's celebrating the 25th vintage of Two Paddocks wine.

On the vineyard with Sam Neill, chook rescuers seek happy homes for hens, the full circle journey for a young avocado orchard manager and On the Farm - a wrap of farming conditions around NZ.

Heavy rain in Pukekohe mid-week made the ground too wet to dig potatoes or lift onions. Cherry picking is underway in Otago. The last two weeks have seen warm days and cool nights which has been good for ripening and flavour.

Hundreds of chickens are up for adoption after clawing their way back to health. The birds are under the caring wing of volunteers at North Canterbury Chicken Rescue. Some are found abandoned on roadsides and others are cage farming rejects, a system that will be banned at the end of the year.

Look underneath and you'll know what's right for the land, says forest and soil consultant Ian Moore. He's hanging up his workboots and now has more time to spend nurturing stands of harakeke, redwoods, totara and eucalypts which all mingle together alongside sheep and cattle on his hill block near Whanganui.

A Year on the Farm - Part 3: Dagging Ewes to prevent Flystrike, Ian Moore, tractor racing and On the Farm - a wrap of farming conditions around NZ.

Fieldays being held in late-November wasn't the only difference to the annual offering. Mark Eager and Lizzie Stephenson were put in the drivers seat of a tractor in a race they dubbed against the tortoise and the hare.

It's a hot day in the yards as Oxford farmers Alistair and Genna Bird start the pre-summer task of crutching a mob of woolly sheep.

Rain has come back to Northland in the past few days. It's a blessing to see conditions like these in the summer months as soil moisture levels won't be improving from now. Silage making is in full swing in Canterbury and vineyards are at the tail end of shoot thinning in Central Otago.

Country Life takes a walk along a coastal trapline in Kaikoura, checks in with rural teen Rayne Bradley who's about to spread her wings and visits the Fieldays Innovation Hub.

A trapline snakes its way along the coast between the Awatere River in Marlborough and Oaro River in North Canterbury. It's there to protect endangered native birds from introduced predators. The Te Tau Wairehu o Marokura Predator Control Project has a two million dollar contract to establish and maintain the 127 kilometre line.

More than 60 creative problem solvers were finalists in the Fieldays Innovation Awards this week.