 Hi there NZ Life & Leisure reader
My big lesson this week? You can’t treat yearling heifers like children and get away unscathed. The girls are growing very big and quite dauntingly chunky. On Sunday I took them a colander of left-over cauliflower and broccoli leaves. They’d just scoffed a summer-smelling bale of hay yet the brassica bits sent them into a flurry. Flavia, who is my favourite for her not-a-care-in-the-world approach to life, stood placidly beside me at the fence, musing in her bucolic manner and stoically chewing through her share of cauli leaves. Suddenly Pretty – who is more nasty than pretty these days – head-butted Flavia in the stomach, knocking her into the fence and sending me (on the other side of the fence) crashing to the ground. Pretty continued butting Flavia so hard I thought the fence would come down. I tried to stop this carry-on by bashing Pretty on the back with my fist and, as a result, have a very sore – possibly sprained – wrist. How idiotic it was to be whacking a 250kg beast on the back while yelling – in my best behave-now-children voice – "Stop it, you naughty girls". The damaged wrist hurts most while I’m trying to push a supermarket trolley which is the perfect reason for NOT doing so. Put me to work forking pungent compost any day over a visit to the supermarket. Get me shifting the wood pile or clearing around trees. Anything but shopping for groceries.
Another big lesson this month? Cows don’t have seven stomachs so which silly moo said they did? Well, me, in my last newsletter and fortunately there are many farmers out there reading NZ Life & Leisure and ready to put me right. My mate Graeme Williams, farmer-poet from Tolaga Bay, informed me in a clout-around-the-lug-email: "A cow has four stomachs: rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum". And then sent me this poem:
I read with interest your newsletter
Dated August 2012
You touched on several issues
On which I’d like to delve
Charlie’s getting a heifer
The day that he is wed
Charlie’s very lucky
Some get a cow instead.
(see below, in the right-hand column for the rest of the poem).
Graeme writes poems to order for $100 a pop and he sells his book Ribtickling Rhymes for $15. All proceeds go to the local Gisborne Breast Cancer charity which his partner Derry Stovell helped to establish. The charity’s big fundraiser is the famous annual Gisborne Terrier Day at which fox terriers and Jack Russells race round the showgrounds. All participants reckon it’s better than the Melbourne Cup for glamour, fun and betting opportunities. Terrier Day is Sunday 25 November this year. To order a poem, a copy of Ribtickling Rhymes or to book a corporate tent at Terrier Day, contact Derry at derry@farmside.co.nz (You might have seen Graeme and Derry on their Tolaga Bay farm in a recent Country Calendar. They were the crazy couple who move outside for summer to sleep on the veranda.)
Perhaps Graeme could write NZ Life & Leisure’s resubscription letters. There are a couple of hundred people who have dropped off the NZ Life & Leisure subscription list and we want them back.  Our best idea was to dress up art director Yolly’s little Exotic Lilac cat, Miss Pepe le Pew, in her special leopard-skin cowgirl hat, photograph her and then say: “Please come back; resusbcribe to NZ Life & Leisure…or the cat gets it”. However, our brand manager Erin won’t let us.
“You will offend people,” Erin says about the “cat gets it” line. We were only kidding and NZ Life & Leisure readers have a great sense of humour. We once called an issue The Totally Mad Issue and everyone featured in it loved being called completely bonkers.
Our latest issue hits the streets today and one woman who is totally NOT bonkers and can wrangle any number of animals without losing her cool is world-famous, Auckland-born photographer Rachael (nee Hale) McKenna. She takes no notice of the old warning: “Never work with small children or animals”. How many animals has she managed to fit on our cover – all serene and chilled-out plus a toddler. She’s a genius, that Rachael, and her latest books The French Cat, The French Dog and Lunch in Provence show her love and understanding of cats and dogs – even if they do speak la francaise. Meet Rachael’s husband Mike and daughter Charlize and see their beautiful home in the Languedoc area of southern France. You can also win copies of her latest books. What a life – 300 days of summer in the Languedoc, she tells me. Heaven from where I am sitting, surrounded by pugsture, thanks to 300 days of rain!
| Books, books and more books |
A crop of marvellous books has just been released. Our own Dr Libby has published her first cookbook The Real Food Chef with mouth-watering images of health-giving food which also teases the tastebuds. (We have five copies to give away.) And our lovely Annabel Langbein has yet another inspiring cookbook The Free Range Cook: Simple Pleasures of which we also have copies for you to win. I’ve also loved reading Back to the Land by my fellow editor Lynda Hallinan in which she details a year of gardening (trees, vegetables, flowers and roses) in the Hunua farm she shares with husband Jason and son Lucas. I couldn’t put it down and felt inspired to go and dig up the back paddock for spuds. (Subscribe to Lynda’s wonderful weekly Get Growing newsletter.)
| Join us at New Zealand’s most famous garden |
 We’re all looking forward to visiting Ayrlies near Whitford for our NZ Life & Leisure Reader Event to celebrate the launch of Bev McConnell’s book Ayrlies: My Story My Garden. Bev will talk about the inspiration and perspiration behind her five decades of creating both Ayrlies and her book. The event has sold out but you can still order your copy of Ayrlies: My Story, My Garden at mags4gifts.co.nz See Bev on our website talking about her garden in this NZ Life & Leisure video.
I am all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed thanks to signing up for the Sleepyhead Sleep Challenge and today I'm driving everyone in the office nuts with my energy. Who doesn't want to bounce around like an indiarubber ball and feel the joys of spring every day? We all need help getting to sleep and Dr Libby and Sleepyhead are walking us through the way to do it. Read all about it on pages 59-60 and then go to our website nzlifeandleisure.co.nz/sleepyheadchallenge and enter the Sleepyhead Sleep Challenge.
| Don’t leave home without it |
 The 2013 NZ Life & Leisure Insider’s Guide is in production at the moment and we are taking orders right now. Last year’s was a sell-out so don’t miss out. DON’T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT SEEING THE COUNTRY. This year’s edition includes Hokianga, Franklin, Bay of Plenty, Martinborough-Greytown, Picton and the Queen Charlotte Sound, Bank’s Peninsula, the Wakatipu Basin and the twin glacier towns of Franz Josef and Fox.
Share the secrets of our experts and discover a New Zealand you’ve never seen before:
PLACES TO STAY
PEOPLE TO MEET
THINGS TO DO
LOCAL FOOD TO EAT
NZ Life & Leisure Insider’s Guide to New Zealand 2013 is a collectors’ annual
Pre-order for Christmas at the special price of only $12, delivered free to your home (RRP$19.95)
Call 0800MAGSFORGIFTS
Or order online at mags4gifts.co.nz
Advertorial
 | Good sleep is about the perfect combination of a healthy lifestyle and the right bed. Take the Sleepyhead Sleep Challenge with Dr. Libby and go into the draw to win a luxury Sleepyhead bed worth up to $5000.
|
|
| Giveaways, prizes, competitions ... |
 |
Take a break among the vines at Villa Maria’s Marlborough winery.
The prize is for two people and includes return air fares to Blenheim, three nights accommodation, lunch and a personal winery tour, dinner at Hotel d’Urville’s signature restaurant and more. See here for details and to enter the draw. |
 |
Laugh at soggy spring weather in a pair of real rubber gumboots from British company, Barbour. The boots come in happy fashion colours as well as traditional black, navy and olive, are really comfortable and cost $180. We have six pairs to give away.
| |
|
|
|
|
|
What's in the
latest issue?
 |
Shooting Star
Photographer Rachael McKenna’s first prizewinning photograph was of a pig wearing an alarm clock on an old leather belt around its neck. It won her an APIX New Zealand Award and set her career alight. Read more about Rachael in our features section.
|
 |
All you need is love
A tender heart and a generous spirit have created an enclave of rescued treasures of both the four-footed and the nailed-together kind. Find out more in this issues features section.
|
Video
 |
The Significant gardener
Bev McConnell takes NZ Life & Leisure on a tour of the Ayrlies garden. See this and more in our video section.
|
|
 |
| |
|
 |
Graeme's Poem
I read with interest your newsletter
Dated August 2012
You touched on several issues
On which I’d like to delve
Charlie’s getting a heifer
The day that he is wed
Charlie’s very lucky
Some get a cow instead.
You say with Charlie’s heifer
Between the shoulder is what counts
And having passed the bra shop
I see there’s varying amounts
Stay calm says Dr Libby
Charlie, don’t upset your mate
For if you do, statistics show
She’ll soon pile on the weight.
Pre-nuptials won’t be needed
Going on your Mother’s views
As I gather your chosen heifer’s
Getting traded for food and booze
Many would say you’re a lucky man Charlie
Out of 10 you’ve scored 11
Trading the Mrs for food and booze
Is a marriage made in heaven.
Unlike your chosen heifer Charlie
You’ve been let off the hook
As she is genetically modified
Believe me I’ve had a look.
If she has seven stomachs
Her passion will be greed
She would have sent you broke
Just keeping up the feed.
Get a heifer with four stomachs
To live a happy life
A rumen and reticulum
Will ensure there is no strife
An omasum and an abomasum
Will ensure she is no dud
It’s all she’ll need, believe me
To contentedly chew her cud.
Good luck at the altar Charlie
Choose your heifer well
Statistics show with such a choice
Only time will tell
Any questions about your heifer
Irrespective of how dumb
Ask a man with seven wives
Rather than your Mum.
Graeme Williams |
|
