by Ken Fife | Sep 12, 2022 | Book 1
By the end of the 1970s, things were going well on Cairn Peak. Pinnacle Pine forest, our second forestry syndicate was fully subscribed and we now had 2,000 acres committed to farm forestry. Since taking up residence in 1964, we’d trebled our carrying capacity, tidied...
by Ken Fife | Sep 12, 2022 | Book 1
1970 was an eventful year for several reasons. We had been farming Cairn Peak for six years, and though heavily burdened with debt, we had continued with our development program and our carrying capacity had increased significantly. As livestock numbers increased...
by Ken Fife | Sep 12, 2022 | Book 1
Slowly Going Broke! My new bosses asked me to pay a visit to the farm about a week after they’d hired me. My task was to count a mob of cattle that hadn’t been mustered when the stock take occurred. It was a typical Southland winter day when I arrived, a biting...
by Ken Fife | Sep 12, 2022 | Book 1
WEST TAUPO I now lived in Taumaranui and my responsibility as a Field Officer was supervising the development of four blocks on the Western side of Lake Taupo. The four blocks between them comprised about 30,000 acres. This was called pumice country from its volcanic...
by Ken Fife | Sep 12, 2022 | Book 1
INTRODUCTION Legend has it that New Zealand was discovered by Kupe, an early Maori explorer who when seeing some low clouds on a distant horizon announced to his starving crew, “We have found a new land.” They probably said, “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” but as they paddled...
