One thing a lot of farms don’t have enough of is shelter for livestock. We’ve done the whole tree-planting gig, but it’ll take a decade or more before the trees to be big enough to provide adequate shelter.

Whenever there’s a sudden downpour, the sheep beeline for the shelter of the scarce mature trees, which are few and far between. We feel especially sorry for the little lambs sheltering from the chill winds.

We always wanted to build some portable/towable sheep/lamb shelters, so for this year’s lambing season we did just that. We built two, documenting the full build of the second, from start to finish. It’s a good feeling improving the wellbeing of our animals – the ones that utilise the shelters seem very grateful indeed.

We’ve had a lot of questions about the post-and-rail fences we build here on the homestead — probably because there’s not that much info out there! So we thought we’d record the whole process. How we do it, at least.

Whilst not as common as the ubiquitous wire fences found throughout New Zealand, post-and-rail is a sturdy fence with a little more pizzazz. It’s also fairly common in NZ, especially on homesteads, lifestyle blocks, and most stockyards.

We’ve built over 300 meters of post-and-rail over the past five years or so, but we’re still learning. Ask us any questions you might have about the process, or comment if you have a better way of doing things!

Giant nightmare stumps, stubborn stumps from hell, and all manner of back-breaking trial and error as we attempt to extract them from their mighty grips on the earth. Watch us wage war on the biggest stumps on our homestead (some over six feet in diameter!) with little more than an old tractor and chain, a chainsaw, and good old-fashioned blood, sweat, and tears. We even needed to bring in a secret weapon at the end…