Merv & Karen

We have enjoyed multiple farm-sits at the same Greta Valley farm, being invited to come back and help out each time the farmer and his wife have taken holidays. Our tasks included exercising 5 farms dogs daily and feeding them, looking after 10 chooks and collecting eggs, moving stock (cattle/sheep), feeding lambs, and helping out with stacking hay. Also, mowing lawns around the farmhouse, watering indoor plants, and vege garden. We have looked after a lifestyle block at Oturihua. This involved looking after the domestic animals (1 dog and 3 cats), collecting eggs and feeding chooks, ensuring 4 horses had water and checking on them daily along with 2 cows, feeding 3 geese and putting them to bed at night and watering berry gardens. We've looked after domestic pets (3 dogs and 2 horses) on a working dairy farm in Dunrobin while the managers went overseas and we helped the temporary farm manager with calving, administering antibiotics and mixing and feeding powdered milk to the "sickly" ones, nursing them through to good health. We've looked after a block on the Hawea-Albert-Town Road where we fed goats and newly born kids, collected pig food for 4 growing pigs from restaurants in town daily and fed them, and ran the farm fresh eggs business for owner while she was away. We milked two of the goats daily including helping the mother goats with latching on their kids. We had a stint helping to look after the Kaka Point Camping Ground in the Catlins, which was something really different for us, but we thoroughly enjoyed it! Tasks included cleaning the ablutions block and processing payments from guests checking in. We took this on for four days a week for four weeks so that the owners could spend time with their family visiting from overseas. We have looked after a lifestyle block at Bannockburn, feeding chooks and collecting eggs, looking after two domestic cats, watering berry and vege gardens, and mowing lawns. We have worked on a Bannockburn vineyard (Remarkable Wines), leaf plucking and manually placing nets on the vines. While there we also completed some landscaping for owner Richard, and housesat and looked after his puppy Binky, while he was away on business trips. Merv was bought up on a Southland sheep farm, has managed a sheep and cropping property in Mid-Canterbury, has also worked on a high-country station which included working with deer, and as a practical requirement for his degree at Lincoln University, worked on a large North Island dairy operation. He has also owned his own lifestyle block in North Canterbury. He's good at driving tractors, dealing with electric fences and is gentle with stock. Karen owned a pony through her high school years, competing in one-day events and going to pony club. She loves cats and is good with dogs and chickens. Both Merv and Karen love the rural lifestyle and spending time around animals.