Mail run ride along

[Ianab]

Just a clip I shot this morning while out doing the mail. Technically it's the last week of Winter but the lambs and daffodils suggest Spring. 

Taranaki back roads - YouTube

[Magicman]

Nice open countryside drive.   

[Southside]

Y'all sure do like your fence posts there.  :D

[Ianab]

Y'all sure do like your fence posts there.  :D

Standard sheep proof fencing.  The actual posts are spaced regularly, but there are 2x2 battens attached to keep the wires spaced. Otherwise a sheep can just run through between the wires. 
The fence at ~4:00 is deer fenced, so about 7ft netting fence. They raise red deer for velvet and venison on that farm. 

[customsawyer]

Nice looking country side. Interesting that you drive on the left, but your having the mail boxes on the right side of the road. I would have thought you would drive that route in the opposite direction. I'm sure there's a reason you're not. 

[SwampDonkey]

Don't have to plow snow in winter I see. ;D Up here we have right of way offsets, no fencing on road shoulders, but back behind road side utility corridors and ditch lines.

Nice country side. Looks like a nice day.

As to the driver being opposite side of the mail boxes, that's what is done here to even if driving on the right hand side, the boxes are on the passenger side. :D There are strict rules here on box placement. In fact, I've had to move my box 3 times, which coincided with a change in office of the prime minister. Besides burying my box with every pass of the snow plow. When they put up community boxes, I said I want one. :D

[Ianab]

We drive on the left, but in "normal" RHD vans, not modified for LHD.  There isn't any fixed rules about letter box placement, just that we have to agree it's safe(ish) to pull in and out of. That part of the run is "up and back", so some boxes on either side, as works best. 

[JD Guy]

Thanks for sharing, it is beautiful country for sure. The farms or ranches look to be pretty large, is there an average for acreage? I'm guessing that the predominant livestock is sheep, dual purpose wool and meat? Looks like a country we would enjoy visiting but doubtful that will happen with us both getting older :D. We used to raise coopworth, my wife will enjoy your video as well!

[Ianab]

Mainly sheep and beef cattle in that area. Wool market is pretty low in recent years so sheep farming is more about lamb production. I used to live about a mile from where the video starts, and we had 330 acres  with beef cattle and grazed young dairy heifers for the dairy operations closer to the Mt (flatter land). So yeah, a "real" farm would be 200 plus acres. There are smaller blocks, but they are more of a hobby farm. Most of the dairy farms have been combined from the original 50 acre blocks into larger 200-500 acre operations over the years. 

[sprucebunny]

Thanks ! It's great countryside !

You've got a squeak, a clunk, a rattle And a vibration !!  :D

[SwampDonkey]

I remember a few sheep herders here in the 70's. They sheered them for the wool. In recent years I talked to a local sheep herder and they said it's for the meat. The mills don't pay enough for the wool to be sheered and washed. Not worth the effort. I use wool here from a local woollen mill and currently using some on a rug from a worsted spun mill in Quebec. Not sure of that mill, the yarn is coming from Maurice Brassard's, makers of Leclerc looms.

[Ianab]

Thanks ! It's great countryside !

You've got a squeak, a clunk, a rattle And a vibration !!  :D

Yeah, boss has a nice turbo diesel Toyota, I get the rattly Nissan.  :D  But can't really complain, everything actually works on it, heater this time of year, AC in the Summer etc. It could do with a few more HP on the hills though  : 

[Ianab]

In recent years I talked to a local sheep herder and they said it's for the meat. The mills don't pay enough for the wool to be sheered and washed. Not worth the effort.

There is a lot of interest in the Dorper and Whiltshire breeds of sheep. They just naturally shed their fleece in the Summer, and regrow wool for the Winter. They do look weird running around with a patchy 1/2 fleece, shedding patches of wool at random. But it cuts down on the work to look after them. 

[SwampDonkey]

Still see wool from NZ on the market here. Some is spun in the USA. Sheep skins are popular, I have 2. Amazingly cheap, because they are processed in Asia. I got mine out of British Columbia, but definitely processed in Asia. ;D Lot's of NZ'ers in BC and NS. Not hard to find yourself talking one. ;) Out in BC, I remember a couple who were chopper pilots.