Life on a Mid Canterbury sheep and beef farm, with a toddler in tow

Charlie, Anna and Mitch Munro run a 450ha sheep and beef farm, Cravendale, in Mid Canterbury. Photo / RNZ, Cosmo Kentish-Barnes

By Cosmo Kentish-Barnes of RNZ

Mum Anna Munro asks 18-month-old Charlie what to say when they want Rizzo, one of the farm dogs, to make some noise.

“Speak up!” he shouts, then grins cheekily.

The shepherd, photographer, and trained physio leases the 450ha farm, Cravendale, off her folks with husband Mitch, a builder and endurance athlete, who’s had to adapt quickly to day-to-day farming.

“It’s been a big learning curve, no doubt about it, but it’s been quite invigorating to put that pressure on yourself to learn fast,” he told RNZ’s Country Life.

The couple took up a five-year lease on the Mid Canterbury farm two years ago, when Anna was going into her last trimester of pregnancy.

Before then, they were living in Central Otago.

Mitch was building in Wānaka, and Anna was working half the week as a shepherd in Tarras and half the week as a physiotherapist.

Starting farming with a big overdraft and bank loan for 2700 ewes and some mixed-age cows meant they didn’t really get ahead in the first year.

Beef and lamb prices had hit rock bottom, so two weeks after giving birth to Charlie, Anna was back to working on the farm with her son.

“I had him in a wee front pack and he would sleep in a cot in the truck, because basically everything that we came to in the farming calendar was being experienced for the first time by Mitch,” she said.

“Mental health-wise, I probably wasn’t in the best place.

“It was so much just having a baby, your first baby, a shock to the system, no sleep, and then having to run a farm.”

With meat and wool prices on the rise now, a good cover of grass going into winter, and Mitch loving the farming journey, things are looking promising this year.

Sheep enjoy tasty kale leaves for lunch at Cravendale in Mid Canterbury. Photo / RNZ, Cosmo Kentish-Barnes

When Country Life turned up, the couple were shifting 650 fine-looking two-tooth ewes onto a paddock of kale.

Charlie was there too, climbing like a monkey onto the bonnet of the farm truck.

Mitch Munro with his son Charlie at Mid Canterbury sheep and beef farm, Cravendale. Photo / RNZ, Cosmo Kentish-Barnes

“In the sheep yards, he’s started opening all the little gates and climbing up the rails,” Anna said.

“If you’re drafting, you have to keep one eye on him and one eye on the sheep.

“It’s quite a lot at times.”

Anna Munro and her son Charlie, enjoying life on the farm. Photo / RNZ, Cosmo Kentish Barnes

Her passion for photography began while she was living in Central Otago.

“Mitch bought a camera to go hunting with, but it was way too heavy and I said, ‘Oh, I might take on the autumn muster’.”

Munro started sharing her photos on social media and realised pretty quickly how much people loved seeing images of high country farming.

Anna pulls out her guitar and sings a song while Mitch moves a mob of sheep. Photo / RNZ, Cosmo Kentish-Barnes

“I started a web page called Muster Anna Munro Photography and then sharing pictures of day-to-day farm life.

“It became a bit of a diary in some ways and a way to share the good news about farming.”

Now she exhibits and sells her photographs.

One of her favourite images is called “Blue and Gold”, taken while mustering sheep at Lake Heron Station.

“It’s basically these gorgeous tussock hills of gold with blue in the background as you sweep back to the Rakaia and then this tiny little string of Merino sheep wandering around the face of the hill.”

- RNZ