Nuts about the country setting

IF YOU had told Margot Schofield 20 years ago she would be happily living a rural life someday, she would never have believed you, comfortable as she was in her suburban life in Lower Hutt.
She and her husband Richard, who worked in telecommunications, made the move to Greytown to establish an olive grove in 2002. The pair had almost no knowledge of horticulture, but have since built it up into a successful business.
"We got itchy feet in the late-90s and it was sort of a mid-life crisis type of thing," Richard said. "I was fed up with work and where it was going with the endless restructuring, so we started looking around at some properties."
Fantail Grove, on the road from Greytown to Masterton, started with a few rows of grapes and empty space on nearly 10ha of land, and blossomed into a thriving grove producing table grapes, olives and hazelnuts.
"The property was pretty run-down, but I like to think of myself as a Jack of all trades, so we bought it, and the place has occupied my weekends ever since," Richard said. The grapes are picked and enjoyed by the public on pick-your-own days. The hazelnuts are sold by their different variety, made into pesto, and Margot's version of Nutella - which she jokingly calls "not-ella".
"We started with olives, but decided we didn't want it to be exclusively olives because it could have turned into a boom-bust cycle - we wanted to diversify a bit," Richard said.
"There aren't many people growing hazelnuts in the Wairarapa, and a lot of them [nuts] come from Turkey."
Although Richard still works in Wellington at communications company Alcatel Lucent four days a week, he lives for his weekends and Wednesdays when he gets to work on the grove.
"It's great here because you decide when you get up, and you decide how long you work."
He said he had turned into a "typical rural person".
"When the farmers are complaining about the lack of rain, I'm loving it because olives like dry weather and the weeds and the grass stop growing, so it's less work for us.
"When they can get out to harvest the fruits of their labour, bands of family and friends go to Fantail Grove to help.
"I'm amazed at how many people have come back year after year to help us. We see it as a chore, but they see it as an adventure."
After almost 10 years on the grove, the Schofields are learning new things about their business every day, and say they never look back.
Richard said: "The way I like to describe it is, some people have hobbies that suck up their money endlessly, and this does suck up your money but it gives something back."