Green Island Bush Farms owner Ross Smaill shows aluminium milk cans and a milking cluster on offer at his clearing sale on Friday. Photo / Shawn McAvinue
Green Island Bush Farms owner Ross Smaill shows aluminium milk cans and a milking cluster on offer at his clearing sale on Friday. Photo / Shawn McAvinue
Green Island Bush Farms owner Ross Smaill will be clearing out his shed in Dunedin today. The self-proclaimed workaholic talks to Southern Rural Life's Shawn McAvinue about how his body has been telling him to take it easy since he was involved in a tragic accident.
A Dunedin farmer isslower since a horror crash, but his hard-working mentality remains fighting fit.
Green Island Bush Farms owner Ross Smaill is having a clearing sale today, on the farm where he was born and raised.
The 62-year-old is clearing out his shed in Blackhead due to health reasons.
"I should have let go after the accident but I'm a stubborn old sod."
The accident happened in 2017. He was driving a 12-tonne truck loaded with bobby calves. He moved left to let a milk tanker pass and went off the sealed State Highway 1, near Edendale.
The death of the boy affected him and he often reflected on it, especially when he saw young children, he said.
"It knocks you back but you've got to get up and get going."
He still displays a picture of the boy at his home.
"He's a wee angel, he's still in your life, he's still there."
Smaill's range of injures from the accident included a broken pelvis. His feet were badly injured because they got jammed under the pedals in the crash.
"I ripped them out because I had three kids in the truck."
After being discharged from hospital, he remained in a wheelchair for about eight months.
He is still on crutches, has nerve damage and issues with his kidneys.
The physical strength he had before the accident never returned.
Ross Smaill and his 1951 K Bedford flatdeck, which is part of a clearing sale.
Photo / Shawn McAvinue
"You think you'll come right but you're not, so you've just got to slow down and work with it but keep doing something to get you out of bed in the morning."
One of six children, he left school aged 15 and took over the family dairy farm. About two years later he was milking about 50 cows.
The teenager's working day would start at 3 am to milk the herd, before he started his full-time job as a boner at Burnside Freezing Works - some weeks he worked up to 90 hours until the plant closed in 2008.
Ross Smaill, with working dogs Blondie (left) and Mate, is offering machinery at a clearing sale, including a 2002 Massey Ferguson tractor and loader, a 2017 Honda quad bike and a John Deere 6620 tractor and hedge cutter. Photo / Shawn McAvinue
During his time at the works, he bought more land and quadrupled the number of cows he was milking, a mix of Friesians and Ayrshires.
The farm produced part of the town milk supply.
"It was milking twice a day, seven days a week, for nearly 40 years."
His secret to having the stamina to work multiple jobs was drinking 4litres of raw milk from his farm each day, he said.
"That was my bread and butter."
After the meat works closed, he diversified his business interests, including fencing and completing three residential subdivisions in Dunedin.
"It was all go."
The success of the subdivisions prompted him to stop milking cows about a decade ago. He wanted to stay in farming, so he brought in beef calves to rear.
Ross Smaill in an abattoir on his property in Dunedin. Photo / Shawn McAvinue
He was selling all his heavy machinery today to stop him from being tempted to do work, which his body was not up for.
After the sale, he would continue to rear calves on about 12ha, he said.
"I've got to have something to do, otherwise, I'll go nuts."
The plan was to stay living on his farm where "life was good", spending time with friends and family.
Memorabilia covers the walls of a "function room" on his farm, including a framed All Blacks kit, given to him by Ben Smith after he played his 39th test match.
Both men played Green Island Rugby Football Club, Smaill as a prop.
A photo on the wall shows Smaill pouring a beer for All Blacks great Colin Meads, at a function in 2006.
He used to be a boxer and competed at tournaments.
A promotional poster for one of the tournaments - The South Island Golden Gloves at Mayfair Theatre in South Dunedin - hangs on the wall in the function room.
After the accident, there were days he doubted he could continue to fight for his life, so he got someone to make him a plywood coffin, he said.
His wife Kathryn had made him move the coffin from the living room to a shed outside.
"I'm organised - I'm ready to go - but if any cheeky bugger wants it, I'll offer it to them."
