Crowds of people and cars were packed onto the next big hill over from us so it was as jammed as Auckland's northern motorway on a Friday afternoon.
Earthquakes aside, our unpredictable weather continues - windy, sometimes cold, sometimes warm and frequently damp. Which I guess is a fair summary of spring. But spring is nearly over, and with it, mating.
I won't miss the bellowing of the bulls when they leave the farm in a week or two - they're worse than roosters at heralding the dawn ahead of time, and much louder.
And they cause all kinds of drama (although some of it's not their fault).
We had a couple of German girls visit a couple of weeks ago, and Bruce, as he usually does, gave them a little farm tour.
I had already stuffed up because I didn't realise they were vegetarians and cooked a beef casserole for dinner.
So, we were trying to make a good impression to make up for that faux pas but when they got among the cows, one of the bulls ruined any chance of that when he leapt onto the back of a cow, in his full glory, and proceeded to impregnate her.
It was a little more real life than our visitors were prepared for.
Bulls may be enthusiastic, but they're not always the brightest animals. A few weeks ago, Bruce moved a mob of cows at the runoff to a fresh paddock.
The gate opened inwards, so he pulled it open and they all charged through to the fresh grass - well, all except one bull, who went in behind the gate and bellowed sadly at his happily munching mates, who ignored him.
Oh well, Bruce thought, rather than muck around trying to manoeuvre a lone, stressed bull of uncertain temper, I'll just leave the gate open like this and he'll find his way through in his own time.
A couple of days later Bruce checked on him and found a hungry bull still bellowing at the indifferent cows, a path worn alongside the fenceline he had roamed fruitlessly up and down the whole time without ever finding the wide-open gateway to the next paddock.
At mating time, you may have noticed cows with different colours on their tailbones - these signal at what stage of the mating process they are and every farm has its own method of using colours to mark what stage each cow is up to.
Tail painting the cows during milking can get a bit messy and most people milking at this time of year will wear odd splashes of paint, usually on the underside of their forearms where they haven't noticed it to scrub off.
It can get in other places, too. One of our team had a big hairstyle change planned, she was going to have her hair cut much shorter than usual. In honour of the big occasion, she washed her hair thoroughly and presented herself to the hairdresser.
Mid-cut, the stylist exclaimed, "Oh! Have you been painting something blue?" There were specks and splatters of blue tail paint all through her immaculate (as she thought) hair.
I doubt she'd thank me for noting which stage of the mating process blue paint signals.
