Susan and Peter Lambie are leaving the family farm in Mid Canterbury’s Kyle district nearly 150 years after the first Lambie arrived in 1876. Photo / Tim Cronshaw
A Mid Canterbury couple is at ease with their family’s farming legacy being just two years shy of farming in the same district for 150 years, Central Rural Life’s Tim Cronshaw writes.
Peter and Susan Lambie have been farming for decades in the same area his great-great-grandfather first arrived in 1876.
The family has witnessed the highs and lows of farming seasons in Lambies Rd.
The farming longevity is a source of pride, but all things must come to an end and the couple is about to uproot from their 336-ha Inverell farm in Mid Canterbury’s Kyle, near Pendarves.
“I always knew that I’d have to retire one day,” Peter said.
“But that day arrived more abruptly than I expected when I obtained a leg injury that led to a severe infection and was unable to manage and oversee the farm operations.”
During the time Lambie spent in hospital, nearby friends and family stepped forward without hesitation to set up a roster among themselves to keep the Lambies’ farm operations running smoothly, despite having their own farms.
Lambie expressed his deep appreciation for their help.
“I had hoped to reach 50 years in farming, but I came to realise that the job was becoming increasingly difficult. The workload is constant and complying with regulations has become more of a challenge.”
Susan said Covid-19 brought about changes and staffing challenges, as they used to have young workers from the United Kingdom and Europe before the pandemic.
They’ve kept in touch with many of them, with their daughters visiting some of their home farms overseas.
“The nature of farming has changed significantly, it’s no longer the family-oriented lifestyle it once was,” she said.
“Farming has become a business that is subject to increasing regulations and legislation. It’s a full-time job, seven days a week.”
Another couple of years would have brought the family’s time in the district to 150 years.
Their four daughters, Catherine, Fiona, Emily and Julie, would have liked to see the farm stay in the family. However, dividing the estate equitably would have posed a challenge.
They are happy to see their parents move on to a new chapter.
Peter said it was tempting to see the family legacy carry on, but he was uncertain if he wanted his children to experience the farming challenges that he has endured.
They’re also all on their own career paths inside and outside of farming, he said.
Farming’s gone in the software direction and mechanically-minded Lambie likes working with machinery and fixing it when it breaks down.
Rather than turning to “fancy” technology such as soil moisture probes, he always liked to go out with a trowel and feel the soil.
Packing up generations of family possessions that all have sentimental value has been a mammoth task.
Farm sheds are full to the brim with machinery of the past and a collection of 31 old cars, trucks and tractors collected or inherited by Lambie.
He’s been working for months sorting out and preparing everything for the journey to their next home - an 8-ha lifestyle block just north of Ashburton.
The first Lambie, John, came out from a farm in Scotland near Ayr in the 1850s-1860s at 21 years old. Their daughter has visited the home-country farm on the west coast that bears the brunt of the North Atlantic storms.
“I guess they saw opportunities,” Peter said.
“They farmed a wee bit at Doyleston for 10 years and then my great-great-granddad took up a 1000-acre block at Kyle which would’ve been all tussocks in those days and started from there. A lot of the land was owned by wealthy runholders and they subdivided them down in the 1860s and 1870s.”
That farm was sold by his cousin in 1993 during the dairying boom.
John Lambie’s family has been farming at Inverell since 1896. In 1922, his great-grandfather, also named John, took over the farm and lived in a house at the bottom end.
When his grandfather died in 1965, Lambie’s father took over the farm until he retired in 1991, at which point Peter and Susan took over.
Inverell has been Lambie’s one and only home, living in the two houses on the property at stages throughout his life.
The original homestead still stands but has been uninhabited since the late 1960s.
Family folk law said it was shifted to its current location and they only knew the original site because bricks popped up in the area of the paddock when it was cultivated.
To the best of Lambie’s knowledge, the homestead was built in 1896 based on his grandfather being born in 1900 and growing up in the house.
“He bought 500 acres down at the bottom end of the farm to make this farm one and then the other side of the family carried on at Kyle.
“It is believed that the first Lambie that farmed the property ran Halfbred sheep, as can be seen by a photograph of him standing among a group of woolly sheep in the yards.”
Wool was the main earner until refrigeration made lamb viable. Some crops would’ve been grown, including oats for horses. Farming families were mostly self-sufficient then, with pigs, a house cow for milk, orchards for fruit and gardens for vegetables.
His grandfather started farming deep in the Great Depression and they lived off the farm. Swaggers would come in for a few days and stay in the single men’s hut for work.
Until the first tractor arrived horses ruled in farming.
“Dad always said that his father was one of the last ones to be in the end of the horse era and beginning of the tractor era.”
He wasn’t inclined towards machinery because his horse was like his dog to him. He was an animal person and when the tractors first came out he had no perception of putting fuel in something to make it run rather than feeding oats.
When he did go and get a 1938 Lanz Model N Bulldog tractor he bought a grubber and new discs as well as converting an old plough. That tractor was with the farm until 1966.
When the tractor took over farming, the horses and their implements had no value and were set aside. The Lambies retained much of it, unable to part with family possessions and farming history.
By the same token, decades of sheep breeding - often Corriedales - also passed when dairying took over the district.
Sadly, much of the genetics ended up in the freezing works as breeders and commercial farmers exited the district.
Lambie’s father saw the good times of farming, as can be seen with the house built in 1955 on the back of the wool boom.
“Our wool shed was built in 1960. It just amazes me how there was such a peak in the wool price, but then it steadily declined and never recovered much after that.”
His father ran mainly sheep with some cropping - oats, milling wheat at four-tonne yields to the hectare and grass.
He had a Corriedale commercial flock and put Border Leicester rams over them as terminal sires for finished lambs to go to the freezing works.
Border-cross ewe lambs were kept as replacements, with the flock topped up with two tooths from Addington, Tinwald and Culverden sale yards.
The “fat lamb” price compensated for the wool downturn and was aided by Inverell being early lambing country in July, with the trucks arriving to pick them up from early November.
“These were the days before irrigation and you didn’t want to be caught with dry weather if you had all these lambs and stock, it could be a bit demoralising trying to keep them all fed. I’ve seen some dry years when I was a wee lad.”
Only once has he seen snow on the ground and that was in 2006, and before that, his father always talked about the big 1945 snowstorm when they lived off the coal range.
The coastal breeze is good for grass growth, with the pasture kept at an even temperature even on super hot days.
His father was encouraged to take on more and more sheep through the government Supplementary Minimum Price Scheme. At one stage the 900-acre farm carried 2400 ewes.
Most years this worked to their advantage, unless the farm dried off in spring and they were light on feed in the hay barns.
Susan Lambie was nursing as well as working on the farm during the 1980s and that helped bring in outside income.
She fitted easily into farming on the lowlands after being brought up on Lake Coleridge Station, which also had a long family heritage, being in her family for more than 100 years since her great-grandfather.
Their daughters pitched in with feeding lambs and helping out during tailing, with one of them rearing calves for additional pocket money.
Carrying on from his father, Peter upgraded the irrigation.
Border dykes were talked about for the district but never got off the ground and would’ve gone anyway with the onset of centre-pivot irrigation. Open water races were replaced with pipes two winters ago after it was calculated 20 per cent of water would be saved from evaporation and blockages.
Now they’ve got a 2ha water storage pond to take the “bumps” out of the season.
Most of the houses in the district were built beside water races with drinking water taken from rain off the roof.
That was effortless compared with the first Lambie who went to the Rakaia River to fill up a tank by dray horse before wells and windmills made it easier.
Now the farms around them have reticulated groundwater.
Lambie held on to breeding sheep for as long as he could before also exiting about seven years ago.
“When the dairy cows came we took advantage of grazing cows over the winter.”
After all the years of holding out against the dairying trend, Lambie found he enjoyed working with cows because of their friendly nature.
Winter crops of kale were grown for them and green feed oats drilled into the stubble after the wheat and grass crops.
They’ve always planted trees for shade and shelter against the tough easterly winds and it was a wrench seeing two kilometres of shelter belts go for new centre pivots they put in.
Trading lambs continued to be carried and they leased out about 20ha for potato growing and grew processed peas for Talley’s on about 15ha.
Lambie also got increasingly into cropping, starting off with multiplying clover seed for the northern hemisphere market.
Eventually, he progressed to specialist vegetable seeds such as radishes, and carrots with just turnips planted for the harvest just gone.
“We got into some of these multiplication-type crops and we’ve had some pretty good results with that until the wet summer came last year. It’s like anything - you’ve got to put a lot of money upfront.”
Surrounded by dairy farms, this has been to their advantage for small seeds as it’s reduced the chance of weed and crop straggler problems.
Susan Lambie said her husband wouldn’t admit it, but he became very good at growing clovers and small seeds and could read a crop as good as anyone.
By the time they signed over the farm, they had more than 200ha in cropping on the 336-ha farm. They always thought this was their farm size - and what they paid rates on - until surveyors found sea erosion had robbed them of 7ha along 12m cliffs on the boundary.
“According to my uncle who’s just turned 96, it never bothered his father because I guess the land was discounted by being by the sea and wasn’t worth as much as just up the road,” Peter said.
“He just sucked it up. Dad always talked about the Waitaki River and all that shingle would come down when the dams were put up there and it was just a natural flow of shingle over the years and would come on the beach.
“The coastal drift went north and deposited on Birdlings Flat. Over the years I guess some of our farm has landed on Birdlings Flat.”
The family’s first Lanz Bulldog tractor was sold, but he’s since bought the same model. He tracked down the original tractor and is satisfied it’s in good hands and won’t be melted down for scrap.
The bones of the family’s Farmall F20 tractors are still on the farm and set the seed for him buying the same model at a clearing sale when he was at high school.
Two Farmall B and Ds eventually joined Fordson Majors and a Ford 5000 bought new in 1972.
His father brought an International 886 tractor with a factory cab for comfort in 1982 and this was followed by a larger model eventually traded to buy a 180hp Case Magnum tractor that will remain when they leave.
While still at high school he fully restored a 1927 Dodge bought in parts by his father in 1970 for $90 to match his grandfather’s 1925 Dodge. In the collection are also a 1928 Victory Six Dodge, a 1929 DA Dodge and a 1936 Dodge.
Having a large family was the green light to buy a 1976 Ford Fairlane which is reserved now for classic car runs.
To get the farm up to speed for sale they had to get an authorised land use based on their farming for the past 20 years. This restricts the property to cropping, grazing and trading, while the small print only allows 44ha for winter fodder crops and tighter cow movements on crops.
It’s this type of compliance and paperwork that Lambie is happy to be leaving.
They’re both looking forward to downsizing to the lifestyle block.
Susan will fill her hours happily with arts and crafts, spending time with the family and being closer to town to catch up with friends. A garage shed has been ordered for Peter’s cars and a bigger shed and workshop for the tractors.
They’re happy knowing the farm is going to a good family and to be leaving on a good note with the farm looking as good as it ever has during a top autumn.
OPINION: Kem Ormond is busy with onion seed trays & preparing the ground for strawberries.