Business Rural North Spring 2021

64 | A love for the country and lifestyle Tracey Wallace holding Emilia, alongside Karley, James and Ashton. The couple has converted their family farm in Patumaho to a sheep milking operation. Richard Loader L ife is about embracing opportunities and that is exactly what Auckland farmer James Wallace has done throughout a diverse farming career that now includes milking sheep. Growing up on the family’s 70-hectare sheep, beef and cropping farm in Patumahoe on the edge of Pukekohe James developed a love for country life and the lifestyle that it offered. On leaving school, the opportunity was presented to milk cows and over a 20-year period James pro- gressed to equity partnership on a Mid-Canterbury dairy farm. When the need arose to be close to family, James, his wife Tracey and children packed up and returned to Patumahoe where they bought a broiler farm, which presented a more family friendly lifestyle than dairy farming had become. In 2019 the family left the broiler farm and moved on to James parents’ farm, which at the time was still being operated by his parents. • to page 63 RURAL PEOPLE » James & Tracey Wallace Ethan Parker 027 312 3985 SERVICES INCLUDING: Hedge Cutting • Roadside Mowing • Full Ground Cultivation • Effluent Spreading Fertiliser & Manure Spreading • Spraying Under Sowing • Power Harrow Seeding Direct Drilling • Maize and Grass Silage L I M I T E D 021 074 7055 MAIZE & GRASS SILAGE • ROUND HAY, SILAGE & MAIZE BALING • SPRAYING & CULTIVATION