| 97 “The thing is that a lot of those places I worked on were undergoing massive development programmes so there was a lot of fencing going on,” says Brad. Splitting his time between farming and fencing means life is busy for Brad, as well as for Penny who helps out with both when she can as well as running the of ce and being mum to their three children Jack (8yrs), Bill (6yrs), and Ada (4yrs). The idea is that in 10 years or so the fencing will have served its purpose and the Macphersons will be able to concentrate solely on farming. In the meantime the family’s enjoying farm life with the three children also happy to get involved and help out on the farm whenever they can. Client list built up over 20 years helps The team has been doing a lot of wintering barns and calving pads in recent months. Virginia Wright It’s been a busy few years for Southland fencer and farmer Brad MacPherson. Having not long purchased a rural fencing company early last year, he and his wife Penny then had an opportunity to buy a sheep and beef farm that was too good to miss. Along with the fencing company came a tractor, a post-driver, a ute, and all the tools needed to do the job, plus, most importantly, a client list built up over 20 years by Des Gill the previous owner. That fencing run covers Central to Western Southland, while a second fencing run, acquired at the start of winter from Nathan Waghorn, has a client list which spreads more through Southern Southland. In between times the Macphersons moved onto their 292-hectare farm in Scotts Gap, 45 minutes west of Invercargill, where they wintered 2200 Romney ewes and 50 Angus-X cattle. As a rural fencing business Southern Wide Fencing mostly put fences up on farms, whether sheep and beef, deer, or dairy. “We’ve been doing a lot of wintering barns and calving pads in recent months. It’s mostly post and rail around the wintering barns although we put up deer fence around a calving pad last week with windbreak on the wire netting to take the chill out,” says Brad. Their fencing work takes them as far south as Mokarita or Waikawa, and while they don’t go too far north as yet, all it would take is a few new clients with fences to be done and Southern Wide Fencing would be happy to take the work on. “We did a job up there in the autumn and we stayed up there for two weeks,” says Brad. “Basically I’ll go wherever the clients are.” Getting to know those clients is one of the perks of the job as far as Brad’s concerned. “Meeting different people and talking about farming, you learn a lot.” Each of the fencing runs has a permanent worker managing the workload alongside Brad, as they work their way through the winter which is when a lot of the work comes through. Brad splits his time between fencing and the farm and when he soon gets tied up lambing for a month or so the fencing business will carry on without him while the work’s there. Brad’s own fencing experience dates back to two years working for a fencing contractor in North Canterbury in 2005/2006 before 15 years working on big sheep stations, eight of them as station manager. RURAL PEOPLE » Southern Wide Fencing Ltd SouthernWide FencingLtd Specialists in Rural & Residential fencing • Calfing pads • Wintering barns • Post & Rails • FencingWaterways • General maintenance CONTACT BRADMACPHERSON 027 630 9871 bpmacpherson@xtra.co.nz
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