It was a nerve-wracking Sunday night a few weeks back for Jericho Station farmer Harriet Bremner, as her and her family’s story went to air on the coveted Country Calendar spot. The national show being a firm favourite of hers, husband Ed Pinckney’s, and two-year-old son Archie’s left her understandably nervous.

“I think a lot of people don’t realise that you don’t get to pre-watch the episode, so when the rest of the country sees it for the first time, you also see it for the first time,” she says.

“We were really pleasantly surprised, and felt that they delivered a really balanced programme.”

She says having their story told lets ordinary people who might not have the opportunity to get out on farm see what their everyday life looks like.

“The thing about Country Calendar is that they are positive stories, and they want to shed farming in a good light.”

Bremner says that’s especially true for owner-operators who run the farm without outside capital, like her family.

“We had lots of conversations questioning ‘do we do it, do we not?’

“I think for our social licence, it’s an important story to share.”

Hours of filming went into what eventually made it to the screen, with each five-minute segment taking roughly five hours to shoot.

She says it was great to meet the Country Calendar team and hear from another group about why they enjoy what they do.

“They’re a great team of people to work with, and the conversations and yarns that we had outside of the actual filming were really interesting.”

She says they did a ‘good job’ of covering up the adverse weather too, with cameras on the farm during a spell of hot weather that only broke halfway through the week. She and her team were then caught in heavy rain while mustering cattle on horseback, and again during a pony-riding scene with her son.

“They said to me, ‘Don’t worry, you won’t see the rain in the video,’ and you didn’t.”

The exposure has sent demand for her Gurt and Pops books surging, catching her off guard. A glitch showed her stock as sold out when it was not, with customers contacting her asking why they couldn’t buy the books.

“I’m no IT person, so then I’m using AI to try and fix these background issues in my website that I’ve never had before.”

She says the pace hasn’t let up alongside everything else going on at home.

“I’ve had quite a few early starts and late bedtimes with packaging books around work and other life stuff.”

She says they are still receiving great feedback, nearly a month on from the episode airing.

“Even the people who’ve ordered books have sent me an email off the side to say that they love the programme, and really enjoyed seeing what we do.

“Messages like that just make you feel pretty good.”

Watch the full Country Calendar episode, ‘In Safe Hands’, here.

CountryWide CONNECT with Andy Thompson & Sarah Perriam-Lampp is our daily rural show livestreamed from 11am-1pm. Visit country-wide.co.nz on how to watch/listen or download the CountryWide CONNECT mobile app, available on Apple iOS and Android.