Ag Heritage and National Dairy Museum

A New School Year

2010-02-01T16:44:00.000-08:00

It's the start of a new school year and Ag Heritage is looking forward to hosting schools from all over the North Island. The museum here at Mystery Creek is set up to help school children and others understand the history of agriculture in New Zealand and how people lived in the early days.

We are planning a new section to Ag Heritage- SHEEP&BEEF FARMING. Our plan is to relocate a wool shed on to the museum property to house this new section of the museum. The wool shed will be used to explain the history of both of these very important industries through interactive and static displays.

This is the third year that Fonterra has offered to help visiting schools pay for their bus transportation to the Agricultural Heritage Museum. Many schools have taken up this offer and tell us they would not have been able to visit the museum with out Fonterra's help. All of the schools that have visited have written letters to Fonterra thanking them. We have been impressed with the drawings the visiting school children have sent to us and have mounted many of them on the walls of the museum.

So- another year and we are looking forward to it. With Fonterra's help we are sure that we will have another record year for attendance by visiting schools. Don't miss out- come out to Ag Heritage Museum on the grounds of NZ National Fieldays at Mystery Creek in Hamilton.

By the way, schools aren't our only customers. Any group of 10 or more people can visit the Agricultural Heritage Museum by reservation. Give us a call to set up a time for your groups visit.

Call Terry Harpe 07-843-7990 or email terryh@mysterycreek.co.nz

High tech ear tag exhibit for National Dairy Museum

2009-11-01T18:45:00.000-08:00

The National Dairy Museum is located at Mystery Creek, specifically on the grounds of the Agricultural Heritage Museum at Mystery Creek.

Since New Zealand dairy farmers are the most "tech savvy" dairy farmers on the planet, we thought a tour of the National Dairy Museum would not be complete with out seeing an example of some of the dairy industry technology. Gallagher Group Limited in Hamilton has come to our party with an impressive exhibit.

Visiting school groups will be given ear tags that will be scanned by a Gallagher scanner mounted on the wall. As the students pass by the scanner, a welcoming message will appear on a TV screen about their school and maybe a humorous note about the teacher, if he\she is keen.

The students will be informed about the uses on the farm of this "ear tag" technology such as information about the cow wearing the ear tag.

The point is that the dairy industry is not stagnant or resting on it's laurels,but always looking to the future for ways to improve it's efficiency, the health of the stock & to improve the bottom line.

They are a hard working lot, the NZ dairy farmers and they know their way around high tech gear as well.

Clydesdale Horse Exhibit

2009-10-05T20:19:00.000-07:00

This exhibit has been interesting and fun to work on. I have learned that the horses that the knights in armor rode during the Middle Ages were used as the foundation for the breeding of what was officially recognized as the Clydesdale horse breed in 1826.

The Clydesdale is a giant among horses with the nature of a teddy bear. A very gentle and kind sort of a horse. They were bred in Scotland to do anything that required pulling of weight such as ploughs, wagons and carts. The Clydes weigh between 800 to 1000 kilograms.

The Clydesdale pulls weight that is attached to the collar around its neck. Just by leaning a bit forward and walking ahead he can pull several times his own weight if it is in a cart or wagon.

The background to the exhibit is a 8 m X 2.4 m photograph of a farm scene in Matamata. The main feature in the exhibit is a lifesize photograph of a Clydesdale from Pirongia Clydesdales. The horse will be cut out so just the horse shows in front of the farm scene photo. The photograph is 1.7 metres high. Very cool!

The Clydesdale Horse broke in New Zealand with some 30,000 Clydesdales in use in the South Island by 1840. The tractor has replaced the Clydesdale horse on farms today but the breed is alive and well in show rings, pulling and ploughing contests.

Spring at Ag Heritage Museum

2009-08-31T16:21:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day of Spring and the ducklings are on the lakes and all is well at Ag Heritage.

We are having a Spring tidy up and applying a little paint around the place. Some very old ploughs are being painted with their original colours and so is the DC-3 airplane in front of the museum. The 1912 School in the Heritage Village has a new coat of paint inside. The Church has a new roof and is looking very tidy and ready for the "wedding season". The "shearing exhibit" has been added to and a new exhibit about the Clydesdale horse is being prepared now.

If you have been considering coming out to Ag Heritage then now is a good time. Fonterra continues with their generous subsidy for bus transportation for schools paying between 50-90% of cost to hire a bus and they provide yogurts upon arrival at the museum.

Come out and enjoy Spring at Ag Heritage on the grounds of Mystery Creek.

Greetings and best wishes for this school year

2009-02-12T17:04:00.000-08:00

Greetings to all students and teachers. We at Ag Heritage Museum look forward to another school year and many school visits.

One of the most important things I could possibly tell each of you at this point is that Fonterra is once again willing to help out schools visiting Ag Heritage by paying between 50 to 90% of bus transportation costs and provide morning snacks upon your groups arrival here at Ag Heritage. Fonterra is keen to help kids get out to the Agricultural Heritage Museum to learn about our farming heritage especially dairy farming.

Fonterra visited the National Dairy Museum shortly after it opened. They were impressed with what we had done in the Dairy Museum with the emphasis on the history of dairying in New Zealand from the "on the farm" perspective.

Fonterra believes school children should know our dairying history and hopes the National Dairy Museum will create an interest in dairying that will inspire children to consider dairying when they choose a career.

Call Terry Harpe at 07-843-7990 for bookings

Ducks On The Pond

2008-10-08T14:48:00.000-07:00

Spring is finally here after a very long & cold winter. This is the time of year that Heritage Village here at Ag Heritage comes into its own. The flowers are in bloom, the leaves are coming out on the trees and the two ponds that border the Village are sporting "little ones"- ducklings. Each spring we have a family or two of ducks raised on the lakes around the Village. The mothers seem very much at home on the grounds and are often seen taking the "kids" out for a walk or on the grass sunning the family. I've noticed the islands in the ponds are used by the mother ducks for refuge while visitors are walking around the Village, but just as often I've seen buses and motorbikes stopping to let the "families" cross the road as mother duck excerise the family.

Visiting school groups often have their morning break in the Village by the ponds and I sometimes wonder if the proud "mother ducks" that come waddling by with their little ones aren't "presenting" their families for the guests.

The Fonterra bus subsidy is still available to visiting schools. Fonterra will pay from 50 to 90 percent of the cost of hiring a bus to come out to the Agricultural Heritage Museum and furnish a morning snack. The "duck viewing" is thrown in for free.

2008-09-02T20:46:00.000-07:00

Well, as they say "snooze and you lose" and that really was the case this past week if you didn't get to Mystery Creek for the WRC Rally. Mystery Creek was the staging centre and home of the Rally as in past years but this year Fonterra helped pay for the cost of bus transport for school groups to come out to Mystery Creek to see the Rally area, cars etc. and also see the Heritage Village and the National Dairy Museum.

It really was and still is an offer too good to miss out on with Fonterra paying up to 90% of the cost of hiring a bus to bring school groups out to Ag Heritage and furnishing morning snacks for the kids as well.

Ruakura Milking Plant

2008-07-21T20:59:00.000-07:00

Doug Phillips is known in the dairy industry as the inventor of the Ruakura Milking Plant, a machine that was known to be more efficient and easier on the cows udders and teats thus less likely to spread mastitis. Doug worked at the Ruakura Research Centre.

The Ruakura Milker was popular in the 1960's and 1970's milking 8-10 cows at a time so now that herds are much larger and the farmer needs to milk 30-40 cows at a time, the Ruakura Milking Plant is no longer used. It was hard for the museum to find a complete machine since they were no longer in use but after placing an ad in the Straight Furrow magazine, we started getting a few calls from people that had some bits of the old Ruakura Milking Machine.

It took visits to 4 farms to get enough pieces to make a complete milking machine but now we have the famous Ruakura Milking Plant that is being cleaned up painted and will soon be installed by Jack Partridge a retired milking plant installer who installed dozens of Ruakura Milking Plants on farms around the Waikato.

This machine will be on display in the machine room of the Dairy Museum here at Mystery Creek along with other milking plants from different periods in New Zealands rich dairying history.

2008-06-04T21:20:00.000-07:00

2008-04-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

Kiwi classic auto to go on display in Garage. John McCraw has given his wifes car to Ag Heritage. It is a 1957 Morris Minor 1000. I plan to put it on display with a printed history of this classic in the Garage over in the Heritage Village.

The Morrie will join a 1930's Chev tow truck along with a great collection of "garage tools"

The Heritage Village sits beside 2 lakes here at Ag Heritage in a very nice setting of gardens. The Village is made up of a Blacksmith Shop, Garage, School house, Hospital (Waikatos first), Church and a classic 2 cell Jail.

Wedings take place most weekends during the wedding season in the Village Church. Usually the wedding guests head over to the Garage after the wedding for refreshments while the bride and groom are having photos taken. The Garage is set out like an old style Garage, the Morrie will fit in nicely.

New discoveries at Ag Heritage

2008-03-30T15:06:00.000-07:00

Recently I discovered 3 types of recorded music hidden away under some rubbish in a back room here at Ag Heritage Museum. Not exactly a farming discovery, but very interesting!

The first discovery was a box of "paper music rolls" used in "player pianos". A player piano plays the music on these paper rolls represented by holes in the paper. Someone has to pump the pedals at the bottom of the piano to make the rolls go around and the music play.

The next discovery I made was a box full of round paper tubes. Inside of these tubes were more tubes. These tubes were actually recordings of music, as I later learned. They were invented by Thomas Edison to be played of the first "phonograph" also an Edison invention. These tubes are examples of the first recorded music. What a find!!! They all date to around the turn of the century. We have a "Gem Phonograph" that was made by Edison to play these tube type of recordings here at the Ag Heritage. I hope to get this phonograph running in the future so that I can play these "tube recordings" for museum visitors.

In that same back room I found a box of old "records", the flat disc kind. Not very exciting until I Googled the record name and found that this was a very early recording done by Thomas Edison that replaced the "tube type" of recording that I had also just discovered. The record was very thick and heavy compared to modern day records. Edison designed a phonograph to play the disc recording I found but sadly, we don't have this type of phonograph here at the museum.

Some very interesting discoveries here at Ag Heritage. Let me know when you plan to visit and I'll make sure I have these recordings handy for your group to examine.

2008-03-17T14:25:00.000-07:00

Hi Bridget
You should plan on at least 2 hrs. for your visit to Ag Heritage. We'll show you around The Dairy Museum and the exhibits in the Bledisloe Hall (where the kids can wash clothes and see rooms set out from different periods of history) and then you can walk around the Village with parents and teachers. Each building has some information posted on it abt. it's history.

There are indoor and outdoor areas to have lunch and morning tea that Fonterra is furnishing for the school groups that visit Ag Heritage.

Thank you for your questions, Bridget. We hope to see you here at Ag Heritage soon.

Terry Harpe

Transportation to Ag Heritage Museum

2008-03-16T12:52:00.000-07:00

This week I will be sending out a letter to the area schools announcing a sponsorship agreement with Fonterra. Fonterra has agreed to help subsidise the cost of hiring a bus for visiting school groups and will be furnishing dairy product snacks at morning tea for the school children.

The admission cost to the Ag Heritage Museum is still only $2.00.

Call me, Terry Harpe, at 07-843-7990 or you can ask any questions you may have right here on the Ag Heritage blog

Neighbours making hay/ topdressing airplanes

2008-03-10T13:29:00.000-07:00

I've just finished a new exhibit here at the museum about hay making. The neighbours helped out with the hay making as the 4 metre photo in the exhibit shows. There must be 20 people standing around the haystack as it is being built. Quite a change from today with contractors doing all of the work, which is one of the main points of the exhibit. The farmers have very little involvement in hay making these days.

It's interesting to see how the people around the hay stack are dressed and the expressions on their faces.

A hot job building those hay stacks and if they were poorly built, they would be ruined when it rained. because the stack would leak.

The other new exhibit here at Ag Heritage is about those wild men in their "flying machines" the topdressing pilots. Well it's about one man in particular, Ossie James and James Aviation. We've made a video about Ossie, his Tiger Moths, Fletchers and DC-3 airplanes. We found some great old film of the early planes topdressing and included that footage in our video.

It was very interesting putting this "Topdressing" exhibit together. I met some of the early pioneers in the topdressing industry such as Guy Robinson of Robinson Air Services who also worked out of the Hamilton Airport when James Aviation was there.

Welcome to our blog!

2008-03-10T12:52:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the Ag Heritage and National Dairy Museum blog!Ag Heritage and the National Dairy Museum is located at Mystery Creek Events Centre, south of Hamilton, New Zealand.A visit to Ag Heritage is an opportunity to experience the life of the early settlers. An ideal day trip for groups of any size, Ag Heritage is both a fascinating historical experience, and an interactive learning centre with a story to tell. The National Dairy Museum reopened in November 2006 following a complete rebuild and is a great place to visit and reminisce or to learn about New Zealand's dairying history.Ag Heritage curator, Terry Harpe, will update the blog with news, images and stories from the Ag Heritage Village and National Dairy Museum and New Zealand's agricultural past.Stay tuned - and stay in touch - we'd love to hear from you!