Since turning lifestyle farmer 16 years ago, I’ve been lucky to indulge my interest in breeding pacing horses, running beef cattle and fostering a growing flock of tiny grey teal ducks.

Undeterred henny penny returns to her hidden nest. Photo Reay Neben.

As a result I’ve not only developed a love for the rewards of country living but also for the range of jobs that challenge me every day.

Those jobs change with the seasons and summer is obviously a time for tackling maintenance that doesn’t bear doing in the wet.

Right now I’m looking at repairing fences and gates, chopping out thistles but rather than being deterred by the work load I welcome it. I may be tired at the end of the day but there is a sense of satisfaction every time a job is successfully accomplished.

However, if maintenance and repairs are a serious part of life on the farm, there are also scores of humorous and heart-warming moments like my recent chicken-nannying stint that came from one little speckled chook going AWOL.

Three chickens rule our roost. Their job is to lays us some eggs for our tea and they do it admirably. We haven’t named them for fear of becoming too attached but if I have tried to remain distant they certainly have not.

In the morning when I arrive to release our girls from the coop for a day on the range – yes they are free to range as they will – they greet me enthusiastically.

Happy to run alongside as I head for the paddocks, they are frightened of nothing not even Zinny the Airedale dog who sometimes eyes them a bit too judiciously.

At night they know their routine and come a running – chasing off any stray pukeko and pleased to be heading for bed. All except the smallest who came to us from a staff member at Rural Living.

From the start our speckled hen began life as a rebel. Her birth egg was amongst a batch of bantam eggs given to our team member who had a broody bantam.

When the eggs hatched there was, so to speak, a cuckoo in the nest – our little freckled friend. Towering above her surrogate mum it seemed circumspect to find her a new home and down on the farm seemed just the place.

All went well for a time, but suddenly this somewhat wayward chicken took to sneaking off into the bushes. After some stealthy work for more than an hour with the binoculars, I spotted her hiding place and discovered she wasn’t meeting a handsome cockerel on the sly but obviously fancied being in the family way.

On inspecting her well concealed hiding place, I discovered a nest of 14 eggs. Yes, our little lady was definitely clucky but, of course, the eggs were infertile as we don’t have a rooster.

However, when a friend from the Drury Pet Shop offered to give us 14 fertile eggs I could see that 17 layers were better than three! So after preparing a new pen for our escapee I moved her eggs there and she duly followed, guarding them closely for the next couple of days.

Then while she was out for a breath of fresh air I made the swap. But was our canny chicken fooled? Not on your life. She quickly determined that the eggs in the nest were not hers and abandoned them leaving us with – you guessed – egg on our faces.

What’s more she made a run for her old haunt. Am I deterred? Never. I’m doing the exercise all over again but this time I won’t move the eggs. I hope that by exchanging them in the original nest she will be none the wiser but, of course, I’m not counting my chickens before they hatch. Watch for the sequel.

P.S Our horse El Sudoku is back at work with the trainer and hopefully will be ready for trialling in March. We are very excited and looking forward to this occasion. More later.

• Brian Neben publishes Rural Living, and during the weekends is an avid lifestyle farmer.