Brought up on a farm in Canterbury in the 1950s and 60s, Judy was well-versed in the changing seasons of a rural lifestyle. So it was with some equanimity that not long after she married her farmer husband she was ready to leave the rolling midCanterbury plains for the more rigorous climate and terrain of Northern Southland followed by the remote, uncultivated soils of the Te Anau Basin. As new settlers of the Long Valley Block — part of the government's farm settlement scheme in the Basin — in the 1970s, Judy had no idea what her husband had signed them up to when they successfully drew the farm in a ballot on a memorable day in December 1975. In this recording, Judy talks about how a humble marble changed the course of their lives and the adjustments of settling into a new community.