dunnies<\/a> and Aunt Daisy’s Book of Handy Hints.<\/p>\nThe research was a lot of fun, Spencer said.<\/p>\n
“It takes time but it’s wonderful discovering things. It’s kind of like gold mining. You turn up a nugget here or there and it takes you on a journey somewhere else.”<\/p>\n
She said the objects chosen – by no means an exhaustive list – reflect changes to rural life and society more generally over time.<\/p>\n
“There are some massive changes of course. We brought a lot of amazing innovation in.”<\/p>\n
It also highlighted the resilience and adaptability of rural New Zealanders, she said.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4JZ6ZZF_9781775542810_jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nThe husband and wife duo have recently partnered together on a new book ‘Kiwi Country: Rural New Zealand in 100 Objects’.
\nPhoto: Supplied\n<\/p>\n
The book is also quite personal, with the couple both weaving in memories and funny anecdotes of their own rural experiences.<\/p>\n
Spencer drew heavily on the Blue Mountain sheep station’s shearers’ quarters den in Marlborough where she spent holidays as a child with her family.<\/p>\n
“It was just kind of paradise for kids. There’s lots of that place in the book.”<\/p>\n
She struggled to choose just one example to exemplify rural experience, emphasising it was not only a book about farms or just for farms.<\/p>\n
“This is a book about the rural experience across the board – I mean people who go fishing on a wharf, who have been to a wild hot pool, these are people who have a ride-on mower, have a lifestyle block or just drive in the country and see an honesty box.<\/p>\n
“It’s not just for people who have experience on farms. It’s for people who have experience in New Zealand – you’re never very far away from rural life in New Zealand.”<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stand-up comedians Te Radar and Ruth Spencer have compiled a list of all the things that make up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[48,489,47,156,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-99115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-current-affairs","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-podcasts","17":"tag-public-radio","18":"tag-radio-new-zealand","19":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}