There's been an outpouring of stories about the life and lasting legacy of Queen Elizabeth since her death last week, but none quite as unique as the story of an Otorohanga dairy farmer and his jersey cows.
Don Ferguson developed a special bond with the late monarch after a chance encounter with the Queen's head herdsman turned into a friendship based on a mutual love of the world-class bovines.
"Dad was pretty straight up and down. He just said bluntly what he thought. He didn't think much of the cows, what they had," his son Warren explained.
"Alan said, 'Well, you probably haven't got much better' and he said, 'Well, I think we have.'"
Word spread of the cocky farmer, and Don and his wife June were soon invited to meet the Queen.
June said the pair were "nervous that first time", but the monarch and her late husband Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh, put them at ease.
As the Ferguson-Windsor relationship grew, cattle were exchanged.
"She knew the cows, she knew the breeding. It was like talking to another breeder," Warren said of the Queen.
June said they met the royals countless times over the years, even staying at Windsor "free of charge which was good because Windsor is quite expensive".
Don became one of the few people in the world with a direct line to the Queen.
"You'd be milking and he would say, 'I've got to go. I've got to call the Queen at 7 o'clock,'" Warren said.
While they had a strong interest in cows, June said their conversations would turn to "all sorts of things and put the world to right over the phone".
"It might have been a cow calved so he would ring and tell her that. When it was her birthday, he would ring her or when Princess Margaret and the Queen mum died," she said.
"When she met him at Government House she just said, 'Thank you for those phone calls. It's great to have a true friend.'"
But it was one special visit in 1990 which sticks in the mind of the Ferguson family, which saw Don and the Queen take a walk with the cows in the paddock.
"It was Dad's special moment, as well as the family's," Warren said.
"My sister made the pikelets and I made the asparagus rolls," June added.
She said one thing that isn't talked about enough is the Queen's empathy.
"When Don passed away, Warren and I rang her the next morning to tell her and she said, 'I thought about that. I knew by the tone of his voice the last time we spoke that he hadn't long.'
Soon afterwards, the family received a handwritten note full of heart.
"I do hope you are managing all right as I know you miss him," it read.
Warren said while they "probably take it for granted a bit", the family's friendship with the Queen is "pretty unique when you stop and think about it".
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