Updates by the month
June, spent 2 weeks in bed with a really bad cold, fever etc, then started back at work doing repairs to the Hickmott Road milking shed, mainly welding the gates in the yard, a few minor alterations in the shed.
July. Started on more renovations in the house. What I thought was going to be a simple strip wallpaper, sand and a bit of plaster then paint has turned into a major rebuild. Firstly, the roof has been leaking through the ridge cap, the ceiling (fiberboard) has sagged, one wall has rotted plasterboard, and mice and rats had made a home in the wall cavity. I think I'm going to be a while on this place. Add in the upstairs room that is in much the same condition until I can hire some scaffolding and replace the window and exterior panels, plus the inside.
August. Calving started early, I was meant to be back at work on the 16th August, Hayden called and I went back on the 10th, 300 cows already calved, and after that it settled to about 80 a day calving for August and going well into September. Having learnt from last year, all I've had so far is a sprained wrist from a kick, and a few sore fingers and forearm from some of the more feisty heifers. We still have a couple of cows in calf, but the rest (1,380) are all settled down and milking.
September was much the same as October, work, work and work. 12 day roster, we're starting at 4am, finishing the morning milk about 8.30/9.00, then back at 1pm till about 4.30 for the afternoon milk. By the end of my shift, I'm getting a bit tired at day 10, feeling a tad grumpy on day 11, then so over it all on day 12. Then I spend my weekend off running around trying to catch up with all the things that need long work times to finish, rather than have too many half finished jobs around the house.
October has been the same, and in fact November is going to be exactly the same but with the difference that we have mating season started, so the cows have had the first round of AI, then we check in a couple of weeks for any that didn't take, a second round of AI, plus we let the bulls run with them till December.
The weather has improved, no snow, and longer warm days, the rain persists in coming down though. Last month was 385mm for the farm, which couple with the warmer weather ahs meant phenomenal grass growth. The cows are getting 18kg of dry matter a day, no supplementary feed required yet, and we are getting 30,000 litres of milk a day from them.
Tuffy has finished growing, all we are waiting for is the brains I am sure I had ordered to arrive.
