November 11th

It's taken me a while, no apologies, just a lot of frustration with connections, browsers and in general too much work.

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.

Bridget at Collingwood beach

Bagels, I finally have a good recipe

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.

June 12th

The last few months have been hectic, or something approaching that. We started drafting the cows into smaller groups just after Easter, not that I remember Easter, I worked through from the start of April to May 31st and dry-off. We had 4 herds in the end, the 2 main milking herds, one small group of barren cows, about 40 or so, that we milked out then culled out off the farm and away to become MacD burgers, and the usual group of red herd cows with mastitis or lame, or injured, that rotate back into the main herd. Still ended up milking 1350 cows twice a day till the end of the season on May 31st. Bridget and Steve at work. It’s been a good season, our somatic cell count never went over 200 till the last week when we were drying off, so the farm got a good payout for the season, John Deere Finance offered Hayden 0.8% financing on 3 new JD tractors, 2 small ones, 6430’s, and one bigger one 6830 I think, and took the exisiting tractors as trade. Plus the associated buckets/forks attachments. All the herd, plus the runoff farm herd have been DNA tested, which will help next season with calving, it gets confusing with a large herd and you are trying to reconcile calves and cows and having 80 or so cows calving each day over August and into September, at night, or wandering off from the paddock and dropping calves in the shelter belts or anywhere. I had 3 calves on my place last season, and found a few dropped in the ditches along the roadside during August. On the home front, I have started doing all the winter chores around the garden, digging over last seasons garden, planting broad beans and asparagus in the new patches, and cleaning out the polytunnel. I obtained nearly 100 asparagus crowns from a lady in Takaka for $20, all 4 – 5 year old crowns, I’m going to be able to get a small crop from them this year, but will have to wait till next year for a main crop from them once they settle into the bed. Polly that does the hydroponic peppers in Rockville offered to sell my surplus through her stall and shops next spring and summer, so that will raise a bit of cash, I’m starting to see light at the end of the tunnel finally here. She isn’t interested in growing outdoor crops on her block, the hydroponics take up most of her time now, so I’m going to be able to sell off the zucchini/rhubarb/chillies/cucumbers and whatever else I supply. I put in 100 broad bean seeds a fortnight ago, which have all come through, I’ll start more towards the end of this month, and cabbage and brocolli plants as well. We haven’t had any snow yet, just a few mornings with white caps on the mountains that have melted off by lunchtime, and only one good rainburst last week, about 75mm overnight that had the valley looking like a lake for the day till it drained away. I had Hayden over from Wellington, he was impressed with how quickly the water drains away. We took a few trips around the valley, out to Wharariki Beach, impressive as always, into Takaka and up the road to the Heaphy Track. Hayden at Heaphy Track and Wharariki Beach We start back milking on August 10th, which seemed like a long time to wait 2 weeks ago, now I find myself wanting more time free to catch up on everything I haven’t had a chance to do the last couple of months since Easter. I’ve got all the chicken mesh to put up along the back fence line, a hen house to build, another room to strip and plaster, then paint, roof to repair, well, replace 3 sheets of iron and the ridge cap, and still haven’t worked out how to strip the window frame out from upstairs and replace with a ranchslider. I’ll be needing some scaffolding outside, so that is going to be a summer job, when I can afford it. Tuffy has finished growing upwards, now he is filling out. He is looking like his parentage, Labrador front half, broad head, shoulders and front feet, and border collie skinny hips and back legs. He keeps trying to herd Bridgets hens up when we go around there, I’d love to get him trained up for sheep, he has got the border collie herding instinct, and a good eye on him for trying to outstare everyone. It's also end of season crop dusting time as well, dropping fertiliser onto the paddocks for next springs growth. Here are a few from around the house the last month or so. The weather changed so quickly this year, from a long autumn, or it felt like a long one, into winter in the course of a few days. We went from 8*C in the mornings to -5*C over a weekend, our hands were so cold in the mornings milking we had a bucket of 80*C water by us, and we were dipping our hands in every few cows.

March 18th 2012

It’s been a while I admit. There’s a lot to catch up on, so here goes

December 13th we were hit with a deluge of rain, 400 – 500 mm of water in 24 hours, all of it down on the foothills and coastal areas. Nelson was flooded, Motueka, Riwaka, Takaka, and Pohara. Out here in the Valley it wasn’t so bad, the Aorere rose a bit, but not as much as the January 2011 flooding.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10773343

We were cut off for a few weeks, the road just this side of the Takaka River, by the Waikoropupu Springs road was lost when the hillside collapsed, thankfully I keep the pantry stocked well up all the time. We couldn’t get out past Collingwood for 3 weeks, until Christmas Eve, the Collingwood store managed to hire a fishing boat to bring in more supplies from Nelson about week 2, so we couild have managed for a while longer.

We lost phone/internet for a while, which was a pain, but I managed.

The road is still one lane past the slip, and we have the only set of traffic lights in Golden Bay now at each end of the lane.

My keyboard on the laptop died a slow death, first the “s” key stopped working, then a few others, then the space bar, it wasn’t until late January I managed to get into Takaka and replace it with a plugin keyboard. I’ll have to get the laptop repaired at some point, but it isn’t high on the list yet.

In the meantime, I’ve been working both milkings, on a 12 day on, 2 days off roster, 4am starts, finish the day about 5pm, with a 4 hour gap inbetween. Needless to say, I’m asleep by 8pm most nights. We are milking 1400 cows now, Hayden increased the herd sizes in January, 700 in each herd now, with the rain and warm weather the grass is growing faster than the cows can keep it down.

We are moving the herds 3 times a day at present, just to keep the top of the grass cut back to stop it getting rank and beyond palatable for the cows. Still getting 35,000 litres of milk a day though, depending on the overnight weather it can get to 38,000 just on the first milking. Fronterra decided to only send the tanker on a 2 day pick up, which lasted less than 3 days for us, we had both tanks full by the second day, and were just about to dump an entire milking shift worth when they sent a double tanker to pick up, after some rather pointed phone calls. I think we are the only farm out here still on daily pickup, and a few times the last month, 2 pickups the same day.

It must be paying off, Brigid and I both got pay rises, another $1.50 an hour, which makes life a bit easier.

Alé and Nacho, 2 of the Argentiniaens we had working on the farm left in February, I was down the river with Tuffy when Mike came down with his sluice box to show them how to pan for gold. By the time I left they had a few small flakes, but not a lot to show for the effort, although there is still a lot of gold to be pulled out from the river if you find the right spot. I’m considering getting my own sluice and pan and having a play over winter in a few spots that look promising.

From the James Road bridge to near the Heaphy Track start is open fossicking, no licence required, but also, no mechanical or powered mining equipment is allowed, so it is shovel and hand pans only.

The James Road Bridge was finally opened again, after the last one was washed away in the January 2011 flood, which made the farmers over the river very happy. No more kayaking across to get supplies or paying for a helicopter to drop off farm stuff. It took the contractors 4 months to build, mostly waiting for concrete abutments to set before the actual bridge could be swung into place.

I’ve bought a few new toys to play with, 2 rather old style rotary hoes, (roto-tillers), picked them up for $200, one going, one needed repair, so I’m busy digging over more ground for garden. I’ve been eating well from the polytunnel, tomates, beans, chillies, cucumbers, and more zucchini than I can cope with from the outdoor garden Garlic, potatoes, radishes, silverbeet (Swiss Chard), my oka (yams) are nearly ready, another month or so till the frosts arrive and I’ll be digging them out.

Tuffy is turning into a major worry, he sneaks into the polytunnel if I leave the door open and strips the beans and cucumbers, tomatoes and chillies off the vines and bushes to eat, also the zucchini outdoors, plus the beetroot. I think he has finished growing, well above knee high on me, and he seems to be learning a few things, like “come here” and “stop eating my vegetables you crazy dog” type things. Although I have doubt about the last one.

He met up with the local hedgehog, and had a "discussion" over ownership of one of his bones.

We had our first bit of snow on March 3rd, just a capping on the mountains, it only lasted a day or so, but enough to make a decided chill in the valley.

I’m slowly working my way around the section, clearing out the overgrowth of hedera and tradescantia, I’m getting to the stage where I think a good dose of Agent Orange is called for, or napalm. The rain and warm weather isn’t helping, everything is growing as fast as I can cut it back lately.

I spent Christmas Day with David and Judy down the road, they had their family all together for the first time in a few years, and it turned out to be a really nice summer day, plus it was my one day off as well.

Here is a pic of the Valley, from the hill above the house, looking up towards the Aorere River and the Heaphy.