Random Weather and Lots of Calves!

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Well, it was turning cold, but not it has changed its mind again. After several freezing days and wearing lots of layers, getting windburn (despite obsessively moisturising!) and having my hands freeze to the hind handlebars, today it is 20 degrees! And, hoorah hoorah, its my day off! We're working really hard at the moment as calving has really kicked off and the farm is just so busy, so days off mostly involve sleep and grocery shopping. but the weather is so nice today i thought i would do a bit of sght seeing and go for a drive. So i am in Methven today, which is a bit nearer the mountains and just so spectacularly becautiful.

At the moment we have around 30 calves being born per day, so while Lottie and Jen are in charge of feeding and rearing them, i am doing lots of stock movements, fencing, paddock dusting not to mention all the milking. We're up to about 150 or so cows now in the milking herd, which is not so many, but with the new system finally up and running everyone is still learning the ropes. Also, despite lots of training and bribery with grain and molasses, a lot of the cows, especially the heifers, are quite reluctant to get onto the milking platform, and can be really quite grumpy when you try to milk them. So currently i am trying to learn a new system (in the freezing pre dawn), milk cows while avoiding being kicked in the head, draft out (separate from the herd using automatic gates) cows that need vet attention, have mastitis or anything else wrong with them and understand my work mates while the shed is running (very noisy), two of which dont have English as their first language! And all before 8 am! After breakfast (nearer 11 a lot of the time) we bring all the cows who haven't calved, or did calve overnight, onto the platform to resort them. This week we also brought up all the cows off the kale again. This involved persuading 700 cows that they would rather walk 2 km on gravel and track rather than eat kale. not surprisingly they are pretty hard to convince. Usually this is not a problem as we have motorbikes, but due to recent rains there is a lot of mud so we get stuck a lot, and the cows just wander around us as we try to free ourselves! It all works out in the end though, and we eventually get lunch around 2pm. The afternoon usually involves moving fences, paddock dusting, milking, calf rearing any anything else Aaron can think of. He likes to keep us busy and it really throws him when we are really fast and efficient because he cant think of anything else for us to do!! Usually the day finishes around 7pm.

Now that we have our new oven, Lottie and I are enjoying eating proper food, and have already made some pretty awesome fajitas and an "interesting" chicken satay (dodgy sauce, needed a lot of adapting!). Last Sunday Aaron and Michelle took the whole farm out for dinner at the local pub, the Railway Tavern. We got there first and received the classic "strangers from the outside" stares from the locals. The food was good though. The boys all had a mixed grill, which was absolutely enormous (would have happily fed even Richard!) with sausages, steak and schnitzel and i ordered a porterhouse steak but got fillet mignon, but it was really really nice. You know how it says with chips and salad so you just expect a little bit of leafy garnish? well, over here they really go to town on the salad. Along with the huge steak and mountain of chips, there was a large leafy salad, beetroot, carrot, pasta salad, coleslaw, orange (???!) and croutons. Michelle couldnt finish hers so it was passed down the line to Michal, who happily polished it off, along with his own mixed grill and 2 puddings! Mussa, not to be outdone, also finished the kids meals as well as his own. I dont know where those two put all that food. On the way home, Michal asked if we could stop at the petrol station so he could buy a pie to eat on the way home. we thought he was joking, but he wasnt! We had a really good evening out, with everyone trying to learn Maori from the kids an Japanese from Mussa.

I was bound to have a bad day at some point, and last week i had the mother of all bad days. It started with me setting my alarm for 6pm by mistake and so sleeping in for 1 hr 40 mins (most of milking!). Matt, who was in charge of the shed, was very good about it and didnt seem to mind at all. the rest of the morning passed ok, but in the afternoon the following happened:
1. i lost 2 paddock duster pins in the same paddock
2. I got the electric fence wrapped around the axle of the paddock duster
3. While moving a fence, the cows decided to totally defy me and trash it, running away across the paddock
4. while rebuilding the above fence, the cows decided to trash it again
5. because i had taken so long doing the fence, i hadnt opened the gate to the other paddock on my return, so the second mob of cows ended up mixed up with the first mob, which were still on the wrong side of the fence
6. i missheard Scott's instructions and fetched the wrong mob of cows in
7. while fetching the wrong cows, they decided to jump the fence and run away down the track
8. while trying to retrieve the cows, 3 of them turned back 3 times, so i had to keep going back for them
9. having got all the cows up the track i stopped to shut the gate and the same 3 cows (who should be sent to McDonald's immediately) ran back past me again
10. having to 2 of the 3 cows back, the 3rd one jumped 2 fences and got herself mixed up with the not-calved mob

This all happened within about 2 hours, when we were still only halfway through milking. I think there was almost steam coming out of my ears, i was getting so frustrated with it all. When i finally got back to the shed, all Scott said was, "never mind, it happens"!!! i expected to be yelled at but they were all very sympathetic and mostly just found it funny. but i had one of those horrible feelings that nothing was going to go right that day, and i was amazed that they kept sending me out to do jobs. I bought a box of beer the next day, the standard penalty for sleeping in or cocking something up, and although i am ther butt of the odd joke, thankfully its all died down now. I was so embarassed though, i didnt sleep in once last time i was in NZ, and this time i did it in my first 2 weeks!

On Tuesday Lottie and I headed into Ashburton to an AgriVenture seminar for new trainees. I really wanted to meet some new people and get involved in the trainee stuff again, because i enjoyed it so much last time, so they have recruited me to be a supervisor for some of the trainees in the October intake, when around 60-70 people arrive. this time there was only 20, mostly arriving to help with calving, but i was nice to meet the area reps and have some fun. its tradition that each country represented does a little presentation about their home. when we were trainees the Poms did a pub quiz about England. this year they were quite creative and had powerpoints and all sorts. it was pretty brave really as some countries only had 1 person! the trainees who had been around since April did their own hilarous sketch about what its really like to be a trainee, with the pig and sheep trainees getting up at 9, having smoko (tea break) at 11 and finishing at 3pm, while the dairy trainees working earlier and harder and longer! it was really funny, and quite true! We got a few numbers and are hopefully all going to the pub together next week.

Having briefly felt rather accomplished, Lottie and i have failed on the last 5 attempts to get our fire started in the evening. We have tried all sorts of combinations of logs, newspaper, kindling and pinecones, but nothing really seems to work. the paper burns well but then it goes out, so we have taken to wearing duvets in the house! But generally i am aclimatising and not wearing so many layers in the day time. I am eating well and looking after myself, but already my clothes are getting a little looser.

We heard on the news about the FMD in Surrey. They're not good at reporting international news over here, but i gather its a vaccine strain? oops! glad they arent shutting the boarder though, so Hannah, a mate from uni, can still come out for a few weeks to help with calving. That will be just after Lottie leaves. After that i dont know, they are thinking of getting an AgriVenture trainee perhaps.

If you cant find the rest of my blog, that would be because it crashed recently. Apparently they are trying to sort it all out and restore it, but that may take a while. Hopefully everything will be ok from now on. Better fly as its my turn to cook dinner tonight. Sorry for lack of photos, will update it shortly.

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