Good morning everyone!
It’s a real Waikato winter’s day today. There was a really thick fog which has only now just cleared. It is an absolutely beautiful day here, now!
We hope the weather has been better at your place than on the farm over the last week. Mind you, Keryn (who is grand sitting the grandkids) tells me that Wellington is much colder than it is up here.
The weather didn’t stop the Hurricanes from thrashing the Waikato Chiefs in the Super Rugby final on Saturday night, though! It was very comprehensive. Many years ago I played rugby for the Wellington Colts (under 23 reps) so I still have a soft spot for Wellington! Losing to the Canes wasn’t too bad!
On the farm:
We still don’t have much grass ahead of us, so every morning I feed out my herd as we struggle through winter. It hasn’t been too cold though, so there is grass still growing, albeity slowly.
The fencers are just rebattening our fence line along the lake. Then it is time to put in a totally new electric fence supply over the farm. This is the last of the jobs for them, and I will definitely celebrate finishing.
At the same time we have also completely replaced all our water lines. When the farm was originally “plumbed” it was all done with galvanised pipe, which had degraded significantly, with underground leaks that were impossible to trace, as our farm is quite sandy, so close to the lake. It is now replaced with large diameter heavy duty plastic piping, which should pretty much last forever Although this is a cost that does not improve the value of the farm (when we ultimately retire), it needed to be done, our water pump just ran incessantly.
I have also purchased 3 meter tall weeping willow trees, which I will pick up in a few days. All the tree surrounds are completed, so I can’t wait to see the farm when all the trees are planted. Lol – so much for retiring! Willows grow quite quickly, and I can’t wait to provide good shade for our stock, over the summer time.
“An Epiphany” We sent off a few culled cows the other day. Included was one of our older cows, and it broke my heart sending her off. In hindsight I genuinely wished I hadn’t! “Storm” had been scanned in calf, but at some point had obviously lost the calf, as she was cycling again. We would have had to hold her for at least 18 months before she would calve again in the right season. It seemed the right decision to send her off. But afterwards I genuinely had a real “epiphany” of who we are and what we are doing, and realised that Storm was part of our precious heritage and story. She should not have gone off! I still feel distraught!
This “epiphany” includes all our “registered” cattle also. Sometimes we look at the genetic numbers too much, and don’t spend enough time looking at the animal itself, and doing physical comparisons with their contemporaries. Our commercial cows are just as good physically (or better). They are definitely not inferior!
Spotlight on:
Most of our black/white faced girls have just calved. The little calves are so cute (like “Oreo” last week) – SO much so that one of our fencers actually came back on the weekend to show his young son the calves!
With this in mind, this week’s calf is the latest of these calves. He is the only male calf. We asked our grandson to name him and he came up with the name “Bryson” (lol – not a name we would have chosen).
So this guy is Bryson, and his mother is Bella – who is a big momma! Welcome to the farm, little guy!
That’s all for this week. As always we – we love feedback If you feel like making a comment, you are more than welcome!
Colin