A tough season, a strong team and reasons to stay cheerful
I would say the farm is a bit of a mess really. The big rain was really welcome but it has made for the perfect germination of all of the summer and winter weeds at one time. We are in the process of trying to clean it up, but it’s hard to see how we can make a full recovery this season from the current position.
The fuel job is a pain and a distraction we don’t need. We typically use between 3000 and 4000 litres of diesel per week-more during sowing. With prices $1.50 per litre higher, the cost of the impact is obvious.
Our transport partners are obviously responding with higher fuel levies (and legitimately so), but we don’t have the ability to respond with a milk price correction on farm or factory as quickly, so we are going to hurt.
If I am sounding like a grumpy bear, well that’s ok, it’s better out than in.
A good grump every now and then never hurt anyone, and I’m almost guaranteed to be more cheerful after breakfast and a cup of coffee. I never mooch for long.
There’s plenty of good news. I have lost 17 kgs over the last year, still on a mission but nearly halfway. It took me 25 years to turn into a whaling heiferlump. My boys are sceptical when I tell them I was a stick rake at their age.
As long as I’m heading in the right direction, I don’t mind how long it takes to move from heiferlump to choice cut.
We also possibly have the best calf rearing combination ever, one young lady from Indonesia and another whose family has a farm in the Amazon jungle in Peru. This takes a massive load off Sally and is working really well.
Actually, I feel like for the first time in a lot of years, we nearly have all the right people in the right places and we are building a really good crew.
Ever so slowly, we are winning the war in commissioning the new Bethune Lane Dairy processing plant. We could not get the continuous-flow pasturiser to put enough load on the gas boiler to keep it running, and the cooling wasn’t really working-despite having a very cold product to put through the heat exchanger. We have been pulling it apart bit by bit and have found multiple complete blockages on both the production and heating/cooling agent side.
With bits of sponge, plastic milk bottle lids, hair nets and a fair bit of disgusting grime and muck, these are the joys of buying second hand equipment.
Whilst it has taken a few days of heavy work, the back of it is broken and we are building trust in the equipment, and also know everything wil be spotless before we put any milk through it.
Throughout my 35-year farming journey, I have been constantly amazed by the people who have randomly turned up at the critical moments and made contrubutions. I started chatting to a guy at a funeral at Kyabram of a few months ago. It turns out he was a microbiologist with 30 years experience running milk processing plants, and he has been volunteering his time to help push us from installation mode into operation mode. Remarkable, really. The thought of someone giving up their own time, travelling to Lake Boga, for no charge because they want to see Australian made manufacturing succeed, genuinely lift my spitits. I always think the more you give, the more you get and encourages me to stand up and help where I can.