5. The Big Muster

A week in to the job and the welly rash has arrived, that's welly with an 'e' by the way. Those if you who are regular welly wearers (and have hairy legs) will be aware of the friction caused balding of the back of the calf (leg calf, not baby cow calf). It is pretty irritating and hurts in the shower. I think the friction is a result of getting on and off quad bikes, I do tend to spend most of the day on one.

This morning I was on one for about four hours, as we brought about 180 in-calf cows from winter grazing (on fodder beet) back to the farm. We set off at first light and brought them back, proper mustering style down 13km of roads, some of which were pretty busy. Here are some pictures of the cows in transit.

Myself and Daniel were on the quads blocking gaps and turning the cows down the correct roads. After the herd had passed we would have to pick our way back through the cows at high speed to reach the next gap. As you passed by a cow it would start to run, causing the whole herd to run, so getting in-front of them quickly was pretty important. The cows would suddenly turn in front of you as you approached, it wouldn't be hard to have a quad on cow collision, but one or two close calls remained just that. The skill lies in predicting which way a cow is going to turn and picking the opposite side hoping that a gap will open up. It was pretty exciting at times and we managed to get them all back without any major issues. 

Although, there were some pretty uncomfortable issues with the food that I brought along to keep the energy up. The cubby hole where I put my packed breakfast/lunch (I refuse to call it a Brunch) is at the back of the bike next to the exhaust. The back of the bike is usually home to a magnesium spreader, that is used for dusting the pasture with a very fine magnesium powder that sticks to everything. Magnesium deficiency is to be avoided around calving, it causes a condition called Hypomagnesaemia or Grass Staggers, which can lead to a down cow. It often causes them to get pretty angry and treating a 600kg irritated animal that keeps on trying to headbutt you can prove difficult. 

The powder we spread on the grass to reduce the chance of said condition coats the back of the bike and stays there. It also stayed on my food. It is fair to say that I wont be suffering from grass staggers any time soon, although my levels of annoyance and irritability remain comfortably high!

At the time of writing, about 10% of the herd has calved. The cows and heifers calve on their winter grazing about 2km away from the milking shed. Once the calf has had the chance to find its earth legs and has been licked clean of all its slime (by its mother, not me), it is time for it to be taken to the calf shed, and for its mother to join the rest of the miking herd. 

The theory behind the method we use to bring both animals back is as follows;

We put the calf in a quad trailer and drive slowly away.

The recently calved mother sees this and follows the trailer and her offspring back towards the shed.

Because she is a good mother she stays close to the trailer and doesn't attempt to run through any electric wire or jump any fences. 

The other cows that are yet to calve ignore everything because they realise that it is not their time to leave. 

It doesn't always happen like this. Especially when you have a few flighty heifers coming back together.

I havn't any photos of the process in action yet because my hands are generally full preventing runaway livestock from disappearing into the distance. Either that or I'm on the 450cc quad towing the calf trailer at 4kph, an infuriatingly slow pace for a pretty powerful bike. The journey seems to take a very long time and leaves plenty of opportunity to check out the great views, or I suppose take pictures of the cows and calves in transit, which I havn't. But here are some of the views:

The last one there shows some of the irrigation commonly seen in the area.


And here is a photo of the new born calves all loaded up and their mothers ready to head off at snail pace, to their respective new homes. 

I have a few days off next week so hopefully I will do something else interesting to write about in the next blog.

Thanks for reading, keep sharing!

4. And The Farming Starts.

It is definitely winter here. Although the summer I left in the UK was terrible, the mornings here are cold, really quite cold. The combination of clear skies and a fierce wind (felt especially on a quad-bike) cause the hard frosts in the morning that are much less welcome than the warm afternoon sun.

Currently, 17 cows and heifers have calved out of the 525+ that will do over the next few months. The herd is made up of Friesians, a few Jerseys and Kiwi Crosses, a breed created from Friesians and Jerseys. Because of the mix of breeds the herd looks a bit of a rag tag bunch of cows, but all look stocky, quite woolly and at the moment very full of calves!

Some of the in-calf heifers braving the frost.

I am pretty settled in now, I even have my name on my postbox:

My day to day routine is just about getting started. At the moment, after first breakfast,  milking is at 7am, that time will get earlier as more cows calve.

Milking

The 'shed' is a 40 a side swing over. It is called a shed here, not a milking parlour. One of the many differences in terminology. For instance an electric fence post is called a standard, and wellies are gum boots.  Its hardly a language barrier but it does take a bit of getting used to. Also converting everything from dollars to pounds and kilometres to miles means that anything to do with numbers takes me about three times as long to work out than it would normally. 

After milking it is time to give the in calf cows and heifers a new 'break' (translation: 'a bit more grass') and check for any new arrivals. It is a couple of miles down the road to where the stock is wintered pre-calving. That journey before the sun gets up can be bitterly cold, a cab would be a good addition to the quad. Or a few more layers on top of what ever I'm wearing. I am practically wearing all the clothes I brought with me anyway.

Me on the bike

Waiting for breakfast

Getting involved with breakfast!

After that job's done it is time for second breakfast, without which I probably wouldn't survive the morning. It's about this time that the sun gets up properly and I can start to defrost, and also when the spectacular views really show themselves off.

Another great time for a Microsoft Windows screensaver is the sunsets, this one is from the my bungalow a few nights ago:

Odd jobs and maintenance are done until lunch, at the moment this is mostly clearing up branches from a recently trimmed wind break. The line of conifers had a proper short back and sides and there must be a few kilometres of greenery to move. Its going to be an on-going job for at least another week.

After lunch it is calf collection time, look out for the next blog post for a few photos of the younglings.

Thanks for reading, and keep sharing!

3. Kia Ora - Welcome to New Zealand

I have had a good night sleep now and I think the jet lag has disappeared, so I am going to introduce you to the part of the world in which I'm in.

Here are some maps (from Google maps) to show you where in NZ I am based:

Canterbury and Otago

Waitaki

Oamaru is the nearest town to the farm, it is famous for its penguins. The yellow box is where I am, about 12 miles North-West of Oamaru. 

This is the farm, it has about 171 ha (425 acres) of effective land.

I share my bungalow with my colleague Dan. He is from Ireland, as is my boss, so with my Scots blood and Welsh education, it is quite a celtic set-up. 

The bungalow itself is a pretty traditional NZ style house,  the walls are thin and there is just one heater in the living room, but it serves its purpose. Everything is in working order although the kitchen is very poorly stocked in terms of cutlery and pans. Those of you who know me may be aware of my extraordinary skills in the kitchen and the magic I can do when armed with a tin of tomatoes and a bag of pasta. The under equipped kitchen did not help my stomach-filling cause today. My major issue was with the knife, it was so blunt I wasn't sure which was the sharp edge. My dad always told me that a blunt knife is more dangerous then a sharp one because you always have to force it. He was right, I did have to force it and I can see how they could be dangerous, because instead of slicing the onion it slipped and hit my finger. I would be missing a digit now if the knife had been sharp enough to get through my skin. It reminded me of a splitting axe and needed a real two-handed swing just to get through the mushrooms. 

Because Irish Dan was cooking his potatoes at the same time as I was cheffing and blinding, both pans were being used. I had to resort to a very rusty receptacle for my 'ribbed penne', a pasta name which offers itself well to a classic joke. It is safe to say that I will not be suffering from any iron-deficiency in the near future, my haemoglobin must be rolling in it. 

Anyway here is my abode:

My bedroom is at the far end and has the patio doors opening on to the decking, its going to be great in the summer, but is hemorrhaging heat at the moment.

This is the garage, note the wheelchair/motorbike access to the house:

The best thing about this bungalow is the views, especially from the kitchen. You can see the mountains in the distance, and the prime grazing in the foreground. The straight lines of poplars, firs and conifers, are all over the grazing plains of the South Island, and are pretty striking. Because of the huge lengths of irrigation needed to keep the grass green, in field trees were removed to allow the pipes to cover the whole grazing block. The only hedges you'll see are 30ft trees, which act as windbreaks too. The irrigation of the land is a major part of grass management. There has been very little rain in recent months here, and the grass shows it, looking very sickly and brown. Where we are is a little hilly and water is pumped up from the nearest river. Lower lying ground is irrigated with gravity fed water and the use of canals and mini dams to temporarily flood paddocks. I am looking forward to seeing the grass management take effect through the year. 

In other news:
I have got myself a car now, for free. It was my predecessors, he left it when he went back to Ireland. It just needs its MOT (a warrant), for about $300 and tax for about $150 (that adds up to about £225) and I'm ready to go!
Here are the new (to me anyway) wheels:

I drove it to the garage for its warrant today, the gravel road, on which my bungalow is, is a new driving experience. The amount of dust created from Dan's car in front made the visibility worse than the thickest fog, but I had to follow pretty close because I had no idea where I was going. I could only see him when he braked, and you don't really need to break on these roads. I hope Gary at the garage sorts out the front left wheel/tyre, it was pulling to the left so much I was pretty much full lock on right, to stay on the road. Its a bit of a work horse though and will do the job. 

After taking 'Gavin' to the garage we went into town (Oamaru) to get me a bank account and postal address sorted, as well as some other boring stuff. The talk of the town was the pretty unpleasant smell in the air, some of the locals reckoned it was seaweed washed up, I thought it could be a whale. I wasn't, it was probably the sea weed. That was the talk of the town, at least until the full on Hollywood blockbuster car chase I saw down the high street! A bashed up coupe was being chased by three panda cars, all lights and sirens blazing, they went to cut it off but after some skillful evasive action by Jake or Elwood Blues the soon to be arestee managed to prolong the action. It was great, and was apparently the most exciting thing to happen in Oamaru for years!

Right, that's enough typing for today. Look out for the next post soon, and keep sharing the blog etc. 

Thanks for reading. 

2. Heathrow to Christchurch - Part 2

I am writing this post sat in my new home for the next year in Waitaki, North Otago. Although I am not going to talk about it until my next post, as I have only just unpacked. This second chapter is about the second half of my journey to NZ. It is only a short one because I was asleep for most of the flight from Singapore to Christchurch.

I got an aisle seat this time, as opposed to the middle seat i had on the first leg. I definitely made the most of it and stretched my legs from my row (36)  to row 8. I probably tripped up between 10 and 15 other passengers over the course of the flight and was run over at least twice by food trolley. But I didn't get cramp in my calves. (I will be talking about calves of a different type in future blog posts).

I was sat next to the worlds most polite couple ever. They were Japanese, and if I was to guess at their ages, I would say between 30 and 80. They repeatedly tried to initiate conversation with me (even when I had my headphones on). When I said I was British, they obviously asked if I was from London. When I said 'No, miles away, North,' they suggested Manchester.  I said I was, even though I'm from nowhere near there. 

Much hilarity ensued later on when the air steward with the food options tried to be too clever and spoke to them in Chinese. When they said that they were Japanese he looked mortified. This was after a 5 minute description of the menu. 

When the plane (this time an average Boeing 777) neared NZ, the sun began to rise over the Cloud Sea, which was over the South Pacific / Tasman Sea, and it was magnificent. It was the best sunrise I have ever seen, even though it was through a tiny round window on the other side of two Japanese. I got my camera out and asked Mr Japan to take a picture for me, thinking he would be a pro photographer. He wasn't. 

This is what he took.

I showed Mrs Japan and she also wasn't impressed. She made us all swap round (despite my feeble protests) so I could take it myself. I feel like I got to know Mr and Mrs J very well at this point because the food trolley was coming past at the same time so we couldn't use the aisle to re-shuffle. 

I took this photo, which still doesn't do the sunrise enough justice.

We got back into our own seats and strapped ourselves in for the descent to Christchurch. As we broke through the top layer of cloud cover Mrs J got very excited because she could see mountains. I looked across and I could also see them, it looked awesome, and I'm sure I saw where Gandalf et al (2001) had hiked on their way to Mordor. 

I was made against my will to swap seats again to take a picture, even though the seatbelt light had been on for about 20 mins. Even the air-hostesses had strapped themselves into their backwards facing seats by the kettles. Anyway we had another mini game of airplane twister and I snapped away like a Japanese tourist, but better.

Pretty awesome huh?

After the pilot overshot the airport and had completed his corrective steep banking (insert financial climate joke here), I landed in crisp, wintery New Zealand.

On the way out the biosecurity police looked at every single bit of my clothing in my suitcase to check for mud. There was none, because my mum washed all my clothes before I went, obviously. Who travels with a suitcase full of dirty clothes?

A bloke was waiting at the massive arrivals sign with a sign saying ' FREDDIE LAWDER', unless I, or him, were very much mistaken, he was my new boss and also my lift to my new home, workplace and base from which to explore NZ. It turns out he was, luckily. 

In the next blog post, I will talk about my first impressions of my new house (bungalow) and much more. Right now though, I am going to continue with my jet lag and try out the shower. 

Thanks for reading!

1. Heathrow to Christchurch - Part 1

I thought I liked long distance flights but I don't. I just like films, and there are lots of films on the the in-flight entertainment screen thing. But I don't like watching films with no leg room and annoying sponge covered headphones, in a chair that won't recline more than about 5°. 

For those that are interested the films that I have watched so far are;

'This Means War'

'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen'

'The Hunger Games'

and

'21 Jump Street'

The first three were great, but that last one is dire.

This is me before I left with my suitcase of exactly 20kg, the maximum non-fine weight. The checking in girl was very impressed. I am on the one on the left, the bloke on the right is my dad who drove me down to Heathrow in the rain. We mostly talked about how irritating people undertaking on a motorway are, and other poor lane choosers. A traffic controller with a luminous jacket and a hat took this photo. I was surprised that he stopped doing his pretty important job to do that, maybe they are employing especially friendly people for the Olympics.

I am currently sitting in Singapore airport halfway through my journey to New Zealand, I got here on the biggest passenger plane in the world, the Airbus A380. It was a Singapore Airlines one with the best orange juice I have ever tasted, but what has to be the worst chicken kiev in the world. 

This is the double-decker A380, it is ridiculous that it even manages to get off the floor never mind stay up there for 14 hours.

Singapore airport is a great airport, it is perfectly air conditioned and not too busy at the moment, although there is a Chinese kid whose screaming is starting to put me off. I am sat typing near an indoor koi carp pond, and there is a tropical butterfly house at the other end of the terminal. Heathrow should exhibit its local wildlife too I think, I'm thinking a pigeon aviary to start.  

The Koi.

They have designated feeding times like animals in a zoo.

A tropical butterfly on a slice of pineapple - it gives you an idea of the size of them.

Right I am now going to wander about half a mile down this ridiculously long building to find my boarding gate. The sign says it is an 11 minute walk but I will beat that easily, especially with the horizontal escalators, which I have ridden on probably more than necessary.  

My next post will be from the land of the kiwis, I can't wait!