Roller-coaster season – Matthew Zonderop

It has been quite the roller-coaster this season, especially in the upper North Island. It was a pretty tough winter by all accounts, plenty of rain to be had. Shame it wasn’t shared around a bit more because, wow, did we cop it during the early part of calving. But that was 6 to 7 […]

Handling the heat – Matthew Zonderop

The 21/22 season has been the perfect storm from our farm’s perspective. We were firing on all cylinders until mid-November then the humidity hit, our grass went into a reproductive state and production crashed. All while we were making grass silage, had hay locked up, and were topping. But more to come in our ‘storm’ […]

Dry weather strategies – Noldy Rust

Welcome to 2020. The beginning of a new year and all the promises, plans and New Year resolutions that we are all bound to keep and break, some of us more one way than the other. I find the Christmas season is always so enjoyable, with so much happening throughout December, culminating in a very […]

Mating matters – Noldy Rust

The end of another weekend is nearing, and I am home from open homes and theatre practice. Too early to relax in the chair as Sam is still milking and I get the guilts if I’m relaxing and he is working. I can’t admit to those same guilts affecting me if Bev is working around […]

Autumn celebrations – Noldy Rust

My calendar seems in a bit of disarray at the moment as we work ourselves through 2 weeks of days on, days off, days on, days off, causing me to struggle a bit trying to remember what day it is. I do know that it’s ANZAC day today as this is such a well-advertised and […]

New grass and silage stacks – Brian Frost

The summer rain has kept coming to grow the feed; however, with this has come the weeds, and the heat has certainly been making it difficult for the cows to reach the production levels we would have liked. We have had major weed problems, especially in the new grass paddocks that have been flooded many […]

Epic grass growth – Noldy Rust

Waitangi Day, 2018. Yet another day off! Yay! The long, lazy, hot days of January have been and gone, along with the bliss of social holiday gatherings with food and drink, day trips and holidays with food and drink, unstructured and unplanned days around the pool with food and drink, family gatherings with…… And so […]

A deluge – Brian Frost

It’s been a while since we have posted a blog – time to catch up. On the home front, we have lived in 5 different homes in 4 months. The house we were meant to be using just didn’t work for our family but luckily we have found another house that suits us much better. […]