Its winter at the dairy farm

Its winter in paradise and the deciduous trees have their lost their leaves and look forlorn. 

But the view never ceases to amaze no matter what the season.

and the ever reliable roosters never fail to wake at 3am

Pretty aren’t they but I wish they didn’t find my front veranda steps so appealing. Chook poo in all the wrong paces. Let me warn you boys I am not impressed and may need to take aggressive action sooner rather than later 

On the farm we are in the middle of a green drought and what that means is even though it looks green we haven’t got enough grass for our cows. This situation is a direct result of months of extended rain events that stopped us seeding our winter grasses on time. This means we have to feed the cows something else equally as delish and nutritious

So this means lots of this stuff – prime quality lucerne or cereal hay

gets carted around the farm to feed our heifers (young stock) our dry cows (period between milking and calving) and our babies.

We have enough grass to feed the milking cows once a day.

Its steep on them there hills

And twice a day the milkers rely on Michael or his brother David carting this machine around to feed them.

Michael parks his current mode of transport at back gate to call in for breakfast

This is a mixer wagon. You can fill it with all sorts of goodies which it munches up into “delish and nutrish” for dairy cows and you feed it out like this so nothing gets wasted (or as little as possible). 

Winter can be depressing cant it? Gardens often look so bleak. 

So I have filled my winter garden with bulbs and annuals that flower under the deciduous trees

 

and lots of camellias to brighten our day

 

Lets hope next year brings better milk prices and less large Autumn rainfall events and the grass looks like this in every paddock in winter. One can hope 

Welcome back grass