On the farm - behind the farmgate Archives - Page 8 of 8 - Clover Hill Diaries

Walking when too much is not a good thing

At Clover Hill Dairies we milk 500 cows three times daily on two farms.

Milking three times a day is not the norm but we do it for a multitude of reasons which are good for people, cows and the planet.

Milking three times a day means lots and lots of health benefits for our cows but those health benefits rely on good time management.

Good time management is essential because cows need at least 12 hours a day to sleep. ( If you want to read the heavy science you can find it here.)

So as our cows walk backwards and forwards to the dairy three times daily we need to make sure they do that with as much cow comfort as we can provide so they can do it as quickly and efficiently as they can.

Cows travel super highways at Clover Hill (special thanks to Penny Scott who took this gorgeous photo)

To help them do this we have created a series of “supermoo highways” on our farms.

Like this and this – Cars and people like them too. We get lots of the “keep fit” crowd walking up this road

50% of our farm is rainforest and part of our role as land stewards is to make sure our farming practices do not impact on the native vegetation or the wildlife.

So we have supermoo highways through our rainforest as well .

Here is a great example of development of one through the rainforest

This one was fine like this when we milked twice daily but it looked like this when we got a lot of rain and the cows started using it three times daily

So what did we do. We got some advice from rainforest experts and some cow comfort experts and we did this

Picasso Corner

Firstly we separated the cows and the rainforest with a fence.

Then we poured concrete on the laneway. We had happy cows and a happy farm team who found the cows liked the new comfortable road and were very keen to come back to the dairy for milking.

Then we needed to spend some time nurturing the rainforest. So we found some more experts to give us the right advice like Erin and the team at Landcare Illawarra

Erin with Tony Hepworth and Mike Swanson from South East Landcare

The troops came in and did their bush regeneration thing and achieved some great outcomes like this

What about those cows getting their 40 winks!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday I went for a walk and it gave me great pleasure when I came across the cows in the paddock at the end of the laneway we call Picasso Corner (another story) and saw this paddock full of very happy cows RESTING

Great outcomes all round me thinks

Next Gen giving our farm lots of TLC

It was a huge day at the farm on Wednesday with our eco warrior Erin Lake leading a team of volunteers in revegetating an important area of our riparian (areas around our waterways) zone.

Little aside on Erin – Erin has passion for biodiversity like no other and she takes every opportunity to share her passion with the world

In her role as a Art4Agriculture Young Farming Champion

Here is Erin with the Castle Hill High School Archibull Prize entry team. See the video she made for her school presentation to Castle Hill High School here. Its awesome

Out in the streets hunting down and eradicating the dreaded evil Madeira Vine

or waging the war against the nasty environmental invaders on farms across the Illawarra and south coast

Here she is with fellow A team bush “regener” Jake Proust

Or organising community events like Dune Day

Erin Lake event organiser

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or spreading the good eco messages thru the media

Or engaging with and encouraging young people to have a greater appreciation for the landscape

Now back to today’s story – the volunteers hailed from the National Green Jobs Corps– a youth training and employment program encouraging young people to be involved in the NRM ( natural resource management) industry.

Erin identified an area in one of our creek lines as an important wildlife corridor which links together two significant stands of Rainforest on the farm, and in need of a little help to get re-established.

So the wonderful Michael (Strong) arrived at the site before any of us were even awake, to slash the Kikuyu to make it easy for the volunteers to plant into. And what an amazing job he did! Oh and as usual- he did it with a big smile

Michael my hero – ooooooooooh palpitations

The Green Corps arrived early to get stuck into the planting. They were very excited when they found out that they were going to be getting a lift to the site in the back of Erin’s Ute (albeit very slowly) – but just as excited when they found out they were going to be revegetating some important sub-tropical rainforest.

The trees that were used in the planting were nothing short of amazing- there was a huge variety of local species supplied by Richard Scarborough from Landcare Illawarra. Richard tells us that these trees were grown from around 7 different local nurseries and this makes sure that there is a wide genetic diversity in the plantings, which is very important for biodiversity.

Richard Scarborough – local legend

The trees we planted included some of Erin’s favourites – Native Tamarinds (Diploglottis australis), Black Apple’s ( Planchonella australis)

Erin’s Favourite Tree

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and even a couple of Giant Stinging Trees (Dendrocnide excelsa)- which are a very important local rainforest trees apparently ie if you can forgive the almighty sting you receive if you brush against one of the leaves! and I dont find myself very forgiving in this instance particularly after the day I thought a young one was a Tobacco Bush which I decided to pull out withy my bare hands. Oh how I regretted that little “do good” effort

Stinging Nettle Trees love the soil at Clover Hill – I don’t love them – baby ones popping up everywhere – that “thing” with the big round leaves next to the Red Cedar ( love them)

So the Green Corps did an amazing job of planting nearly 200 trees and we were very grateful for the use of a Petrol Auger that was supplied by Landcare Illawarra!

Greencorp Team Greening @chdairies

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Erin and Mick returned on Friday to put on the tree guards (thanks to Couriers Please for your as always delayed service… LESSON TO ALL NEVER EVER USE “COURIERS PLEASE”).

We are trialing the use of Milk Carton Guards as they are biodegradable and very appropriate for a planting on a dairy farm!

And seeing some of our milk goes into PURA cartons I think we should be able to get a better deal on our next purchase and I can assure you it wont be “Couriers Please” who bring them to the farm

Our maintenance regime will be just as important and our plan is to mow and snip to keep the Kikuyu down and use a light Glyposate mix to keep the grass away from the plantings. This is where the guards will be very useful- they highlight where the trees are to the mowing contractors, and they protect the plants from any spray drift while they are only little. Once they grow to a metre- they will need very little maintenance and they will grow into beautiful trees before we know it.

So all in all a great day and another example of how effective partnerships can make a huge difference and lead to great successes in Natural Resource Management on Australian dairy farms and help keep our cows happy and healthy.

Erin is a great advocate for the Nationals Green Jobs Corps Initiative. “This is a program that works. I have been lucky enough to be involved with a number of these groups and I have found that their team leaders are consistently brilliant- patient and very enthusiastic about training these young people- and learn a lot themselves from working with such a diversity of people.” says Erin

Well Done Green Corps and Erin!

Something isn’t quite right in paradise

This week the milking cows are taking their morning feed (4am to 12 noon) in the paddocks in front of my house. I so look forward to this part of the grazing rotation which at this time of the year comes around every 14 to 18 days.

Now the cows seem to know I have a new camera and are doing their best to provide the rural idyll but this morning things were a little too perfect.

Firstly there was this

that was fine. Then there was long lingering looks like this

Then there was thousands (never let the facts get in the way of a good story) of looks like this

Quick turn on of the tap at the kitchen sink confirms my suspicions lots of thirsty looking cows means broken water trough. Michael to the rescue once again

You are our hero Michael – shame about the shorts

Creepy crawlies live in paradise too

I am a sixth generation farmer but I don’t like snakes, rats and spiders any more than your average city person

I grew up in NSW heartland and saw plenty of brown snakes that knew to keep well away from my father and his shotgun.

At Clover Hill there are no shotguns but plenty of red belly black snakes and no shortage of pythons including the one that has been living in the Illawarra Flame tree just outside my kitchen window scaring the bejesus out of my visitors when he/she suns him/herself on my front steps and my chooks 24/7

Yesterday I was enjoying a freshly made latte with milk straight from the udder so to speak before joining my sister for a Foodscape Tour and looking out the kitchen window I spotted what was causing all the commotion in the chook pen

Now I didn’t have time to take pictures of this snake let alone video footage ( yes I did that too) and then discover this snake was indeed stuck in the netting and in desperate need of rescue.

So who do you call? WIRES of course and who was the best person for this job at this time? Michael of course. Though not happy that I thought he had more time than me to do this.

But its not just about time is it? In this case he was the person who could lend a hand if necessary (and there was no way in the world I was going to wear that hat) and besides I had a Foodscape Tour to join

So what happened to “Clover” the snake you ask. Yes Hugh from WIRES called our snake Clover

Find out if here if there is a happy ending for Clover

Hugh from WIRES and Clover our friendly python who ate too many rats at once–thank god it wasn’t my chickens

A picture paints a thousand words

When people ask me where I live I invariably reply I live in paradise and I am using this post as one of many to give you pictorial reasoning for this claim.

Clover Hill Dairies is located on two farms in the Jamberoo Valley the birthplace of the Australian dairy industry but more famous today as the place “where you control the action”

The home farm is located on the north east face of Saddleback Mountain in very steep rainforest country. In fact 50% of the farm is rainforest so when you run possibly the most intensive pasture based dairying operation in Australia and farm in this very precious environment you feel a huge responsibility to do what is right for the landscape, the cows and the wider community.

There is no denying it is a challenge but oh so worthwhile.

On Friday the cows where outside my house between the 4am and the 12 noon milking. My camera captured their noon stroll to the milking shed.

View from my front verandah. This becomes below when the cows move in.

Michael begins the midday milking roundup

There is no rush. Always time for a two way pose.

And no shortage of cows with plenty of attitude. 1453 is called Mandelyn Storm Favourite and she looks like she has been in the good paddock a bit too long not that she is complaining.

Michael has discovered why the cows are taking a bit longer than usual. There seems to be some silly woman standing in front of them taking pictures

He just shakes his head and gives me one of his cheeky grins

Almost there

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The cows were back in the front paddock when I went to town the next day

This is what I saw looking back on my house and the cows when I drove up Saddleback Mountain Rd.

Paradise – we are giving it a pretty good shot don’t you think?

Hello World, Welcome to my world

My name is Lynne Strong and I am a woman with many, many hats. Some I wear better than others I readily admit.

The one I wear most proudly though is my farmer hat. I will be the first to admit it isn’t a hat that I saw myself wearing as a little girl.

I grew up on a farm and even though I enjoyed being hands on in the day to day running of the farm and the lifestyle that comes with it the idea of being a farmer was most definitely not on my list of top 10 professions.

I farm today because the people I most care about in the world farm and they are in it for the long haul.

Farming today is no walk in the park. Feeding, clothing and housing the world now and in the next 50 years is going to require an extraordinary effort. This means we need extraordinary people to take up the challenge. My husband Michael, my son Nick and our farm team (and our cows) have put their hands up to take on the challenge and I want to work side by side with these extraordinary people.

So why write a blog. Well my family have been farming in the Jamberoo Valley on the South Coast of New South Wales since 1831 (and in Ireland and Scotland probably for centuries before that). That is 7 generations of farming families and 180 years of blood sweat, tears, passion and commitment that have gone into what is now producing milk for 50,000 Australians everyday

That’s 180 years of great stories waiting to be told. And I knew from my interactions with our friends and neighbours that the community wanted to hear those stories.

They just needed the right vehicle. So Art4Agriculture was conceived and Art4Agriculuture has its own entire wardrobe of hats.

But people keep telling me there was still a gap missing, we need more farmers to share their stories to help provide the community with real farmers they can relate to.

Writing a blog is indeed a great way to open the door to our farms, share our ups and downs, the frustrations and challenges, the passion and commitment but most of all show the community that the faith they have in Australian farm produce is warranted.

I am writing this blog to join other inspiring farmers who are opening thier farmgates and help inspire other farming men and women to share their stories. To help show them the community does love farmers, that they do want to hear our stories but they maybe a bit concerned about modern farming practices and whether the way we farm today fits into their rural idyll.

Lets not forget farmers are people and not all people are perfect but there is a whole nation of Australian farmers who get up everyday and say “today I want to move one step closer to being being a perfect farmer”.

What is the definition of perfect farming? That’s the challenge – that’s the two way conversation I would like to have with my readers.

I will put this one out there as a definition this morning “We believe that responsible farming is not only about ‘doing the right thing’ but makes sense – for our animals, our landscape, our people and our communities”.

So lets start the conversation I invite my readers to write me a mission statement for their “perfect” farm