Middelmost Dairy Farm - LSB

Letters from Middelmost Dairy Farm

“Hey!” said Friend’s voice on the end of the phone.

“Althea! You have to come and have a look at this little farm that’s up for sale. It’s perfect for you and your girls. Can you come this weekend?”

As you can tell, Friend was not one for mucking about.

And so a new MIDDEMOST began. A MIDDELMOST I never imagined would ever come true. A MIDDELMOST that required the stars and the moon and a strange set of circumstances to line up, and a MIDDELMOST that needed a huge leap of faith mixed with a huge bit of madness for it to even be contemplated as something that could happen.

But it did – and this is the journey.

Chapter 27

Rah! Rah! Rah! I’m sick of the word ‘failure’.

Chapter 26

I have won an award! Amazing.

Chapter 25

Last week I had a little reminder of what was to come.

Chapter 24

The Bafor and the Bahafta is what my Dad used to say as he surveyed his day’s battle with the garden.

Chapter 23

Peppermint! #@**@# !!!

Chapter 22

“I don’t want to be sustainable. It’s not who I am. It’s not what this little farm is about.”

Chapter 21

Strategizing is a skill you use when all else fails or if the problem looks to be too big.

Chapter 20

When I came here, the farm was a mess. I knew what I was taking on – including the state of the soil.

Chapter 19

“How extraordinary,” I thought as I watched the wind gusts swing the backing gate across the dairy shed yard.

Chapter 18

Men love to keep tough things a mystery … and the way we ladies have been ‘conditioned’ to be semi-hopeless, hopeless, or drastically hopeless is a matter of the situation or the man’s ego.

Chapter 17

Well, pregnancy testing is over. Thank goodness. Anxiety dissipates as the verdict “Pregnant” … “Pregnant” … “Pregnant” exits the vet’s mouth and I add another tick alongside another cow’s name.

Chapter 16

Recently I made another one of those proper-dairy-farmer decisions and I changed my whole farming system so that I could supply a specialised GRASS FED milk.

Chapter 15

Now, the most dreadful part of getting to know my girls again was the reality that I was a commercial dairy farmer and I had to make THOSE commercial dairy farmer decisions.

Chapter 14

Last season was wonderful in terms of reconnecting the old friendships I had with the girls.

Chapter 13

One of the best things about the move to the dairy farm was getting to know my lovely cows again.

Chapter 12

As I metamorphosed into a local, the weather became a key factor in my daily life.

Chapter 11

Becoming a South Islander had a few problems … or should I put that as ‘becoming a North Cantabr

Chapter Ten

But then, there were another one of ‘those phone calls’.

Chapter Nine

In the meantime, while this was all going on, I was trotting back up to the North Island on a reasonably regular basis to care for my little farmlet up there.

Chapter Eight

The girls thought they had died and gone to heaven, and making the decision to go “Once a Day” was part of it.

Chapter Seven

The rest of the season melded into a blur and, looking back, I realise how much the wonderful people around me became a gift that saved the farm from the disasters that might have happened.

Chapter Six

And so my first season began. With high hopes and heaps of enthusiasm, I launched headlong into what turned into a series of nightmares.

Chapter Five

My head was exploding. People who know about stuff seem to be so willing to part with and share their knowledge.

Chapter Four

The fourth 'Letter from Middelmost Dairy Farm'. I had to make the North to South move as simple and as smooth as possible otherwise I knew I was going to crumple before the trek had even begun.

Chapter Three

Letters from Middelmost Dairy Farm. To have good people around you is essential and, in this matter, I was blessed.

Chapter Two

And so the scramble began. First things first … I needed to sort the cows out as they had been dried off and were nearly ready to move to their next lease location.

Chapter One

I always wanted to be a dairy farmer but who has a spare few million lying about?