MILKING PLATFORM CANTERBURY
New farm, new home, tiny challenges Chloe Davidson outlines the joys and challenges of relocating business and family.
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t’s been an extremely busy time for the Davidson family over the last few months! We’ve left our job behind, said hello to uncertainty, moved to our forever farm, moved our business and moved into a tiny home. When we look back at what we’ve achieved over the last few months we can’t really believe it. We’ve overcome many challenges and have grabbed life by the horns! We’ve never been the ones to do things by halves and this hasn’t been any different. We are now working 100% for ourselves and it feels better than we could’ve ever imagined. Every hour that we put into the day is to make a better life for our family – what could be better? With the support of an amazing farm owner we managed to secure our forever home for Roan and our family, which was extremely exciting and beyond our wildest dreams! It meant that we were able to begin developing a piece of land to suit our needs, knowing that we were still going to be here in the distant future. Working our own piece of land is rosy but it definitely has not come without its challenges. So far to date our biggest challenge has been trying to minimise the effect a terribly dry autumn has had on our business. At our previous farm our girls had been enjoying a delicious variety of grasses, which helped them to produce delicious milk that our customers had become accustomed to. Consistency in our product is our number one priority, so we decided in March to re-grass a number of paddocks in a similar variety of grasses. The next few months brought with it either no rain for weeks or constant rain for days – neither ideal conditions for optimal grass growth. So the plan to use these paddocks in June became July, then August and now the 12
beginning of September. With minimal feed on the ground our only choice has been to buy in high quality feed in the form of lucerne and grass, and a lot of it! While it’s definitely taken its toll on the bank account it has meant we have been able to maintain supply, which is key for us as we’re in such an early phase in our business. Another challenge we’ve faced has been transitioning our family into a 9m by 3m tiny home. I have to say that in hindsight it was very fortunate that I had a positive attitude about the prospect of moving into a tiny home because it’s definitely been tough. Perhaps the biggest challenge of living in a tiny home has been the composting toilet, not helped by the fact that all that separates it from the living areas is two sliding doors that have a shocking success rate of being able to keep bad smells in! It’s fair to say that the composting toilet has definitely been #1 reason for wanting to get a divorce over the last few months, haha. Coming in at a very close #2 though is the gas oven that didn’t work for the first few weeks! I’ve been millimeters away from losing my lashes and brows as well as having to get takeaways after a couple of meals ended up half cooked thanks to my favourite little three-year-old turning the gas off midway through the cooking time! If you asked me if I’d swap this for a comfortable, spacious three bedroom home five minutes down the road, my answer would always be no because there’s nothing better than waking up surrounded by our little slice of imperfect perfection. And let’s be real – living in a tiny home will make the home we eventually build in years to come just that little bit sweeter! Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | August 2020
