MILKING PLATFORM NORTHLAND
Stay true and be nice Niceness to others is needed during these difficult times believes Niall McKenzie.
W
ell, Gypsy Day came and went. It was our first time almost tripling the size of the operation while still staying in the same house. Learning the new farm comes with a small rude awakening as we are winter milking around 300 plus cows. The 40-aside dairy is two plants joined together, one 26 and one 14, with them on separate diaphragm milk lift pumps. And those pumps don’t like small stones. In the last column I talked about the hope of plenty of grass and plenty of supplement on the new 200ha. This didn’t happen as the rain was too late to help with growing conditions. But it is steadily improving now and we will hit pasture targets set by July 20. It was very nice of the exiting sharemilker to let us have the 40ha on April 20 to help us achieve our winter milk quota. It also allowed for better access to the back of the farm that we started running on February 1. On a side note, I was recently working with one of our relief milkers. I normally hose down while she puts the wash through the milking plant. I obviously didn’t do a good enough job at it as when I came back from doing another job she was re-hosing down the area I had done. I didn’t like it - it left me thinking, am I good enough? We all want to improve and not be complicit. Am I nice enough? That was my second thought. I believe that if you can be nice to others it allows you to become much more
grounded in our high speed world. What was the last good deed you did for someone you love or a random person? It is very rewarding and it doesn’t happen straight away. Recently, I felt like we got paid back for being nice. Back in 2018 when we still lived and farmed in Kaiwaka we had a young fella we know and his girlfriend that we did not know stay at our place after a big New Years bash called Northern Bass. In a nutshell, very loud bass music. Anyhow, that’s a side story. Not the main event. Anyhow, the guy we knew didn’t get out of bed until midday. So Delwyn and I were entertaining this young lady who we didn’t know from a bar of soap. She seemed perfectly nice. So, in the small chat we asked what she did and she said she works at Mitre 10 Mega but she wants to be a singer. (She had a huge sense of belief in herself). After a while chatting I said, “You should come and sing at our wedding anniversary dinner in January and we will pay you for it. I love listening to live music.” (It was my 40th birthday too). She said yes, which was great. It was a nice thing for her and for Delwyn and myself. The icing on the cake was in June 2021 that same young lady who stayed at our house as a stranger, who wanted to be a singer, went on to win the New Zealand Popstars show. Good on you Christabel. Keep on truckin’ NZ dairy farmers, stay true and be nice. ‘Nilator’ out.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2021
Niall’s first milking in the new shed with 360 cows.
I believe that if you can be nice to others it allows you to become much more grounded in our high speed world. What was the last good deed you did for someone you love or a random person? It is very rewarding and it doesn’t happen straight away.
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