Having just received an e-mail from Brian/Kansas asking if I had left the Planet, I thought I would just explain what I am up to!
My absence has been partly due to Christian Rowan, our second son arriving four weeks ago!
We have also been working our way around some pretty poor weather (300 mm in seven weeks). In the last month I have had to 'replace' a large part of our forage area because the responsible party managed to provide us with 90% plus clover leys - not great when making hay - first cut pure white clover took ten days to make with the average temperature of over 30C! Nearly 50 hectares of lucerne has now gone in. We have also had to overseed about 80 hectares. We have started autumn sowing but that is a little complicated given that our seed supplier has renaged on a supply contract and I am still chasing wheat seed. Thankfully I have C2 seed in the barn of our own but I was after some better German-bred varieites. Given the poor yields from pure clover, we are also still chasing hay - I have 50 hectares of red clover hay to make in October! We can make grass or lucerne hay very late here but clover hay is near impossible!
Alongside this we are working on the construction of two farms, or two new parlours to be exact. One of these is a double herringbone parlour that is nose-to-nose. An interesting concept but we feel it is better than one long one as an unhappy buffalo can only disturb five others and not eleven. With our labour costs we would have two people in a long parlour anyway so each will have one parlour. On top of that we are constructing manure and effluent control and storage systems for our main farm. I also have to prepare a young buffalo barn for November as it still has old tie-stalls in it from the communist era and no water.
Lastly we are constructing and installing a milk-processing facility for our buffalo milk. This should be commissioned in about two months. I then have to go forth and encourage local farmers to go back to buffalo and give up cows (buffalo were the traditional milking animal here). As no quota is required there is the incentive of selling their newly acquired EU milk quota and using the cash for investment.
On top of this is dealing with then endless paperwork from various directions!
I guess that pretty well explains my recent 'disappearance'!