Well tomorrow is my last day of work and our last full day in New Zealand. Tuesday we walked the first group of 200 cows to the wintering farm, 15kms away. That went well. I got to stop traffic this time, on the main highway that we have to cross with the herd. 
Today I milked for the last milking of the season. After that we dried off all 300 cows that were left to be dried. We cleaned up the milking shed for the last time this season and got into getting things ready for next season again. Tomorrow, for my last day I get to walk another 200 cows 15kms to the wintering farm. At least I will have a nice drive on my motorbike to admire the mountains and sunshine one last time. I can't believe the season is over and this learning experience is coming to a close. Well I guess that just means a new and exciting chapter of life is about to begin, again! See you all at home!

I realize I haven't updated the blog since Paxton was born, Sorry! Well this season is winding down, extremely fast! On April 13th the 230 heifers that I took care of went on a truck and were brought to a different farm to be looked after by a contract grazer. He will take care of them on his farm until next winter when they come back to Pencarrow where they will be in time for calving. 

We have been doing a lot of maintenance jobs on the farm for the past two months, trying to get things ready for the next season. We have slowly gone from milking 700 cows in April to 500 this past Friday. This was done by culling some cows (sending them to the slaughter house), and drying off cows that were not pregnant that other farmers bought from us, and by drying off the cows that we wanted to keep but that were skinner than the rest of the herd. So far when we dried off cows we have done them in batches of 20 to 50 cows at a time. 

When we hit the 500 cow mark on Friday we put all the cows into one herd and started milking only once a day! The day seems so much easier when we only milk once a day and we get a lot more done around the farm! 

We don't have hardly any grass left on the farm so it looks like we have under one week left before all the cows are dried off and we are done milking. In fact, tomorrow might be the last time I milk cows in New Zealand! Only about half the cow's diet is grass right now, the rest of it is made up of corn silage and fodderbeet (which Brittany posted pictures of in the last update). 

On the 1st of May all the heifers that will calve this spring came back to the farm. We put them in the fodderbeet paddock and they are eating that and hay. At the end of this week they will have finished the fodderbeet so we will be taking them on a 15km walk down the road to the wintering farm which is where I first wrote about when we got here.

 I can't believe I only have 7 days of work left in New Zealand. This season has gone by very quickly, but I have learned so much about grazing-farming, farm business, cows, decision making, and so much more. I hope that in God's plan for our future I will have the opportunity to use the things I have learned here.

Paul hasn't updated in FOREVER--so here are a couple pictures of some cows eating fodder beat behind our house--just to let you know that the cows are still alive--and to keep you entertained while we think of something to update on! :)