Niall McKenzie boxes on with some inspiration from Rocky

MILKING PLATFORM NORTHLAND

Milking herd on the new block 2nd round.

Iwill start my column on a good note.

Firstly, thanks to our New Zealand dairy farmers for tirelessly working to produce world-class food to help feed the world. Well done, also to Fonterra. This is a first for me but I am very pleased and privileged to be a supplier. You deserve the credit alongside all NZ dairy farmers. The share price is up, and a reasonable dividend forecasted. A great milk price and a great inter-linking co-operative that communicates well.

Life is busy as always. The new 100ha added on February 1 is working with the old dairy farm and autumn calving is in full swing. We have great plans in place for the next 10 months and are looking forward to the further addition of another 220ha and a 40-aside herringbone dairy shed. We didn’t go looking for this opportunity but we are very honoured to expand our business. We will be heads down, arse up for the next four seasons.

The bad – This is how I would best describe the re-conversion of the additional area. Broken water pipes, wires missing, poor pasture quality and ongoing dry conditions. To top it off, it is a 1.6km walk on hill country just to get to the block. However, these are really nothing. I found the quickest way forward is to prioritise. What is the most important thing to do? And then go and do it. For example, I will fix two fences a day from

Niall and Delwyn McKenzie having a laugh - when he asked her to take a day off teaching to go to the Northland Field Days. Monday to Friday. Setting small achievable tasks is a lot easier than letting it all build up.

We grazed 174 cows onfarm in December on the existing old block of 155ha of hill country. This was not planned for but it made the cows all $150 cheaper per head so we just got on with it and fed out a lot of balage. We still have 160 bales left behind so the winter feed budget is tight but manageable. We have hope there will be good cover on the new 220ha and 200 bales left behind. Hope is like a ray of sunshine.

The ugly - These things blindside you and take at least a good five minutes to adjust. In this period of time your mind is going from dark to furious, trying to figure out are you going to fight or are you going to engage in flight and run away from the problem. I generally go for confrontation if I can, sometimes you can not.

On a visit to our graziers of the last seven years, he told me that he has been placed into liquidation. After saying that is terrible to him, and showing empathy, my stock agent rings. I made the decision to take the phone call as the agent was looking at 100 head of ex-export heifers for us at the same time. I made an offer of $160 a head less than their asking price. The next 20 minutes felt like a blur. I saw our 105 head of stock off on the grazier’s block, thinking ‘What am I going to do? I can’t leave them here, I have to secure my assets. They will have to come home.’

Great, I think to myself, more animals not planned for and more balage to feed.

As I drive out of the driveway of the graziers, the phone rings again from our stock agent.

“Niall, they have accepted your offer.” Wow, really? And then, you hear from the stock agent.

“They will be at yours tomorrow.”

This is when I fly into flight mode and I go to the pub. I have some lunch and a drink with one of my best mates while patiently waiting for Delwyn to come back from her three-hour hairdressing appointment to tell her the ugly news from the morning.

In conclusion, I like this quote from one of the later Rocky movies. “Life is not about how hard you can hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.”