The only thing we fear is the cold, and even then it's only the unforecasted cold that is of concern. The Met Office is all in a tizzy today about another storm that is about to hit the country, especially the Western side, where winds over 120km/h are expected. Our biggest exposure is our high tunnels. Ours are robust and made out of aluminum and polycarbonate. A few weeks ago we had a high-wind warning for the region, Jennifer told me last night that we should expect gusts of maybe 50km/h.
David is back at full work, his wife even called Jennifer to ask her to "allow him back, because he was driving her crazy". Jennifer says that he has a funny contraption to keep the weight off his foot, but he can do almost everything with this device (it's like a peg leg...). Anyway, the new forklifts arrived yesterday and were being torn down for inspection today and tomorrow. David has been looking at buying a machine to press high-pressure fittings, but when he saw the price (and the necessary training), he with Jennifer decided that going for a 30-minute drive to Pirtek or Parker is really not that much trouble...let's the equipment (and supplies) are very expensive.
Jennifer suggested we purchase four additional tractors from Case, she already purchased two Outlanders UTV six-wheelers so that we can move heavy loads in difficult terrain, and two new Hilux trucks. The new high tunnels will begin delivery tomorrow, and our contractor has provided a crew of 15 to erect them. Their building requires specialized equipment and skills that we don't have.
Jennifer continues to work with several of our workers in finding more work to increase their hours to full-time jobs. Of our roughly 75 part-time employees about 30% have expressed an interest in moving from part-time to full-time. So that means that we effectively have the equivalent of 12 new full-time employees. Jennifer says that it's a mix of skills, timing, aptitude and preference. As an example, it makes no sense to have a picker spend her additional hours in milking because it would mean a long dead time of several hours (picking is done by noon, milking starts at five). All 12 new positions are not really a problem, especially for the mechanics, but one aspect is the slaughterhouse. There's a lot of work that takes place in the afternoon, and that may soak up some of our excess supplies. One thing for sure is that by the end of the summer, we will need additional pickers, as we are growing our long tunnel capacity by nearly 60%. They will mostly be additional employees.
Jennifer hired consultants to do a five-year study of the farm's energy demand. The company that does the maintenance on our biodigesters told us that we could increase throughput by about 60%, without any upgrade to the systems. The biggest hurdle we have already met with input mix, but our chambers can easily work harder than they are now. All our systems (aside from gas storage) are currently more than adequate to increase biogas production substantially. If we were to increase production, we would need to almost triple our storage capacity. We already have a storage tank site planned on the new farm, but Jennifer is considering storage near the high tunnels too. These are issues to be considered in our long-term planning. Right now it's finishing the demolition of the old farm building on the new farm, and completing the installation of the new warehouse on the new farm. Jennifer tells me that the foundation for the new milking shed has been completed and that the building of the milking parlour and cow shed will begin in two weeks. So glad to be on holiday. The only thing I had to approve was the purchase of the four tractors... it's the deal I made with Jennifer she has the authority to £ 100,000.
On the fun side, we went to a fantastic restaurant last night, at the recommendation of Jack, called Sweet Basil. Definitely the best restaurant we have tried since we arrived in Vail, Jack had tried to book last week, but we could not get a reservation until last night. Let me say that the octopus and the venison dishes were out of this world, the flavour was outstanding. My wife had the mushroom salad and the Salmon and she said it was delicious. The portions were generous so we had little room for dessert, still, we shared a plate of their homemade ice cream...delicious.
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