I just love being outside. Fixing fences, moving cows, even slushing about in mud up to my knees in search of a broken water pipe is okay on a sunny winter’s day.

In fact, winter really is the new Spring here. As the traditionally miserable season grows warmer and drier, the cows have begun calving earlier – two months ahead of the mid-July calving date of my childhood. Right in the thick of it now, we’re welcoming at least five newborns a day.

The land, too, is undergoing renewal, with new pastures cloaking the paddocks just about ready to graze for the very first time.

Dairy farming may not be the lifestyle it was twenty years ago but this is hard to beat.