There appears to be some weird, even universal, calculation error hovering above me.
All because, Sally assures me – and anyone else she can get to listen – it is my 50th birthday in two weeks.
In the unlikely event she’s right, that likely means I am not as young as I think I am.
It also means I will be celebrating 30 years as a dairy farmer – and that, too, is inconceivable.
If nothing else, I will certainly be submitting my application for long service leave.
This week, I have been pondering the question, if I am getting less tolerant of grumpy old men, does that in fact mean I have actually morphed into becoming one of them?
My goal has always been steadfast – to become less mature as I age.
I will not descend into middle age, either respectably or gracefully. I am determined I am going to be childish and immature.
Rather, I am going to judge my success through relationships – both family and community.
As a child, we had a 100-acre farm and we walked 50m from the house to the dairy to grab the milk, where it was always a joy to see the milk vat overflowing.
In those days, our maximum capacity was 1800L, and we would happily stick a jug in from the top for breakfast, making sure we got it full of cream.
Thirty years on, there is close to 25,000 litres a day of milk going out the door, and we are farming close to 5000 acres.
Back then, of course, we also had no debt, whereas now I am juggling a debt level similar to a third world country.
Banks don’t really want the money back, you know.
Heavens forbid.
If I was to pay them back, how on earth would they make a profit?
Ergo, I tend to view our banking as an essential community service.
Our farm milk production this month is close to 20 per cent above the same time last year.
At one point, we were nearly 25 per cent below, through some of the wet weather and the floods, so it finally feels as though our battered little ship is righting itself after some heavy lifting by our employees.
As previously mentioned, we had a meeting with Coles supermarkets last week and now have a trial of our chocolate milk pencilled in to start in six of the company’s supermarkets in October this year.
The trial will run for six months with an evaluation at the end.
I will be trying to blackmail as many friends (including you) as I can to support us.
I find in new stores our product can get lost, so it takes a while before enough people try it to get a critical mass of sales.
I will see if I can do some in-store tastings to help get us going.
As a reference, our first supermarket in Albury after fifteen months has probably doubled its sales and has not showed any signs of that having plateaued just yet.
Further on the good news front, I was presented with graphs of sales of Bethune Lane Dairy products during the past three years, and while the numbers are still micro, each year clearly shows a step change in sale numbers.
I don’t want to sound a bit cheesy, but we will persist a little longer in seeing if we can really mature this market.
* Paul Bethune is a dairy farmer at Lake Boga.
