On the Friday before SC Anniversary weekend, Daniel, Dave the sparky and myself drove to the West Coast for mountain biking. On the Saturday we rode part of the new Paparoa Track, starting from the Punakaiki end, we rode to just above the bush line before turning back. We started at 20m above sea level and climbed to over 900 with a total of 52km ridden and a total elevation of nearly 1800m (total elevation is recorded via phone/GPS and is every metre of climbing). The section of track we rode was very nice and I look forward to going back and riding it from end to end. With a snowfall warning for Arthurs Pass for the Sunday afternoon we decided to cut the weekend short and head home early Sunday, to be honest we were all quite content to spend Sunday not biking.

I have had some feedback on the new bags that they can be slippery to handle. The only suggestion I have is that you hold the unprinted side against your body as it has a non-slip surface. The new bags are easier for us to use as the previous bags that were inside laminated were sometimes hard to open for filling and its certainly nice not having that strip of plastic peeling off inside the bag.
As mentioned last month we have recently changed companies that host our email, unfortunately this didn’t go completely smoothly and we actually lost the ability to email invoices directly (hopefully fixed now – text Shona 027 689 1347 if you want your invoices emailed) on the positive side I now have 3 email addresses for everyday use.

• This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. is for general emails
• This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. is for orders of calf meal or layer mash
• This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. is for those sending invoices to me

The email address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. still works and is good for emails that are less important (we all have lots of them). Statistics show the average office worker receives 121 emails per day and sends out 40, I wonder how many emails never get read. I am finding real benefits in having a drafting system.

Soy prices have once again done the unexpected and after dropping to around the $630 per tonne they bounced up to nearly $800 per tonne. We have some left on contract at $630 and I am hoping as we get closer to the USA election that the price will drop. Barley has also moved up in price and is now trading higher than wheat which is very unusual. At least there is plenty of wheat about and we will see some savings once we have finished our contracts. I am hopeful that it will all balance out and the calf meal price remains unchanged for October.

Please remember Labour Weekend is this month and the short week after Labour Weekend is one of our peak weeks, ordering early and avoiding this week is a good strategy.

Kind Regards
Ken Buckingham