We're more than a team...we're a family

It's been a little while since I've blogged, but I have a good reason, like I always do.  Exactly one month ago our only full time employee, who had been with us for almost 2 years, didn't show up for work.  In fact he not only stopped coming to work but we were not able to contact him or his family.  It was a complete shock to us that with no notice he would basically disappear!  We've been working together 5 days a week for almost 2 years.  We knew his family and he knew ours.  How could he do this to us?  We tried to encourage him in his job, offer him opportunities to learn new skills and educate himself.  He was genuine interested in our cows and cared for each of them.  A person, an employee, that ACTUALLY cares about our cows is priceless to our team.  It takes a team of people to care for cows, but more importantly, over time, each employee becomes a member of our family....that cares.  We were so hurt by this action at first.  We were frustrated.  We were angry, also, but now we're just disappointed and feel let down.  But...like in all things in dairy farming and life...we move on...

So taking a really bad situation, where Jon and I were the only ones here caring for our cows, we decided take the opportunity to make some changes to our family.  We have since hired 2 full time employees and have also added another part time employee.  With our growing herd comes some serious increases in the time required to give each cow the care they deserve.  We decided that we need an even bigger team to care for our cows.  In the past month we have evolved our team to be more like a close knit family...and we think we have the right people in place to do a good job providing our cows the very best. 

My cows are my babies, and I really have to trust an employee to leave them in charge of my girls...just like a member of my family.  We're working on teaching the right skills to move our cows calmly, milk them gently, and feed them correctly.  We're also working on teaching responsibility, so we have people in place to save Jon & time during the day...so we can do other things, like play with my calves ;)  Wish us luck as we keep on building our family!