Looking Ahead

Yikes! It's been a little while since I have posted something again.  That's not really intentional, but be have still been in a whirlwind of busy-ness at the farm.  Now that the silage is off of the fields we have the opportunity to haul manure to add fertilizer and organic matter to the soil for next year's crops.  Today we got rained out of the fields, and we expect we won't be able to get into the fields for the next 3-5 days, since we are in a Flood Watch until Friday.  Oh well, rain delay!!!

We have also been working diligently to plan a much needed "vacation" to World Dairy Expo.  We can't just pack up and leave, as cows need care 24 hours each day, so we have been working to find people that are available to milk cows, feed calves, and feed cows while we are gone.  Not just anyone can do these tasks, we always look for qualified individuals that know how to handle animals with respect and care.  We want to know that our cows are in good hands while we are gone.  As of right now, we have enough people to milk and feed calves, just looking for a feeder for 3 days.  I am so excited to breathe the sigh of relief that we have found people to replace us.  I am also excited to have 3 days off to enjoy a little bit of Wisconsin (my favorite place in the whole US, beside MN) and see friends and family!!!!  Now we have to work to train the new milkers, organize protocols (so they know what to do in case something should happen while we are gone) and re-stock all supplies, so they don't have any issues.  So, this next few days we will be working diligently to get stuff ready!

We are also looking forward to "Calving Season".  At our farm, we have a few months during the year that tend to have the most cows and heifers calving.  Those months are usually September through March.  We look to have about 14-19 cows and/or heifers calving each month!!  That's a lot of little baby calves and mothers to care for, but we look forward to it each year!  I love the calves and my husband enjoys caring for the cows.  We will be required to put more time in at the farm to care for all of these animals, but that's ok.  So stay tuned for lots of stories about baby calves and the joy that brings us!

World Dairy Expo Summary

World Dairy Expo was a blast! I am finally taking the time to sit and write about our trip last Tuesday September 29th, 2009, but I have a good excuse....my brother got married this past weekend. We were busy helping with the groom's dinner, the wedding and the clean up. Oh yeah, did I mention that the wedding was almost 3 hours away from home, so we had to hire some very qualified individuals to milk and care for our cows while we were gone (thanks to them for the great job that they did!).

Back to Dairy Expo....what a great trip! Too bad we couldn't stay longer than a day, but it was well worth the 10 hours of driving there and back! Jon and I left on Tuesday morning at 5 am, and arrived on the Expo grounds at 10:30am. We decided to divide and conquer. Jonathan had some booths he wanted to visit and I was on my way to speak at a seminar given by DMI. It was a great seminar filled with other dairy farmers ready and willing to tell their stories. What an up lifting place to be! The excitement of dairy farmers to tell their stories to consumers is truly contagious!!! Thanks!

After an uplifting seminar I met up with Jon for lunch and some more booths! Oh how many great people we saw, dairy farmers and industry people alike. Oh how many great cows we saw!-all well taken care of, sleeping better than the farmers there to show them. Oh how many new technologies we saw. There are some great technologies coming onto the market right now-new choppers, better fuel efficiency equipment, robots for milking cows, robots for pushing up feed, etc....see some of the pictures below of what we saw...

World Dairy Expo bound!!!

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we are headed off to World Dairy Expo in Madison Wisconsin. I am so excited !!! Dairy Expo is a great place to meet with old friends, fellow industry leaders, and make new friends. This year I am attending the opening day to be an active member of a seminar about using Social Media to deliver the great messages about the Dairy Industry. I am truly honored to have been asked to share my thoughts. I am hoping to take some cool pictures and video to post in the coming days as well as more corn silage videos.

Also great news from the farm, our bull calf streak (7 bulls in a row) has been broken! Today we successfully delivered a set of twin heifers!!!! So cute, Kasota and Kimble are a lot of fun to feed twice a day and play with =)

Off to bed, so I can road trip tomorrow!!!