Wordless Wednesday: View from our office

This is the view from our office for the past 2 days.  Hoping to wrap up chopping today! Putting 4th cutting of alfalfa in the bag for the year!  Feels good to have quality feed ready to feed our cows in the coming year!

Wish my Camera had Smell-O-Vision!

Today we opened our first bag of 2010 corn silage for our cows' lunches.  We were filled with anticipation this morning as we speculated what we might find in that silage bag.  As you may recall we made 8.35 bags of corn silage this past August.  We worked so hard to get the corn chopped at the right moisture, with the right level of starch in the corn, and chopped at the correct length (check out our video to refresh your memory!).  All of these factors help to make corn silage an amazing food source for cows.  Not only is corn silage a great source of energy (corn starch) but it also an excellent source of fiber (plant leaves and stalk) for our girls.  We feed roughly 50 pounds of corn silage per milk cow each day, making it the primary food of our cows.  When we chopped our corn this past August, it looked like the picture below.  The plants were green & the corn was bright yellow. 

 We sealed it inside the plastic silage bags like a ZipLock bag, with a coating of inoculant (good bacteria used to help preserve the silage). When we seal the bags we never know for sure what we will find when we open them. Every year it is a surprise. We hope that we did our jobs right; that we did the best that we could and would have an amazing feed for our cows. Each year we strive to do better than the year previous. This year we planted a variety of corn that was expected to be higher in digestible fiber for cows, therefore also higher in energy (cows also derive energy from fiber digestion!). So when the big moment came and we opened the seal on our silage bag...this is what we found!!!!

Yep! I sure wish my camera had Smell-O-Vision!  This corn silage smelled great!  It has a sour aroma to it, but with hints of a sweet flavor.  The sour is the vinegar that is produced during fermentation in a silage bag and the sweet is the beloved lactic acid, which makes silage awesome.  It's odd that we look forward to our silage, but our cows' health and well being depend on our ability to make good feed.  This silage was so tasty for our cows, that they ate more than we expected today and we will have to increase the amount fed to them tomorrow!  Hopefully this will result in more milk production as well as continued good health for our cows!

Word of the Week: Flexibility

Jon chopping soybean straw at sunset last week. (Check out our Facebook Page for more pictures!)

This week has been all about flexibility.  First, Thursday, we had a full schedule and we fulfilled most of that schedule.  I worked hard to continue washing away the dirt and crud of summer in the milking parlor.  Jon worked to prep the manure spreaders for hauling this weekend.  We finished those tasks, loaded 5 bull calves for the neighbor who buys them and raises them, and bred a heifer that was in heat.  We then found out that we had some unexpected visitors stopping in for a tour in a mere 20 minutes!!  WHOA! That's short notice!  I had left some supper cooking at home and had so many other things to do at home that night, how were we going to find the time to give a tour?!?!  Thankfully, my father in law stepped in to give the tour.  We gave a short demonstration of milking and the milking parlor for our friend from town and his Colombian exchange student.  The student, Juan, had so many great questions about the technology we use to milk cows.  How could I not spend some time with him, talking about how we provide nutritious milk for consumers?  I suppose we spent about 30 minutes with Juan and our friend.  It was great to share with Juan, how we care for our cows and our land as well.  Needless to say I didn't get the rest of my jobs done for the night. 

Then on Friday, Jon and I worked so hard to milk, feed and bed the cows.  Calves and heifers were fed.  I loaded up hay at my parents' house, drove it home and unloaded it.  Jon worked on more prep for the manure spreaders, and then we were finally able to start hauling manure.  We hauled 10 loads to our neighbor's field and had to stop for evening chores.  After completing calves and setting up the milking parlor, we loaded in the cows.  Apparently our cow Judas (named after the band not the apostle) needed to run into the parlor for milking tonight.  But instead of sprinting safely into the parlor, she slipped and fell in the holding pen.  She wasn't the smartest cow in the barn tonight, as she drug herself a few feet into the parlor.  This was a problem, because we wouldn't be able to help lift Judas with our usual equipment.  Jon had to use some special lifts from the farm shop.  While he gathered supplies, I chilled out with Judas, making sure she was comfortable.  Sometimes when cows slip and fall it takes a little time to get them back up, dairy farmers just have to be a little patient with them, and offer them a little help.  30 minutes later, Jon had Judas lifted up, standing on her own, and doing fine.  Our fear when cows fall, is that they may become injured.  Working quickly helps insure that injuries are minimal (sore muscles) instead of serious (broken bones or tore ligaments).  Judas didn't even show signs of a fall after milking tonight.  She felt so good, she tried to come back into the parlor for some more fun!  Silly cow!  Hopefully she learns that she should walk to the parlor instead of running next time.  Nevertheless, we were delayed from finishing milking on time, and since Judas was blocking half of the parlor, we could only milk at 1/2 speed for those 30 minutes.  If we had scheduled plans for our Friday night, we would have cancelled them, but we luckily had no plans. 

So often in the dairy industry flexibility is critical.  Cows need care 24 hours a day.  Sometimes they can handle themselves, but sometimes they need help.  I can remember times growing up at home, when my dad would have to miss a concert, a 4-H show or a church event because he needed to stay at home with a cow that was calving or had a piece of machinery break.  We grew to understand that Dad would have loved to be at our events, but he had a responsibility to his farm and his cows.  Now, I share that responsibility to my farm and my cows.  I know first hand how frustrating it can be to work so hard to finish chores so we can leave to an event, only to have something happen, turning our plans upside down!  But, at the end of the day, our cows come first.  Their care is our priority and our responsibility and we take that VERY seriously.  So....here' hoping that tomorrow will be a little more predicable and a little less random (but I am counting on something random to happen, like a new calf!).

Got it DONE!!! Making Hay when the Sun Doesn't Shine!!

We have successfully finished out 2nd cutting of alfalfa!  It was a challenge and if I ever meet a weatherman in person I might have to ask him the following: "How can you still have a job after being wrong so many times?"  Our weather forecast for Thursday was for rain, which we missed, thank goodness as those storms were filled with wind, hail, and tornadoes.  We pray for those who were hurt by these storms.  On Friday it was supposed to be about 80 degrees and light breezes, but we had mid-80's and a strong dry wind....which accelerated the drying of our alfalfa, much faster than we anticipated.  As a result our hay was dry sooner than expected, and we had to move faster.  At midnight on Friday, Jon, I and my brother in law Marcus decided that we were going to keep on chopping alfalfa until we saw dew, which would make the alfalfa too wet to chop.  But as long as there was no dew we were able to keep on chopping.....and we kept on chopping alfalfa until 9 am Saturday morning. Yes, you just read correctly, we chopped through the night and finished right before morning chores.  That means that Jon and I worked about 35 hours straight without any sleep.  We finished chopping and jumped right over to milking, feeding and our morning chores.  At 2pm we made it home, and took a well deserved nap for 5 hours!  We were very happy that we finished our 130 acres of alfalfa even if we had to work that hard to get it done.  Unfortunately since we worked so hard and in the dark, I don't have any pictures of 2nd cutting alfalfa, but if you saw the 1st cutting, it's pretty much the same thing all over again.

It's great to be able to work with my brother in law as well.  He's an excellent worker and never stops until he finishes a job~which is great for chopping alfalfa!  We worked that hard to chop our alfalfa because we know from years of experience that high quality feeds make healthy cows which in turn make healthy nutritious milk.  Focusing on quality has helped us gain so much in milk production, but more so in cow health.  As cows are ruminants, forages and forage quality make a huge impact on health. 

We also had a successful morning on Friday taking our 6 day old calf Fuji to New Ulm for the KNUJ Dairy Day at the Glock.  Fuji visited with many adults and kids, celebrating June Dairy Month for a good cause: area Food Shelves.  Now that she's home, Fuji is spoiled and looking for a head scratch almost every hour!  She's so darn cute though, neither Jon nor I can say no to her...so we give in and she's getting even more spoiled.  I have some pictures of her that I hope to post soon!

Corn Silage Season Part 2

A little night time action at the farm. This video was taken on September 7th, 2009 (Day 1). We finished opening the fields and wanted to get a head start on the long and hectic week ahead. The key to making good silage is to make it quickly as possible at a consistent moisture. Consistent moisture helps to make quality forage which feeds our cows who make safe, wholesome, nutritious milk for you the consumer =) Please enjoy our little video of night time silage chopping at Orange Patch Dairy!

Corn Silage Video Part Posted!

Finally I got at least the first video posted from corn silage season! We started chopping on September 7th, 2009 and finished on Monday September 14th, 2009. We worked 6 days and made 8, 250 foot long bags of forage.....equal to about 2500 tons of silage for the cows for the coming year!!! Once the forage is made we store it in bags for at least 3 months to make sure the feed is completely fermented. This video is from the 7th, when the neighbor came over to "open" our fields. He drove his self propelled chopper (a forage chopper that has an engine attached to it instead of chopped like ours which needs a tractor to pull it) through our fields chopping end rows and making "roads" through to make sure that we do not run our precious crop of corn down. Check it out!

Rain delay AGAIN!

Oh Dear! Apparently God would like us to take the weekend off to attend a family wedding instead of finishing corn silage. Today we received almost an inch of rain today---much needed for the alfalfa that we just planted but as of today we only have 6 of 8 bags of silage finished. We were hoping to make headway yesterday but found that we had a broken shaft and pulley on our silage chopper, so we had to stop, order parts and wait for them to arrive this morning. We replaced the broken parts and started chopping at noon, only to be rained out of the field again. We need to make 2 more bags of silage, but they will have to wait until Monday, when the fields will finally be dry enough to go back in with our heavy equipment.

So instead of finishing chopping, we will be taking the weekend off to go to a cousin's wedding near Rochester MN. We are super excited to see family that we haven't seen in months! We are also excited to sleep in...since we will be spending the night, and we have some great friends hired to milk while we are away. We only hope that everything goes well for those whom we leave behind with our cows....I had a speech with the girls to make sure that they don't cause any trouble for us =) See ya on Monday!

Labor Day Celebrations!

As you venture off to your Labor Day celebrations tomorrow, we at Orange Patch Dairy will begin the process we know and love as "Corn Silage Season". Yes, it is time, the corn is dried down enough to be chopped, hauled home, and packed into large 250 foot plastic bags. These bags will store enough feed for all of our cows, heifers, and calves for the coming year. Corn silage is the primary feed in our cow rations, as it makes up about 35% of the total diet (50 pounds per cow each day). We will be making about 2200-2400 ton of corn silage this year, and we hope to finish it by the weekend (5 days start to finish). Therefore I might not be blogging in the coming days but I hope to be gathering some great pictures and video from the farm to show and tell about silage season. But I do have some thoughts on Labor Day I wanted to share....

Dairy farming is a hard labor filled job, but ask any dairy farmer and they would tell you how much they love their jobs. It's a dairy farmer's passion and drive for what they do that helps them through tough years like this year. It is their love of their job, cows, and nature that helps to get them through each day and forces them to wake up each morning only to repeat it over again. Right now we aren't getting paid to milk cows, but in fact we are paying an admission fee to go to work each day. How would you feel if your boss was standing at the door each morning collecting a fee to enter and do your job? It wouldn't feel too good, but for a dairy farmer, there are so many other "gifts" of the job to make it worth while. I wake up each morning looking forward to the next baby calf, the next gain in milk production, a pretty sunrise, fresh cut hay, the next new surprise. It's honestly fun to know that even if the the daily tasks are the same, the days are still filled with a variety of surprises, some better than others. My father, who also dairy farms, often stated "Well I am at least doing this for exercise"...referencing milking cows during low milk prices. I have been doing dairy farming for exercise for a few months now, but I am still not complaining. So as you enjoy your Labor Day, honoring that we all have the ability to work, please think about the people responsible for the food on your table....the farmers, the employees, the processors....they all work hard to ensure that you have safe, wholesome foods for you and your families. It a labor of love....so please make sure that we are not working in vain and enjoy all the great dairy products, meats, vegetables and fruits that you can.

Happy Labor Day!

Waiting for paint to dry...

Well maybe we aren't waiting for paint to dry, but it's pretty darn close! That corn that we thought was dry enough to chop this week is actually not dry enough...too wet instead. Corn silage is put into bags at our farm, and the corn has to be dry enough to get the bagger machine to push the silage into the bag. A normal corn plant is about 75% moisture, but once it reaches maturity the plant starts to lose moisture and dry down. The ideal moisture for chopping into the bagger is 68% moisture, maximum. We chop corn for a range of 65-68%. Last night's samples tested out at 69% moisture. Then we re sampled the corn today only to find out that one of the fields is at about 72% moisture. NOW....we have to wait for the corn to dry down. We can't start until the wettest field is at the right moisture. Usually corn dries down at 0.5% each day in warm weather, but since we are having the 7th coolest summer ever this year it may take longer. As of right now we are thinking that we might not start chopping until Monday, but that means we can enjoy the Labor Day weekend....a bachelor party, hag and stag party, and a family picnic----all things I would rather do than chop....save that for the weekdays ;)

Phew! Made it through the weekend!

It was another crazy weekend at Orange Patch Dairy...we went to Comfrey Days Street Dance on Friday night. We stayed up WAY too late, but we saw so many friends we couldn't bring ourselves to leave early. As a result we got a much needed and overdue nap this afternoon. it was only for a couple hours but was still good!

This week is going to be another event packed week. We will be starting out the week on Monday drying off dry cows. We have 2 cows out of our herd of 90 that are ready for their 60 day vacation in the dry lot. They will not be milked for the next 60 days, but instead be able to relax comfortably outside and grow their baby calves. When we dry off cows, we use an antibiotic not to treat infections but prevent any infections they could pick up during their vacation. Based on our somatic cell count our fresh cows almost always freshen without infection-a key to safe wholesome milk and healthy cows. We also treat our cows with an wax teat sealant which helps to keep out bacteria until the cow forms her own teat end plug of natural proteins.

On Tuesday we will be doing our monthly herd health appointment. Hopefully I will be able to take some pictures from the day.

The rest of the week we will be working on getting ready for our 3rd cutting of alfalfa hay. It will be another hectic week of greasing machinery, doing maintenance of the silage wagons, sharpening the chopper knives, and getting the bagger ready to rock. All of this prep is critical to making sure that get start and finish chopping in the least amount of time possible. It makes great feed and happy farmers :)