An Occupation of Faith

Spring time rains are here!  We’ve been pretty dry here in Southern Minnesota, so much so that they put us in a “Moderate Drought” category.  Last week strong winds were blowing top soil everywhere, but this morning I awoke to the gentle sounds of rain drops hitting my window pane.  Praise be to God!  I know there are lots of happy farmers, because their prayers are being answered.  Weather is something no farmer has control over and they are at complete mercy to it.  Because of this, I believe in order to farm you have to have a deep sense of a higher calling or a higher power.  Farming is an occupation of faith. 

So often farmers place their hope and trust in something bigger than themselves.  Farmers have faith; it is a requirement.  They have faith that there is a plan, that God will provide, that if they do their best on Earth to be care takers of the land, water and animals, that they will be rewarded.  Sometimes though, life doesn’t as planned.  Sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate.  Sometimes the cards that farmers get dealt make no sense.  But at the end of the day, farmers are resilient, they know their calling, and they have faith that they will be able to try again; they keep trying again. “Maybe we’ll get it right next time or next season.”

In my heart, I am a farmer, I have faith.  I know my calling in life and I trust in God’s plan.  I am so blessed to have grown up on a farm, to have first-hand knowledge and experience in God’s glory.  I have seen my parents struggle through difficult times in farming history, wondering if we would have money to feed our family or pay the bills, but they never lost faith.  They have been great examples of resilience and the important of dedication and passion.  But when you boil everything that they went through to keep on farming, it came down to having faith, and I have faith in God’s plan for me and my farming future!

10 years ago....braces and all, I was a Finalist for Princess Kay of the Milky Way,
an experience I will never forget!

Wow has time flown by!  As I write this, we have finished 1st cutting of alfalfa.  Thankfully that frost earlier in April was not as detrimental as we expected it to be.  Thanks to lots of rain (5.25 inches in one week) we postponed planting our corn in exchange for cutting hay on May 12th...the earliest we have EVER cut alfalfa.  We also welcomed 13 new calves to the barn....all of which were born within the same week as making hay.  Now I am working on my presentation for the Dairy Princess event this weekend.  Here, talented dairy farmers' daughters and employees are competing to be one of the 12 Finalists for Princess Kay of the Milky Way.  The scary part is that I was one of these young ladies a mere 10 years ago!  Wow how things have changed, yet they are still the same!
The dairy princess program in Minnesota is still going strong, perhaps even stronger than ever, since so many young women are realizing the importance of sharing their stories with others.   Passionate doesn't even begin to describe these young women.  They are leaders, innovators, communicators, and most of all they LOVE the great community we call the dairy industry! 
10 years ago I had no idea how important the dairy princess program would be in who I am today.   Today, I am still advocating for dairy farmers like myself....using some of the same skills I had back then, with the same amount of passion, but with different tools...like this blog ;)
The final 12 will have the great experience of getting their likeness carved in a 90 pound block of butter at the Minnesota State Fair this summer!  A real honor!  (much like I did 10 years ago!)  We're wishing all these young ladies well, as any one of them would be an excellent Princess Kay!

Saturated & Muddy!

Saturated & Muddy!  That's how I would describe the "environment" on Orange Patch Dairy, these days.  There are so many things to be done on the farm, but there's literally too much mud, rain, slop, and muck to get it done.  I would take pictures to share our misery, but it's almost embarrassing.  Just when the weather clears, and the soil finally starts to dry, and it might look like we can get back in the fields (we have corn to finish planting, soybeans to start, and alfalfa to chop) we receive another 1/2 to 1 inch of rain.  This morning we were "blessed" with another 1+ inch of rain.  The forecast has more rain predicted for tonight as well as Thursday night.  The sun might actually come out this weekend, but that's just in time for my brother in law's graduation party....which means we can't be in the field. 

Then there's the cows.  It's so muddy in the cow yards right now, it has become impossible to get bedding to the cows.  Thankfully the sand corners of the pens are drying during the day, so the cows can rest on dry "islands" in the sun.  It looks bad though.  I was out fixing fence in our yards today, and sank into the mud as I stood still, like in quick sand.  I nearly lost my boots twice, stuck in the mud as I tried to walk out.  I've never been more grateful for the concrete portions of our yards, where are animals can find additional reprieve from the mud, as well as eat and drink in mud-free peace. 

Even if we get into the field, the mud is so severe by our silage bags, we will not be able to make our new 2011 haylage bags in the yard.  We will be searching for the highest, driest location on the farm.....it's crazy to think about not being able to put a silage bag on our pad for weeks.  So please wish us well...these soggy dairy farmers could really use a dry break for the next 2-3 weeks, then we'll take some more rain.

Hello Blog, I am back again!

After a little time off to work on various other projects for the upcoming county fair, I thought I would just let everyone know I am still alive and kicking.  It's be crazy at the farm right now.  It's been raining about every 2-4 days and we are trying to make 4th cutting alfalfa in between showers/storms.  Our corn is loving this weather though, as it thrives with heat and moisture.  The cows are hanging in there with the heat.  Milk production has come down about 2-3 pounds per cow and their feed intake is down.  I wouldn't want to eat in this heat either.  Thank goodness for sprinklers and fans, those things have paid for themselves 10 times over already!  I know that the cows will be fine as long as we have sprinklers on them. 

Other than that we have the county fair this week, which means I will be busy with the princesses, the anniversary for the princesses, the dairy show and well....hopefully a demolition derby or two!  Stay tuned for pictures and more stories!

Where has the summer gone?

As I write this short blog, I am pondering where in the world has the summer gone?  Seems like just weeks ago we were still in June, enjoying June Dairy Month & various promotions, but now we are closing in on August, including county fairs & the great Minnesota State Fair.  Our summer has definitely not decreased in "business"!  In the coming weeks I will be working diligently on my various projects for the Brown County Fair, mainly around the 50th Anniversary of the Brown County Dairy Princess Program.  To learn more about this great program, check out our blog at http://cowsncrowns.blogspot.com/. So...If I am a little slow at blogging, please bear with me =)

Back at the farm things have been incredibly busy as well.  July was our busiest month of the summer for calvings.  We had 14 cows have calves, 10 of which were heifers.  This means that I have almost quadrupled my calf chores.  I am not complaining, but merely stating that I have more chores.  Those calves, especially the youngest ones, require lots of time and care to make sure they have an excellent start.  I can proudly say that my new girls have been doing great!  Lucy, our first registered (full bred Holstein with papers to prove her family tree) even calved in with a beautiful heifer calf, which I have named Luciana.  I will try to get some pictures posted. 

We have been getting a LOT of rain at the farm.  A couple of nights we had some flash flooding, but all in all the cows and corn have been doing great!  Our silage corn is putting out ears & in full tassel.  It has stretched out to almost 10 feet tall!

I hope to post pictures of these events soon! 

Rain Delay

I just thought I would take some time to blog, as I might be missing in action for the remainder of the week.  We are patiently waiting for Mother Nature to cooperate with us; we are waiting to cut our 2nd cutting of alfalfa.  We have enjoyed some much needed rain for the past few days and it has been great for the corn and soybeans, but it has made a mess out of our silage bag pad and we know our alfalfa fields will most certainly be moist and soft.  Today we saw the sun for the first time in days, and it was a welcomed sight!  With a little bit of a breeze we started to see dry soil again.  We will need more days like this before we can hit the fields, but it sounds as though we have a chance of rain again on Thursday. 

Time will tell, but for the time being, Jon was able to haul liquid manure over to the neighbor's harvested pea field.  It's great to have such ag-friendly neighbors who appreciate the value of cow manure and its ability to grow great crops!  We definitely appreciate having neighbors who will take our cow manure.  By doing this they help us make sure we don't over apply nutrients on our own fields as well as stay within the limits of our manure management plan.  Plus, sharing manure with neighbors helps them grow awesome corn too! 

We were also able to take some time to work on a cow who suddenly developed a sore foot.  Isabel, our 3 year old cow (who has had 2 calves and is pregnant with her third) started to favor her front left foot on Sunday.  Sometimes cows will injure their feet like people do, misstepping.  Other times cows have a more serious issue like a sore or infection.  We trim the entire herd twice a year, which eliminates most problems, but since it's been about 5 months since the last trimming, little issues like this sometimes pop up.  Isabel continued to favor that foot, so we decided yesterday morning (Monday) that she needed some medical attention.  We lifted her foot with a rope, as we don't have a hoof trimming chute.  She was actually a great patient.  She calmly stood on 3 legs as Jon diligently worked to carve out the bottom of her foot.  He carved hoping to find the problem, but we didn't find anything wrong with her foot!  When we were about to give up on Isabel, Jon checked for a second time between her toes and found what appeared to be a small sore.  Sure enough, that was our problem...a small sore that looked to have developed from a small stone getting stuck in her hoof.  Cow's hooves are much like our fingernails, so they can pick up stones occasionally.  We removed the small stone and the hoof tissue that was damaged.  We applied some salve to help heal Isabel's foot and wrapped her up.  While Isabel didn't start walking perfectly right away, she definitely was running around today!  Keeping a close eye on our cows is critical to keeping them healthy.  By catching Isabel's foot injury early we prevented any further damage to her foot as well as the risk that she could have slipped, fell and hurt herself even more.  We work hard to prevent injuries and illness, but early detection also helps maintain healthy cows!

Hopefully I will be doing hay soon...pictures to follow!

Dear March

Dear March:

I was wondering if you could bring back a couple of my favorite things these coming days. Please bring back sunshine-we miss its warm rays to melt the snow. Please bring back mud, yes I said mud, because at least I don't have to move mud on a daily basis if the wind blows. Please bring back the rain-I love how it smells, snow doesn't really smell, and rain doesn't need to be moved. Please bring back dirt....I forgot how wonderful it smells after a warm rain and once its freshly tilled. Please bring back temperatures over 35 degrees, I forgot how freeing it can be to walk around without our almost 10 layers of clothing on, every day. I yearn to wear only a light sweatshirt and jeans once again.

You can kindly take back the 2 feet of snow that still blankets the ground, we don't need it anymore, Christmas was done months ago. You can take back the wind chills, we got it, it's cold in Canada...they can keep it. You can send back the clouds, unless they bring warm rains, since we really need the sun to dry out the ground.

We are looking forward to flowers (please see the picture attached below for reference), spring tillage, planting peas, and watching the alfalfa start to grow. And yes I am even looking forward to hay season.

If you could kindly meet my requests, I would greatly appreciate it,
Thanks,

One VERY Tired Dairy Farmer in Minnesota

Busy Days at the Farm

Well it's been a bunch of busy days at the farm lately. Between the birth of 8 calves this week (7 bulls and 1 lonely heifer calf) and a couple of sick cows, oh yeah and the good 'ol Minnesota winter...it's been a busy time!

First the bull calves. We have had 13 bulls out of the last 15 calves born at the farm. The 2 lonely heifers could really use some more friends, so I am hoping that the 2 cows due at the end of this week don't let us down.

Sick cows: nothing that we could really help, but we have 2 cows that have ailments that we and the vet cannot explain. I hate it when we call the vet out and even they can't figure out what is wrong with our sick cows. It's frustrating not knowing what's wrong with a sick animal-they can't tell us where it hurts or how they feel so we have to work smart and watch them. We watch how much they eat, how long they stand to eat, how long do they rest, are they chewing their cuds. We take their temperatures. We listen to their lungs, heart and stomachs. Using these observations we try to decide what might be wrong with our cows. These cows have digestive upsets, basically we have 2 cows that ate something they shouldn't have or they didn't eat as much as they should have. We treat sick cows like this without antibiotics, but instead with probiotics. It is never economical to treat cows with antibiotics-we lose the cost of the drugs as well as the milk lost that we will need to dump until the drugs leave the cow's body. Therefore, we try other methods, that take more time, but in the end are better for the cow and our pocketbook. We have been treating the 2 sick cows with alfalfa meal drench, probiotics, yeast, magnesium, calcium, choline, and other B-vitamins.

One cow has been responding well to the treatment, however the other decided to roll her stomach....her abomasum. Cows have a 4-chambered stomach, containing the rumen (fermentation chamber), omasum, recticulum (the honeycomb-looking stomach-1st stomach) and abomasum (the true stomach-just like our stomach). When cows have a disruption in their eating pattern, they can fill with gas-which causes their stomach to inflate and float out of place, thereby slowing or even stopping the flow of feed through the stomach. The rumen is a warm, wet environment for some awesome little microbes! They turn food that we as humans can't eat into usable food for cows. When there are problems, the microbes can start dying off, making the cow feel even worse. As a result it is very critical that we keep our cows healthy and eating. Surgery is the only option for a displaced abomasum. After a quick shot of tranquilizer, the vet and I worked for about an hour to relieve the gas in the stomach and stitch it back in place. Within an hour and a half the cow was back to normal, with nothing to show more than her sutures on her side. Needless to say, surgery is expensive and we have to put the cow on penicillin, so we hope to work to make sure a displace abomasum never happens-or that cows don't get sick in the first place.

The MN weather-rain for 12 hours plus 14 inches of snow on the ground=mushy mess everywhere! Slush is everywhere, getting stuck, cows getting wet, lakes forming from puddles, and mainly crummy weather to be outside in....hoping it gets better soon.

Weather is becoming Mentally Frustrating

This weather is becoming mentally frustrating. Yesterday it rained, again....just enough to stop field work and reverse any drying that happened in the fields this weekend. Today the sun was supposed to come out, but we enjoyed a cloudy, cool morning with damp heavy air. This air also didn't allow anything to dry, and when the sun did come out it was 2 hours from sunset. No drying happened today.

We are hoping to get into the fields tomorrow, working to haul some more liquid manure out of the milking barn pit. Once we finish this task, we will pull the pump out of the pit and take it to the neighbor's place to be repaired before we need it again. Once we finish that job we look forward to cleaning out calf huts and hauling that manure and bedding out to the field on Friday. 60 degrees in the forecast for Friday and Saturday makes me hopeful that we can FINALLY hit the corn and soybeans. Once those our out we can start making some much needed bedded for the cows and heifers and haul out our pack manure (7 months worth of manure and bedding from about 160 cows). Stay tuned, I hope to have some videos of all of this action~!

Rain....Again...yuck!

So it's raining again, looks like a blog post from a few weeks ago, actually it's been raining for the last 3 weeks! It could stop any day now for about 3 weeks to finish all of our fall activities. Today, I left the farm to do some tasks, pay some bills and get groceries for next week. Jonathan stayed at home and took care of the cows.

After milking and feeding this morning we moved 2 dry cows out of the formerly dry lot-now muddy lot-to get treated for apparent mud-induced foot injuries. One of the cows has a small rock imbedded in her hoof, much like humans that get ingrown toe nails, and the other has a small infection from the mud in between her toes. We cleaned and treated each cow. While they were technically not "lame" they were showing tenderness on those feet, therefore we act quickly so a small problem that's easy to fix doesn't become a HUGE problem that's hard to treat. I left after treating these cows and Jonathan continued his work. Since it rained, all of the dry cows and heifers needed fresh/dry bedding. He also bedded in the calves in the huts. Keeping our cows and calves dry is very important to keeping them healthy. So the battle continues tomorrow....more mud, but hopefully less rain =)

Rain again...

Yep, it's definitely raining again. Looks like we could get over an half an inch. We enjoyed about 3.5 days of almost perfect weather. Local farmers were able to get into the fields and start harvesting their soybeans and corn. Some tillage has also started. We are still unable to harvest our corn, since it is too wet and the cost of drying it is too high. We are waiting for the custom harvester to come and combine our soybeans, so we found other activities to do....MANURE removal.

My father-in-law and brother-in-law worked on moving our manure from the calf/heifer barn this morning. I worked on hauling out liquid manure from the cow barn and Jonathan worked on cleaning up the dry cows and heifer lots. All in all, a LOT of fertilizer was moved to the fields today. We will work this fertilizer into the soils to make an awesome bed for next year's crops. A "Fall Cleaning" of manure. We were very excited about the dry weather, sad about the rain today and tomorrow, but looking forward to the forecast for next week....cool and DRY.

And the rain continues....

God has blessed us with a handful of dry days this past weekend and early week, however the radar is showing a line of rain/thunderstorms looming to the west and closing in. It's be a difficult growing season this year. We started the spring with cool wet conditions. This summer was also cool, but dry and this fall is also cool and WET! We are definitely making up for the dry summer with all of the rain we are receiving right now. This wet weather is preventing us from getting into the field and bringing in the harvest. Our corn and soybeans are all too wet to combine. We would like our corn to be at least below 20% moisture, but right now it is 31-37% moisture. Without sun and warm temperatures, the drying process is becoming more difficult.

In addition to slowing harvest, we are also postponing some critical fall activities. After combining our soybeans and corn, we return to the fields to harvest the foliage from those plants. We bale the dry soybean plants into round bales for bedding for our heifers. We bale the remaining soybean plants in small square bales to be chopped in the calf barn-making for happy, comfy, dry calves =) We chop the dry corn plants and make them into large stacks. We will take scoops of this bedding to bed in our dry cows and feed some of our heifers and dry cows. Cows love to chew on dry corn stalks! Actually cows like to chew on a lot of things.

After we harvest the bedding we spread manure, lots of manure. Manure from cows, dry cows, heifers and calves. We need to make sure we have clean animals for the winter. Also fall is the best time of the year for manure application. We reduce compaction by hauling in the fall compared to the spring. We are also able to incorporate the manure into the soil through fall tillage (plowing, digging) thereby saving the valuable nutrients in the manure to be used by the 2010 crop! Hauling manure is critical to keeping the cows clean and dry but also critical for our crops. Manure saves us money. If we capture all of the nutrients and organic matter available in manure we are able to save the cost of commercial fertilizer that we would have used. Another added benefit is that manure is great for making good soil! Because manure is natural-worms and soil microbes LOVE manure!

When we finish manure hauling...then we have to do fall tillage. Tillage means plowing some fields (using an implement that flips the soil over so the soil surface is underground). We also dig some other fields with an implement called a DMI. The DMI leaves the soil surface on the top, but digs deep into the soil breaking up compaction, making the soil soft for the spring.

So, Dear God...please make the rain stop, at least until the harvest in is, and we have so much to do before snow season!

The joys of dairy farming!

Today was one of those days, where you REALLY have to LOVE your job. It was a day where you really have to ENJOY the JOYS OF DAIRY FARMING....

This morning we dried off 5 cows (time for them to go on a 2 month vacation before they have their next calf). After that we noticed a cow that we gave medication to induce labor had finally started labor. After carefully observing her for a couple hours we decided to intervene, but not before we chased the cow out of the mud holes in the dry cow yard twice. We helped pull the calf, a bull calf, and momma cow was doing so well! After taking care of calf and cow, we moved on to a cow that had gotten herself stuck in the mud. Well, actually she was playing with another cow and it got a little rough. #55 fell down into a thick muddy hole, and couldn't get back out. We rushed to her rescue, using the skid loader to move the mud out the way and lift her out of the mud. Success! #55 was out of the mud, but she was also in shock. SO....we gave her some calcium for muscle tone, dextrose (sugar) for some quick energy, and some pain medication in case she hurt her leg....but one that was safe for her and the calf that she is carrying. We finished that up and got to chase a heifer that needed to be bred through another mud hole in the heifer yard! Seems like all of the cows were looking for those darn mud holes today! We got Lucy into the barn for breeding. We use artificial insemination for breeding, because it is safer for cows and people to NOT use a bull. Plus we get to use genetics from around the world on our farm to improve our cows. We bred Lucy.....next, move fresh cow (cow that calved) to the milking barn....and of course she found the mud on the way to the barn.....yikes! Next we found another cow in the dry cow yard that had an infection in her foot....she got a cut and thanks to all of the mud, she now had an infection....so we moved her to the barn to get a shot of Penicillin.

Sure sounds like we were treating a lot of cows, but we were merely working around the environment that Mother Nature provided us this week. 4.5 inches of rain and cool/cold weather makes for some muddy conditions outside. Cows are unfortunately not smart enough to stay out of said mud, therefore we tend to have cows that get into trouble. We are definitely looking forward to the day that we can put all of the cows inside a barn during the muddy seasons! Once we have the money you can bet that we will be putting up a barn ASAP! In the meantime we are working to keep the cows as dry as possible...

Oh yeah did I mention that Minnesota Winter is here! It's snowing outside as I type this! I can't believe it! 6 months of winter in this darn state! I am beginning to question Global Warming especially since I remember when it was 70 degrees in November just a few short years ago. Oh well, dealing with the cards we are dealt, and enjoying the JOYS OF DAIRY FARMING!

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!

Rain delay...

Darn rain shower...poured .3 of an inch on us tonight, just as we were starting to really get going on chopping for the day. We have 3.75 bags of sialge done and we need a total of 8 bags of silage....so we have a LOT of work to do in a short period of time. We need to make 2 bags of silage each day for the next 2 days so we can go to a wedding this weekend. God willing we will get it done...so we pray.....the corn is too wet to chop so we must wait for it to dry. Hopefully tomorrow we can start early to make up for this RAIN DELAY.

Tornado Warning

I was hoping to sit down tonight and post some pictures on this blog about the fair last week, but instead those plans got railroaded! Tonight at about 6:15pm we had a tornado warning issued for this county. It was a scary time, funnels were in the sky, rotating and twisting. I have some awesome video of this, but I left my camera at the farm in the fury of the storm. We received some much needed rain with this storm-over 3 inches!!!-it's a God send! And we are happy to report that no serious damage occurred thanks to this storm. Apparently we are scheduled to see some more storms tomorrow, and for the first time since this spring I can report that we have MUD in the cattle yards! I am not going to complain about it though, since we needed this precious rain so much! It's nice to see green grass again, as well as the hay field, which we cut and chopped yesterday already greening back up for a 5th cutting of hay in 4 weeks. So please bear with me, I should be able to post some pictures tomorrow---as long as we don't have another scary storm!

Also, just to let you know...cow number 73 has made a full recovery!!!! She has increased her daily milk production, almost back to the level she was before the mastitis....and she is doing very well physically!!! We are still dumping her milk down the drain, since she is still on antibiotics, and we will continue to dump the milk until the residues clear her system. We now know how she got toxic mastitis...and I will talk about that in another post, as it is a long story.

Bummer :(

We received some much needed rain again last night. While it was not the inches of rain that we were hoping for it was the tenths of rain that we needed to make the crop green again and help them last until the next rain shower. After the joy of that we were greeted with a little sadness this morning.

After checking the heifer pens for heifers in heat (ready to breed to become pregnant and calve) and the dry cows for new baby calves, I noticed something odd. There was a heifer laying awkwardly next to the hay bunk. I rushed over to see what was wrong, and my heart just sank! It's was one of our favorite heifers Nitty Gritty, who we moved into this pen a couple days ago. She was dead :( I cried. It's what I do. We have 100 cows, 100 heifers, and I know everyone by name, coloring, and personality. I can name each of their mothers, grandmothers and daughter. I take it very personally when one leaves us....especially like this. Overnight, Nitty Gritty had put her head through a corner in the hay bunk, got it stuck and couldn't get out. Since it happened at night no one saw her or heard her-and after fighting for awhile, she suffocated and died. It's making me cry now just thinking about it. Accidents happen in life with humans and on farms with animals, but every time it happens it's still hard to swallow. Nitty Gritty was 5 month pregnant with her first calf and would have joined our herd this winter. We lost her mother a year ago. Her mother was an awesome cow, so we had high hopes from Nitty Gritty. What consumers don't know is that every time this happens on a dairy farm-the farmer, the employees, anyone involved with that animal's life, is hurting. If it was possible, most dairymen would love to see their cows live long lives, well into their 20's, but cows are not built to live much over 10 years old. We raise them from babies into adulthood-it's hard to let go. So today we laid Nitty gritty to rest, to join her mother in heaven with the other cows on green pastures and open free stall barns....God Bless her and take good care of her, we will miss her dearly!

RAIN!

It's been a dry few weeks at Orange Patch Dairy! We haven't seen anything over 1/2 inch of rain for the past 4.5 weeks. We are currently 8 inches behind in our annual rainfall. In the last 4.5 weeks we had one shower which dropped 0.02 of an inch. Needless to say its been very dry. Tonight it has been raining softly for the last few hours. While it isn't the inches of rain that we need, it does buy us time. Without this rain we will would have needed to start chopping corn next week before it was completely dry. Our corn doesn't even have grain on it, some hasn't even put on tassels since it was so dry. We will continue to pray for more rain...so we can have at decent crop of corn. So much is out of our control on a farm, so often we depend on a higher power-thank you God for the gentle rain, please send us more, for a healthy, bountiful harvest.

God's Blessings...

It's truly inspirational on a farm some days. While we didn't receive the rain that we needed yet this week, we continue to pray and hold hope that the rain will come and the crops will be saved. This hope gives us optimism for another day, another chance, and this hope gives us the power to get through anything. Hope is our greatest power.

God's blessings are all around us on a dairy farm. The birth of a new calf is a blessing. A bright sunrise is a blessing, as well as a gorgeous sunset. The smells of fresh cut alfalfa, new rainfall, freshly dug soil, and yes even cow manure are all blessings. How often in life we take for granted the simple things, the things that really matter. I have always believed that farming, especially dairy farming is one of the few occupations that helps to bring you closer to God. In dairy farming, so much is out of our control, but is instead, random and natural. We hope in God...that if he led us to it he can lead us through it.

On January 2nd, 2009 I put my hope and faith in God. I walked away from my full time job in town...a job that I loved and a job that allowed me to work with some really great people...to join my husband. I worked for 4 years as a dairy nutritionist (I balanced and formulated diets for cows in my customers' herds-making sure that all of their dietary needs were met). I loved my job. I loved working with local dairy farmers who also loved their jobs and inspired me to do better for them.

BUT....we (Jonathan and I) decided it was time for a change....a change to help me pursue my real dream job in life-dairy farmer. Some wives of dairy farmers assume the position of wife of dairy farmer but more and more wives are now assuming the role of "partner" or even "primary operator". I became "partner". We make every decision together and we manage and care for our cows together each day. Being able to work with my spouse everyday as professionals is also a great blessing. We have put our hope in God that we made the right decisions, even if we are experiencing the worst milk prices in our short farming career. We just enjoy the simple things-like having dinner and supper together each day, kisses in the milking parlor, and laughing at a great joke while wrapping up chores. Striving for the same goals as husband and wife and professional partners makes for some exciting moments in life. Today was a day to appreciate this blessing from God!

Also...interesting fact for the day-DAIRY FARMING STIMULATES THE ECONOMY ON ITS OWN-FOR EACH COW MILKING CREATES 12 OFF-FARM JOBS!!!!!!!!

I think that is awesome! Our 160 cow dairy farm produces 1920 jobs off-the -farm and in town!!!

These jobs are at banks, lumber yards, hardware stores, feed mills, trucking companies, agronomy centers, supply companies, veterinary centers, contracting companies, carpenters, plumbers, milking equipment companies, implement dealers, and many more!!!!

Taking a little break...

So apparently it's been almost 1 week since I last blogged. That was not intentional, but weather related. We cut our hay last Friday, and tried to chop it Saturday and Sunday, but Mother Nature had other ideas. Clouds moved in, heat moved in, sun disappeared, humidity appeared and so did the rain. Rain and humidity make for bad hay making :( As of right now, we have 120 acres of 130 acres of alfalfa chopped and in the silage bags. The remaining 10 acres are laying in the field and have been rained on 4 times already. We are hoping to get it done tomorrow.

Yevette is growing so well now!!! She's gaining weight like a champ. For a calf half the size of a normal calf...she's eating as much as a normal calf would!

Joey is now fully weaned. She is drinking water twice a day and eats calf starter-about 4-5 pounds each day.

It's late though, so off to bed I go...hay to make in the morning!