Saturday, September 10, 2011

Neighbor Night 2011

Once again we are completely amazed by the support and encouragement from our community. There were over 700 visitors at SwissLane tonight from 6-9pm. Everyone enjoyed a delicious pork sandwich dinner, milk, ice cream, Hayride tours, and a Robotic Milking Demonstration.

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

When we were thinking about what we should say (besides "Thank you for coming" of course) to our visitors/neighbors. We decided on 3 things:
1) Praising God for our blessings
2) Honoring the anniversary of 9/11 and
3) Why are we doing this(in regards to our business plan)? I was the lucky one who got to address our crowd with this task:)

Number 1 and 2 were easy.
1) I read a verse out of 1 Corinthians. The Apostle Paul reminds us that it is not us that makes the plants grow. We are God's workers. Basically, this is not just about us. We are called to be stewards of His creation.

2) I read a quote from Pres. George W Bush from 11/11/2001. "Time is passing. Yet for the USA there will be no forgetting Sept. 11. We will remember every rescuer who died in horror. We will remember every family that lives in grief. We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls. We will remember the funerals of the children."

#3 though... why? hmmm... well
3) Our farm was started just shy of 100 years ago. My great-grandpa had a storybook farm with chickens, rabbits, and a couple cows. When my grandpa decided to stay on and take ownership- they expanded to milking 22 cows in the 1930's. When my dad and his 2 brothers decided to stay on and take ownership- they expanded to milking 150 cows. Now we have come to the next generation and we pray that we can continue this tradition! There are several family members from the 4th generation that are ready for the challenge. We are building a whole new farm on a whole new site about 1 mile north of the original farm. The new farm will house 500 cows that will be milked by 8 robotic milkers!

We are very excited for next year's Neighbor Night to be held at the new site!
This year was the 6th annual event. The entertainment/location may change but the purpose of Neighbor Night won't: To educate/update the community about SwissLane Farms practices and goals through open dialouge while enjoying good food in a family-fun atmosphere.