Don't Mess With Milk

I love Sunday's.  The Lord's Day.  A day of Rest.  The beginning of a new week.  And the only day you can take a Sunday afternoon nap.  I love Sunday's.
Just to give you some background...
  We have been a little lighter on the labor force this week(end) due to some much needed vacations.  It was our(Jerry and I) weekend "on"  (we are dairy farmers so really almost all weekends- unless we are on vacation- we are working.... but just not- well.... lets just say it's complicated and pretty much if you're a dairy farmer you don't get a day-off very often.  Even when it's not your "weekend-on")  So anyway, busy weekend.  But it went very well.  Even though it was the hottest, record breaking, sweltering heat I have ever endured- my calves all look great!  Very satisfying.  I have been looking forward to my Sunday nap since 4:30am Saturday. 
After church, I decided to check Twitter "real quick" before I snuggled up, and came across this article:
Got-milk? You Don't Need It

And that is what killed my Sunday nap:(
Here is the comment I posted (that took me way to long to write):

Mark,
I am not too familiar with your work but reading your bio above it says you wrote “Food Matters,” which explored the crucial connections among food, health and the environment."
Food, health and the environment are some values very important to me too. That is why I find satisfaction in being a dairy farmer.
I am a mom of 3 and listening to my kids pour and mix chocolate milk for their snack as I type. I am glad they don't have an allergy so it is very easy for them to get 9 essential nutrients from 1 little glass.
I have been a runner for about 20 years and completed a couple of marathons. I have found my recovery to be much quicker when I started using chocolate milk as a post-run drink.
I love, love being outside with my animals and am so humbled to be responsible for the land that my great-grandfather passed on to other generations. I know that my job is to leave it in better condition for my kids.
As you were posting this article, my family was working 10-16 hour days during the hottest week in history trying to care for our animals. I am on my way back to the farm now trying "to make a living producing and selling milk." This article makes that just a little more challenging today.


Yes, and then I can't just leave it at that- I go and take even more of my precious Sunday-Afternoon-Nap-Time to tell all you fine folks about my frustrations.  Post/Rant Completed:) 
And now, back to the barn!  Have a great Sunday!

Building Barns

I thought about waiting to post on the new calf barns until they were completed....but I am too excited and just in case you were driving by and wondering 'what on earth those crazy farmers are up to now?'
Well this isn't something that just came out of nowhere we have been just kind of hunkering down and working our way through our problem of having cows that are too healthy-they are living longer and having lots of babies!
I know, I know its not a bad problem but we don't want to overcrowd our "girls" and we hate HATE selling them. Which is what we have had to do for the past 2 years.
So finally, we feel like we are at a point where we feel confident in the decision to build barns and let this natural growth occur.
The addition will add 48 individual pens for newborn heifers and 10 pens for transition (2-4month old, groups of 6).
This building process couldn't have started any later...we have had quite the week so far. In the past 36 hours there were 10 calves born, 9 were heifers and 1 bull! (And amazingly, no...none of them were gender-select calves....let's leave that topic for a later post:)

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