Over the weekend...

Every Monday my kids report to their class about what they did "Over the Weekend."  Here is a Farm Mom's report after a busy weekend...


Friday, March 22, 2013
4:00PM:  Get the kids off the bus.  Finish packing up a few last items and head into Lowell to setup our first-ever Expo booth!
6:00PM:  Head to the St. Mary's for the Fish Fry  (Yay!  I don't have to cook!)
7:00PM:  Hubby drops me and my daughter off at my friend's house.  She did a presentation on her mission trip to Kenya.
9:00PM:  Answer phone calls, texts, gather a few more items for the booth, get kids to bed
10:00PM:  Bedtime














Saturday, March 23, 2013
3:57AM:  My alarm goes off (but I don't get up because I like to push Snooze 2 times)
4:11AM:  Eat a bowl of cereal and put on 3 layers of clothes- Spring has not sprung here yet. BRRR!
4:20AM:  Arrive at the farm.  (I have a 1 mile commute.)  Mostly, I feed grain/milk/hay and care for new or sick babies.  A few highlights from Saturday morning chores:

A few days ago our vet put a cast on this calf because her momma stepped on her  right after she was born.  He is giving her a painkiller and perscribed me to do it for 3 days.  So, I had to tend to her.

I got to see Pepper giving birth to a new litter of kitties!

She had them in the rooster's hideout!  He was so freaked out he didn't even crow once  all morning!

This guy here was born around 5AM.  After his momma licked him clean , I fed him colostrum, gave him his vaccinations, and tucked him into his pen. (That's just the flash from the phone camera. His eyes really aren't scary at all.)
7:51AM:  Speed home to take a light-speed shower and grab a few more items for the booth

8:30AM:  The Dairy Discovery/SwissLane Farms booth at the Lowell EXPO!  We had 500 cartons of TruMoo (donated by DFA- Thank you!), SwissLane Specialty Cheese samples, and Farm Fresh Maple Syrup.  It was a great day!  We sold out of 2 kinds of cheese and all of our Quarts of syrup and gave away all the milk!
1:10PM:  Do a radio interview about Dairy Discovery/SwissLane Farms being a first-time vendor at the EXPO

3:00PM:  Tear down EXPO booth
4:30PM:  Head to the mall with Mom, Sis and the girls for our annual Easter dress shopping trip!
8:00PM:  Home.  Throw some left-overs and frozen goods together for a Not-So-Impressivve dinner
8:30PM:  Head to the gas station for a Red Box movie.  We watched Brave.  (Pretty cute movie but I will not be accepting any "peace- offering" baked goods from any of my children.)
10:00PM:  Bedtime


Sunday, March 24, 2013
5:37AM:   My alarm goes off (but I don't get up because I like to push Snooze 2 times)
5:50AM:  Wake up my daughter(the farm kids will work 1 or 2 mornings a month feeding calves).  She can't drive so that means I get to help too
6:12AM:  Arrive (fashionably late) to feed the bull calves

8:30AM:  Come home to a Pancake Breakfast!  Dad and the boys even made us some bacon to go along with :)  Get the kids/me/hubby in our Easter-best for the Sunday School program at church

10:30AM:  Church. (Got all teary-eyed as I listened to my kids sing At the Cross and He Arose.  PTL!)

12:00PM:  Me and daughter leave straight from church with my Mom and Dad to go to my niece's graduation from Michigan State in Lansing (its about an hour drive).  I am a proud "Auntie."  (I did hesitate to post this pic- I couldn't for the life of me, find an Easter dress for me.  Just look at my beautiful niece and daughter OK?)
3:30PM:  Grab a snack at Old Chicago to celebrate!  Me and daughter leave the party early to go to another party
5:45PM:  Arrive at my God-daughter's 9th birthday celebration
8:50PM:  Home.  Put kids to bed.  Crash on the couch.
9:15PM:  Blog post on a busy weekend.
11:59PM:  Bedtime *Please note this is only an estimate as I am deeply upset at the format of this post!!  I will probably try for way too long to fix the margins.  I added all the pics through the Blogger App on my phone because I thought it would be easier.  I know...TMI.  But sometimes a rant can make a lady feel better.

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!

A story fit for a farm

This past week we had an older, pre-fresh(or really pregnant) cow that wasn't feeling so good and we just couldn't figure out what the problem was. Our vet gave us some tips on how to treat her symptoms and keep her comfortable and we were kind of relieved when she started to calve in hopes that would turn things around. Little did we know that she was pregnant with TRIPLETS!
My dad claims that since the beginning of Swisslane's existence there have only been 2 cases of triplets before this and none of the calves have survived. I would love to say that this case ended in storybook fashion but it's just a good ending with some farm-life reality too.
All 3 calves were heifers! This is not only rare but great because when cattle have multiples that are different sexes the females are sterile in about 80-90% of cases. These heifers are called a freemartin and raised along with the bull calves.
Sadly, one of the calves didn't make it. As for the other 2, they are happy and healthy. There is just one small flaw with baby #2- she has no ears!



Just these little buds- its very strange-but we still like her! She won't have eartags- everyone will just know her and she's already getting some special treatment as the kids fight over who gets to feed "No Ears" her bottle at night.

The cow did end up passing away 2 days after calving. Her legacy will live on through her girls. And we have another case to support using ultra-sound technology on our pregnant cows- something that we have talked about but just haven't been able to justify that kind of an investment. Its hard to not question "What if...?" But looking at how far technology has advanced cow health it won't be long before cases like this will end happily ever after!

Tunnel Vision

The new high-tech ventilation system is finally up and running in the calf barn!
This is such a simple idea- a plastic tube runs down the center of the barn and a fan pushes fresh air through tiny holes placed all down the tube.
We are really excited to see if this helps cut down the number of coughs and colds that some of our babies are susceptible to. We like raising our calves indoors to keep them from being stressed by extreme cold and heat and now we can give them fresh air too!
Our biggest priority is their health and well-being and this is just another tool to help us do that.
We are especially thankful to our veterinarian who helped us design this system and customize it to our barn and for always being an advocate for the health of our future milking herd!

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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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A Cast for A Calf

This is a feisty little calf that is about 3 months old.
We suspect that she got a little rambunctious when the pens were being bedded with sawdust and got her leg caught in a gate and broke the bone right below her left front knee.
Luckily, our vet is here every Friday and he got her all patched up with a fancy-looking cast:)
She should be good as new in 5-6 weeks. In the meantime, she will be getting aspirin for 3-4 days to alleviate some of her discomfort.

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