An Adventure of a Lifetime- Ireland

Hello All,

I know it has been a while since I have updated my blog, life has been busy with work around the farm but we did take some time for family. As most farmers know, it is very important to spend time with family and sometimes we are fortunate enough to take a vacation.

I have always wanted to go to Ireland for my Irish roots and just because everyone says it is beautiful. Well it is! Here are some pictures from our adventures to Ireland in August. We definitely will never forget this special trip!

Enjoy,

The Milkmaid

Round straw bales, we did get to see one field being combined
but I wasn't fast enough to take a picture. There was so much
agricultural on all of our adventures. Great place to go for an
Ag Tour.

Picking up and loading on trucks

Cattle

Large squares

Kilkenny 

Kilkenny Castle- one of the many we visited

It was always so green and beautiful every where we drove! 

Waterford Crystal- a must do while in Ireland!

Beautiful!

Dairy Cattle on top of the hill, there was many dairy farms along
our drives and we enjoyed seeing so many!

Tractor driving, everyone was very friendly to farm vehicles!

Beautiful Coastline drive

Sheep

Tractor driving on what we would consider highways.. crazy! 

Blarney Castle- and yes hubs kissed the stone!

Limerick

One of the many churches we visited

Cliffs of Moher

They were breath-taking!

Rock fences- I do not know how they keep the animals in!

Galway 

An Irish performer along the streets in Galway

Dublin- From the top tower at Guiness

Dairy Cattle!!

Beef Cattle

Narrow Roads! 

April Showers Bring May Flowers- Or Grass We Hope!

Ah, April.

Such a pretty month one of my favorites really. Spring is showing up, the grass is green, trees are getting their leaves and the temperature (while it goes up and down and changes every 15 minutes it seems, it is Kansas you know?) is nicer than winters but cooler than summer. Ahh. Spring. My favorite time of the year.

Spring brings new life. New life is important to any farmer. Whether it is a new baby calf, horse, sheep, goat or pig-- you choose your fancy, or seeing your wheat green and growing, corn once it is planted sprout or whatever plant you raise in the ground ready to come up and produce. It is a time for many housewives or househusbands, single ladies and gents to get their gardens started and flowers planted and to start the mowing season. Ah Spring.

Many people do not understand why agriculturists like ourselves have to burn our pastures and fields. There are many benefits to doing this for our type of work. As for many ranchers and farmers it is to keep the nutrients needed to help our animals grow and to keep weed and tree problems low.

Here are a few good posts explaining pasture burning:

• From The Pioneer Woman: Why We Burn Our Pastures
• From Rain Cow Ranch: Why Would A Grass Farmer Burn Pasture?
• From Backyard Ranch: Pasture Burning

All of these blogs describe why pasture burning is a necessity for farming operations. I understand that many are concerned for the environment and general safety of the public. But I can assure you that we work with EPA and the regulations in agriculture every day and we obtain our burn permits with our local fire stations and counties to help better your food. Plain and simple. We have to do things to help produce enough food for all of us to eat and these are just some of the ways we can effectively do just that. Every year the amount of food needing produced raises and even if you are a vegan or vegetarian, someone still has to produce your food and a lot of it. So next time you are eating whatever it may be, please do not just criticize us for how we do it and how you believe it is wrong. Take some time to find a farmer/rancher ask them questions and get the real advice from the person working every day to grow that meal for you to consume.  Many of you would be surprised to find out the #truth behind what really goes and on and why we burn pastures or use certain chemicals (that never reach you or I) in order to produce enough wholesome great tasting food for both of us to enjoy.

We have been blessed with some rain showers already and we were lucky enough to have all of our corn in the ground for that rain as well. A few of the pastures that were burned in our area are already turning green and beautiful with new fresh lush grass- and I can't wait to watch ours join them and the corn to sprout!

Sorry for all those that have those nasty allergies-- I know you hate spring, but as for me-- I'm getting my camera out and loving this time. Happy Spring!



The Milkmaid 


(P.S.- This is all from the beginning of April-- sorry for the late upload!)

Farming is Dangerous-- And It Can Hurt.

The other night, I was going to write this but I just could not manage too. I had a horrible headache, felt dizzy, a little nauseated and just wanted to go to sleep. So I did.

Here is the real life of being a farmer. You get hurt. And it happens-- most days in some way.

Usually it is a small wound, no doctor needed and you either just ignore it or you give in to your wife/sister/daughter telling you to go inside, clean it up and bandage it. Thankfully, we have never had to many major injuries on our farm-- but there is a HUGE chance every day. I know there is a risk at every job but folks lets be honest-- I know way to many other farmers that can tell you about personal injuries or even death of a family member from working on the farm. Did you know that in 2012 there was 374 farmers/farm workers that died according to the CDC (link here). Many more injuries and accidents occur every day-- this is a serious deal.

(Here is a good article about farm accidents and how serious they are on Modern Farmer: Death on the Farm.)

Today, I am thankful that I am alive. I was very lucky to not get more seriously hurt the other night and that I walked away with just a slight concussion. I was opening the gates into the holding pen to let the cows in for the evening milking. I tapped a cow with the gate to get her to move out of the way so that I could hook it in front of the alley way-- well apparently she did NOT like that. She kicked the gate and before I knew it this heavy metal gate went straight to my head. Right above my temple. Thank the Good Lord that it did not hit any harder or any lower and I may not be here to write this blog or spend another day alive.

However, me being me, I did not go to the doctor, I iced it for a bit made sure it was not cut opened and after 15 minutes of so went back out (lucky me, my sister is a nurse and happened to be there when this happened so she checked it over) and did the whole milking and the milking the next morning before taking the night off. I still have a few minor headaches but it could be the weather. The moral of the story is-- in the matter of seconds everything could change and it is a dangerous world. I am thankful for being alive and that it was not worse. Be thankful-- for every one and every thing.

I had thought that from my morning milking that things would go ten times better that day. I had already slipped and fell, causing a huge bruise on my hip and then a cow kicked my hand up in the panel and cut it open in two places. Minor injuries to what would happen that night. Let's just say my new nickname on the farm is proving itself more and more. "Cow Boom" started because of my many small injuries and because I started a tractor on fire-- yeah that was a fun night! (no worries the tractor is fine and running still) here is too hoping nothing worse happens!

Be thankful my friends-- you never know what will happen tomorrow!



The Milkmaid 

Here is some pictures I took-- doesn't really do it
justice but still the best I could get!
And sorry for the faces-- I didn't exactly
feel the best.

Luckily for me-- it is just black and blue now
minus the headaches

The Good Ole V-Day...Bull.

By now all the Valentine’s Day candy has been ate, the flowers have died and life is back to the grind. Another holiday down and I could not be more thankful. I am not one of those big holiday people. I do not enjoy Valentine's Day at all. Even though I have one, my heart goes out to those that do not and I can remember when I was that single girl and hated the holiday even more. Luckily for me, the whole love thing grows in my heart every time a new calf is born cause who can’t resist the sweet face of a little baby calf? It just got me thinking about the change that came that first Valentine’s Day with my hubs. The one where I asked that we do not celebrate it cause shouldn’t we celebrate our love every day? Yeah. I asked him to keep it pretty simple. So we did and still do very minimal celebrating goes on for the love day but we still show it every day and take the time to go out on "dates" when we can.

Now....

This is my love. Finding a new baby calf early in the morning and showering it with love and care. Meet Miss Little Red (for now, until I think of a good name anyway) 

I found her not long after she had been born, her momma #19 did a good job and cleaned her up for the most part but had her in a bad spot. She was shivering cold and needed dried off a bit more. So for the first time in over a year (usually hubs or dad are around for this part, but it was just me this morning) I picked her up and carried her into our bulk tank room. There I placed her in front of the heater and on some used feed sacks so the concrete wouldn't be so cold. I took some towels and rubbed her down and used a hair dryer to warm her up and dry her off. She was a good calf and just laid there for me after having bawled as I carried her causing every cow to become momma cow and follow me up to the barn bawling back... Quite the chatter this morning! 

Finally she was cleaned up for the most part and by then my dad had showed up to help me with the milking. I placed a calf coat on her and went back to milking. I milked her momma to get her that nice good colostrum that every baby needs. She was a happy camper for sure and I was happy for her but had to go on and finish my chores instead of just sitting there and playing with her all morning. Work must be finished and my other R&Ws would probably get pretty jealous of me not paying attention to them. 

My dad and I were thrilled to see she was a Red and White Holstein. We purchased a R&W bull last spring and hoped we would get some out of him even though we don't have many R&W cows. Well #19 is not a R&W, she is black and white so we were beyond thrilled to see Little Red. I, however, do not like Red Bull. He is a typical Holstein bull. If you have never been warned here it is, stay clear of Holstein bulls as much as possible. I don't know why but they get pretty feisty and are not so friendly after a while. Now that is not true of all Holstein bulls, we have had bulls that we can pet and our just little sweeties. Red Bull and I have a day to day relationship. Some days he just watches me and leaves me alone to get the cows in and other days he is kicking up dirt, hollering and following me or stirring up the cows and being a pain in the bull. My dad usually gets to get the cows in on those days cause he just doesn't mess with the man in charge. Men. Hmmph. 

Unfortunately, dealing with cold calves and feisty bulls are just part of the job description. A job I wouldn't change for anything. Just sometimes you wish others could understand all that goes into being any type of farmer and how big our hearts are full of love. 

My love for my cows and job goes on twice a day every day. My cows see love every time they are milked, fed or just go out to check on them. My favorite part of the day is petting my cows Annabel and Pineapple. They are my red and whites, my prize and joy, and now this sweet little girl... Even though she looks too much like the bull! 

Until next time,

The Milkmaid

P.S. - no sweet resolution update 50 days strong! 100 more to go! 

Goin' Visiting!

Last weekend, we got to go on a little trip to the south and to the east to visit some good friends. It was a great time with some good laughs and learning more about where they live and plan on returning for another visit hopefully sooner rather than later but they understand how farming goes.

I was especially excited to go visit Kodie's dairy farm. I met Kodie through my husband because they took many college classes together and then since this world is so "small" she was marrying the son of my father's good childhood friend, who also had a dairy at one time. Funny how you all get connected together at some point! 

Kodie had the chance to visit our farm twice before I got to go hers and she told me her barn was set up very different than mine, boy, she was right! I love when I get to experience seeing how other dairies work. It is exciting and I always love getting tips on how to improve my dairy. 

Here are a few differences

-she milks twice as many cows as me

-she does not have weigh jars

-she has more milking units than me, but the same number of cows in a group

-she has a parallel like me but her cows slide into set position unlike my free moving ladies 

-her cows are on pasture year round vs my cows have a little outside pen but have a barn to go into whenever they want 

-her calves are in individual huts vs mine which have pens inside the barn and usually two to a pen 

-she wakes up and milks way earlier than me! 

-her cows exit out of the side they were milked on (two exit doors) vs my one exit door both sides exit out of (we can change it to be a two door exit) 

Here are a few similarities:

-we both feed in the barn

-we have high line milk lines 

-we use the same supply guy, Phil

-we both feed, silage to our cows and hay (but we feed Alfalfa too and she does not) 

-both barns are well aged and have seen many cows (Kodies was built in 1972 and ours in 1980)

-we both work for our dads 

-most of all, we love our ladies!! 

Those are just a few things, each dairy farm is unique in their own way. It is so thrilling to me to see other dairies and yes I am one of those that when I go on vacation and if I can go see a dairy farm I will stop if we can! Hubs and I just last year in January went to Fair Oaks Farms in Fair Oaks, IN. A very large dairy (which is an under statement) has interactive tours and is great to take kids too for a hands on learning and experience, check them out! 

Another goal of mine would be to visit a dairy in every state! So if you are another dairy farmer in some other state than Kansas (or even a KS farmer) I would love to be able to come visit your dairy! Luckily dairy judging practices on our way to contests have gave me a chance to see many dairies in other states. I would also love to visit an organic dairy farm and learn how your process works verse how mine does and really understand an "organic" perspective. 

If you would like to follow Kodie's blog, www.thosemccollumgirls.blogspot.com 

 Here is to good friends and dairy farmers! 

The Milkmaid

A Monday Morning Surprise!

This morning, I headed to the farm thinking about the mud, water and unhappy cows. Since it rained last night, I was a little late showing up for work in the first place and dreading the mess I would be after milking. The cows have a love-hate relationship with rain. While it cools them off, they also get messy and bring their little dirty hooves into my milking parlor and like to get me just as messy.

Little did I know my dad would find a nice little surprise when he went out to bring the cows up for milking.


Twins, again!

We usually do not have twins, even though there is a one in seven chance of twins, we haven't had a set in a couple of years. This year we have been blessed so far with two sets. You may remember reading, The Scandalous Cow and Tale of Two Calves, where we had a rare set of twins born from two different sires but from the same dam. Well this may look like the same situation but it is not!

The dam (or mother cow) is a Jersey/Holstein cross and Miss Brownie looks like her. The sire (bull/father) is a pure bred Holstein and Miss Penelope looks like him. They just happen not to be identical twins but sure are cute and fun to play with.

Brownie was born smaller than Penelope, not by much but she is the smaller of the two.After we milked No. 61 (their mother) this morning, I took out a bottle to feed them. They both did a really good job drinking for the first time and then they had their navals sprayed to help not get an infection.

Miss Brownie

Miss Penelope

Both little heifers are doing well and happy in their new little shed and each other.


Happy Monday!



The Milkmaid

March-- The Month of Prepping

Hello dear reader friends—sorry it has been a while, seems life has gotten in the way. Between being sick, busy at work, taking some me time from the Facebook, blogging, social media stuff and writer’s block, I am happy to say I am back and it is more than time to get back in the game.

It seems today’s lovely high of 65 and the beautiful sun shining all day has brighten up my day. Minus that time change this morning, which the cows and I agreed was not cool. But while I didn’t like losing an hour of sleep I am done milking and sitting here watching the sunset and enjoying the beautiful weather instead of coming home to a dark house and it being too dark to see anything. I love it and it reminded me of being thankful for everything this year.

Hello Beautiful Sun!

Now, as March has so graciously came from the middle of nowhere… hello spring! Spring is one of the two busiest seasons for us. I like to call March the prepping month because we aren’t the busiest but we are getting ready for it. We have two big things to prep for: Planting and Working Cattle.

Ah, my brother’s favorite time of the year, he is one of those who can get in the tractor at 6 (sometimes even earlier) in the morning and stay in there until 10 or later at night lost in thought and enjoying every minute. He is even crazy to skip meals, but no worries I am around for that job! J I am the go to lady—Pick them up, bring lunch (and I know to make a lunch that is a snack and dinner too… I may go a bit overboard when I feed them but they are working hard and so skinny!), drop off seed, fill the planter boxes, help unload stuff, follow them to fields, pretty much ready to jump to whatever they need when my phone rings… I am there!

So what will the next few weeks consist of?

Planting- Prepping the planter and tractors, getting seed ready and picked up, making sure we know all the fields that will need planted, checking the fields, getting fertilizer and strip tilling done before planting or after depending on the situation and many more smaller tasks. Also, my brother does plots for a company and so we have to have the field worked and ready for the plot and flagged off. Plots take a while to plant and harvest but it is worth every minute to see the data and find out the statistics of that particular variety/seed for the company, us and other farmers. (Another thing my brother loves to do!)

Cattle- one of my favorite times, the moment you really know that spring is here. As you see the cute little calves off with their mommas to pasture, it is just a precious scene! Anyway, we will be ordering vaccines, tags and various small things to prep for the upcoming transition from pens to pasture for our beef cattle. We will have to prep the horn cutters (unfortunately not all of our cattle are polled) and the branding iron is prepped and ready for the day. Along with working all the cattle to get them their yearly vaccinations and prepping to keep them healthy for pastures we will be picking up a new Angus bull that we purchased and getting him adjusted to our farm and ladies. This day is a long working day but worth every minute too. While I am more a dairy girl, I love helping work the beef cattle and seeing all the babies. Look forward to many pictures of the little cuties when the day comes. Also, we will be working our dairy heifers here in the next week or two giving them their vaccinations, tagging and dehorning.

Of course, during these weeks we will still have all of our other work to do. I will still have to milk twice a day, clean the barn and pens, feed all the cattle, grind feed, help deliver babies and take a few naps when I can sneak away. J

Happy almost spring—I sure can’t wait for the warm weather to stay!

The Milkmaid

A.J. spoiling Annabel and Little Pineapple

The Scandalous Cow and The Tale of Two Calves

Boy, do I have a story for YOU.

We had quite the uproar a couple weeks ago on the farm. Before milking my dad went out to check on the cows before we brought them up into the holding pen. Well while I was finishing up washing the equipment he showed back up with some news.

He simply said, “Deanna, we may have a problem… “

Meet Three Teat.

Three Teat got her name because she only has three functioning teats. She does have all four teats but a few lactation's ago she had a bad case of Mastitis and unfortunately it took over her whole front right quarter and we could never recover it. However, we were fortunate enough to be able to keep her since it did not take over the whole udder.

Miss Three Teat had been a dry cow for the past couple months and we were keeping a close watch on her since she was due any day. And she was HUGE.  

Back to my original story here, my dad finished that statement with, “Three Teat had her calf but there are two calves out there and only Three Teat seems to have had the calf.” I am thinking to myself, “So what? We had twins, awesome!” Until he told me one was black and one was Holstein. UHHHH? WHAT?!

Now meet Deany and Jenny.

Aren't they the cutest little babies?!?

Deany and Jenny were named by my sweet little 4 year old niece for us the day they were born. The all black calf is Deany and the Holstein calf is Jenny. How lucky are you to get two calves on the same day? 

Well for us very lucky since we only have 66 cows milking right now, we do not get a calf every day like the larger dairy farms.

So, we have one cow that calved and two calves. My immediate thoughts are they must be cross bred calves no big deal. But they are NOT. The Holstein calf is a pure bred Holstein and the black calve is a Holstein/Angus cross.

How in the world did this happen?!?!?!

This was a big first on our farm. It appears that Three Teat was a bit scandalous nine months ago (283 days is the average gestation period). At the time we were running a Holstein bull and the Angus bull with our Dairy Cows. She had been bred by both bulls. You would assume whoever’s specimen got to her ovulated egg would win the race, but she had a unique pregnancy. Three Teat cycled two eggs during her ovulation period, during that time each bull successfully implanted an egg each. During the growing period, each calf grew in the opposite uterine horns. They did not share the same fluids and placentas that we could tell anyway.

Deany

Some of you may know about Free Martin Heifers. This is when you have a set of twins one is a bull and one is a heifer. This unfortunately makes the heifer infertile and given the name of a Free Martin heifer. We do not believe this is the case for our new set of twins. Since they did not share the same fluids and such the heifer should be fertile since it was as though Three Teat carried the calves separately, yet together.  A great article here about Free-Martin heifers if you would like to know more!

Jenny

We were all skeptical at first that the all black calf really was that way until we looked closely at to see if they were polled or not. Polled is a term for if they have horns or not. Jenny has some bumps on her head and is not polled, while Deany is smooth and a polled calf. We know for sure that they do not share the same father because of this simple trait because the Polled trait is the dominant trait. Therefore, if both bulls would have been polled each calf would have been too. However, the Holstein bull is not a polled bull (I wish he was though!). Crazy huh?

Even crazier, the twins were not born premature and both weighed around the normal weight for a newborn calf. I was not kidding when I said she was HUGE, when she exited the milkbarn she could barely fit through the doors.

The twins are doing well and making great progress for twin calves. Momma is doing well and back in the herd working full time again and everyone had a good time telling friends and family about our little scandal! J

It really was a once in a life time experience and I have only read one other story about it happening, somewhat like our story! 

Here is to you having an interesting day of your own!

The Milkmaid  

The Gift of Giving

Every year we like to give back to our land lords, customers, friends and family. It is important to show how much we appreciate each of them. This is what we do during the holiday season.

The last few years we have just given them some cheese and a Christmas card, but this year I took upon myself to make some goodie bags. In these little goodie bags, I put some chocolate chip cookies and candy. According to hubs, “Everyone will obviously be able to tell there is a woman working on the farm.” Next year, I am going to strive to make some candies and chocolate covered pretzels but this year I had limited time because of my parent’s trip.

Delicious Cookie Dough!

Baking in the Oven

188 cookies later...

Now, I have to tell you all about my love for baking. It all started several years ago, when my grandmother taught me all I know about baking. She was my inspiration for many things, including learning how to play the piano, milking cows and reading Amish books. We spent quite a few hours together in the milk barn when I was in middle school and high school talking about the Amish and our love for learning about them and many other things. She taught me so much about hard work and giving back to others. If you ever need pop or cookies, you can go into the house and if you are there for lunch she always has enough for everyone (including all our friends and workers that may just show up unannounced!). Well, the recipe I made is my grandma’s and I will not lie, she makes them way better than I do and they look neater. But as I was taught by her and my mother, “they were made with love” and that makes them the best.

My love for agriculture, helping feed the world and giving is the love I put into these cookies to share a little holiday spirit with our friends.

Cute little Snowman bags

Candy

Cookies (Which have taken 1st Place
at the State Fair a couple of times :) )

                  It is always important to give back 

and it is always a joy to see it spread a smile on others faces.

Hubs was nice and helped me put the goodie bags together.

My gift of giving every year is giving every day of life to agriculture. Working sun up to sun down, long hours and short hours, hot and cold, wet and dry, morning and night, healthy and sick, whatever it may be. My “love of giving” is helping others be fed, clothed and so much more that you get from agriculture, along with every other farmer. What is your love of giving?

Finished Product along with a card!

Here is to hoping you had a wonderful holiday season,

The Milkmaid