Family Fun at the Farm

The boys and I attended Family Fun at the Farm today, while Kris volunteered in the milk parlor.  It was a great event!  At Jem-Lot Dairy, people could see cows being milked, feed calves, make butter, see pigs and baby chicks, eat ice cream, see farm machinery ... and more!  It was all so well-organized, informative, and yes - fun, just as advertised.  Way to go, committee! 

It's a lot of work to have one of these, and I'm really grateful to the farmers who do it.  In fact, the farmers hosting this one - Leroy and Stephanie Schafer - also baled our alfalfa yesterday and today.  They do what's called custom baling.  That means farmers pay them to bale their fields with their giant baler.

We baled this entire second cutting of alfalfa because we like to have the bales to feed the cattle.  This is in addition to feeding them the alfalfa chopped - feeding them dry alfalfa versus fermented, chopped alfalfa gives them a different type of feed.  It's dry, it's longer, and it forms a sort of mat for their rumen. 

Kris was taking bales out of the field until he couldn't see anymore last night.  There was a chance of rain and he wanted to get as much done as possible - because you don't want the bales to get rained on.  So as they're being baled, you pick them up, put them on a wagon, take the wagon to the barn, unload them with a skid steer into the barn.  Repeat!  Until finished!

We were really rooting for it to rain today ... and just as it started to rain, we were just about finished with the fields.  A few got rained on, but we'll just feed those right away.

So!  Lots going on.  Kris is busy, like all farmers this time of year.  But in case you didn't know ... June is Dairy Month.  It's a good time for it.  There's no time for anything else!