Holidays

It's been a whirlwind of parties and family! Kris and the guys get the necessary work done, then Kris returns to whatever holiday activity we're doing next. You know how it goes - party at his parents' house, my parents' house, visitors staying with you, lunches, dinners, basketball games, and eating. Lots of eating.

All five of us also got the flu - Kris was sick on Christmas Eve. He was too sick to go to church with us, but he had to go feed the cows. (There they go again, wanting to eat EVEN on holidays and when he has the flu!) Luckily, no one had it for very long and we were quickly able to resume our excessive eating schedule.

We were with some friends yesterday and my friend Molly said, "I gave up wine for Lent and didn't miss it. But I could never give up milk. I have dreams that I'm in line at the store and people keep cutting in front of me and I can't get to the milk."

We laughed, but I loved that. That's dedication to a product! I support dairy promotion, and when you have fans like that, it's an easy sell.

Also, today is our 10 year wedding anniversary. Ten years ago, we got married in the church we now go to, never imagining that we'd one day own a dairy farm. Here's a toast to many more years ... wine or milk in your glass - it works either way!

It just wouldn’t be a holiday without something breaking

The feeder belt broke this morning. We have two feeders in the barn, a main feeder and a back feeder. This is how a feeder works – the feed goes from the mixer into a series of elevators that moves the feed to the center of the barn. Then the feed drops on a conveyor belt, which moves the feed through the entire barn so the cattle can eat it out of a manger. (Manger! We’re still hitting the Christmas theme!)

All the complexity of it is why people don’t build feeders anymore. We have feeders like this because they were state of the art in the early 1970s when the barn was built. When people build barns now, they design them so they can just drive a mixer wagon through the middle of the barn and dump it on the cement floor.

The belt broke on only the back feeder. Since the main feeder still worked, it wasn’t a disaster – just less cows could eat at one time. To fix it, we have to call an agricultural supply store that will probably have one in stock. But they’re not open on Sundays.

Even before that, Kris noticed that the cable you pull to direct the feed to the different feeders had snapped. It was old and rusty. He temporarily used a vise grips as the handle.

The first thing broke on Christmas Day. After every milking, they scrape manure out of the barn alleys into manure pits. The manure scraper is a huge tire cut in half with a frame on it that attaches to the tractor. The mounting bolt pulled through the frame. The tire was sagging away from the frame, and now that it’s been used for two days like that, it’s pulling apart. The frame is rusty from – guess what! – being covered in manure all the time.

Since, like everyone else, we and the employees are doing Christmas-y things, we’re trying to limp into next week until anyone has time to fix anything.

That’s something that’s not an easy fix - people. We have great employees and are always thankful for them, this time of the year and always! So, back to the real world this week … after a few more Christmas parties.

It's Christmastime in the country

Last night at 2:21am Kris' phone rang. There was the usual chaos of him scrambling to make the noise stop - slamming his alarm clock, grabbing the phone ... before he saw it was a salesman, obviously dialing him on accident. (Unless he's just a really persistent salesman? THE most in the world?) Kris just hung up and went back to sleep.

Like most business owners, Kris can't turn off his phone at night. Before we bought the farm, my parents wanted to make sure we knew that ... that you're really never off of work when you're at home.

On holidays, the cows still need milking and feeding, but you don't do anything extra. Just the bare minimum, so you can spend the rest of the time with your family, like most everybody.

Except that salesman. Maybe he's making some more calls today.

Merry Christmas to all!