Today the farm was a bustle of activity ... Kris commented on how Wednesday is always the busiest day, because it's the day everyone in the world is working. Mondays and Fridays - not so much!
Nutritionist
The nutritionist came for his regular visit to take feed samples and talk about corn silage fermentation. Kris loves talking nutrition with him. (They're also friends.) They also go through the barns to look at the cow's manure to see how firm it is, and see how much corn they can see in it. OH, THE GLAMOUR! But yes, very important. Sort of like ... how moms monitor their babies' diapers.
Note: Our nutritionist has a PhD in animal nutrition.
Workman's Comp Auditor
Every so often the insurance auditor comes to check our books and make sure we're compliant with workman's comp. Our meeting was today. We're legit. Though we'd prefer no one ever gets hurt.
Note: She has been doing audits for 27 years.
Tire company
The tire company came to put duals on our tractor. We tried out a new disc (which is a field implement), and we thought that if we had dual tires it wouldn't slip when pulling it. It still sort of does, so we might have to just not buy the disc. But we'll keep the big tires. Better traction and stability never hurts.
Note: This is the first time we've used this company. It's amazing how many tire choices there are.
Trucking company
We moved some of our heifers over to our heifer raisers' farm. Our heifers have been outside since spring in the pasture. We don't have a barn for all of them for the winter, so we pay a heifer raiser to keep them at his place until the spring, when we put them back out on pasture.
Note: One of our long-time employees now works with his dad at his dad's trucking company. Always nice to see them - they do all of our cattle trucking. Our heifer raisers have been taking care of some of our cattle in the winter for two years now, and they also have ... twins!
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| (Why is Max in shorts and Kris in a winter hat? Because one of them is not still pretending it's summer.) |
When you think about a farm ... all these people and all these businesses are involved. There are businesses whose entire purpose is to fix milking equipment! (They're hugely in demand.) It's not just us, alone, on a farm. There's no chance to be lonely. We even have a driveway alarm to alert us when people are here - you never know when someone will stop by, looking for us! There's us, our employees, their families ... then all these businesses and their families ... we're all in it together. The farm is more than just a family farm. It's a community effort!
No matter what day of the week we're all working.
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