Home sweet home

Did you happen to catch all the national news about the ice storm crippling Atlanta? We just spent the last 13 hours traveling from there to here!

We first walked - and narrowly missed being hit by a car that was unable to stop at an intersection due to driving on an inch of solid ice - took the train, spent 4 hours at the airport, flew, came home to terrible snow, drove 40 mph for 3 hours in the rental car with very nice strangers to the airport where our car was parked but we couldn't fly into, got our car and drove home. With a baby!

We were there to attend the 92nd American Farm Bureau conference - our first. Good time, interesting, and met super fun people. I'll fill you in on it later. Right now, I'm going to bed to dream about next year's conference location - Hawaii. And wonder how it'll look under the ice that's bound to cover it next January.

Dairy Droid

We got Droids last night. I read the statistic today that 56% percent of Americans accessed the Internet on their phones last year. So we’re joining the majority.

Kris justified it by how helpful it’ll be for him to have it on the farm, when he’s rarely sitting in front of a computer. He’s called me many times to have me look up online directions, or a place name, or the current weather. These phones do everything, it seems. He’s going to use it to look up conversions of weights and measures, take good pictures, check the weather radar, and already used a stopwatch app this morning to time the amount of feed that goes into the mixer.

I justified mine by ‘wanting one’.

He downloaded a dairy-specific app – we’re going to remain in the dark about what it did, because it was in French. C’est la vie! I’m sure they’ll only get better.

Communicating

We had our local MMPA (Michigan Milk Producers Association) meeting today. We have one once a year. It’s a time to hear about all the latest news, vote on positions, and meet with farmers in your area.

Since we’ve been farming, a main point at all of our meetings (Farm Bureau, MMPA, etc.) has been that farmers need to communicate with the public through social media. I sat, bored, through one presentation that introduced Facebook, Twitter, and blogs as if they were new ideas. Kris whispered to me that not everyone worked at a software development company (yay, TechSmith!) for seven years, and not everyone read blogs every day, and that’s who the presentation was geared toward.

When I tell people I’ve started a blog, I’m sort of sheepish (and not even in the livestock sense), because I’m approximately the 439583746 millionth blog on the internet. When I mentioned this to Kris, he pointed out that there aren’t that many dairy farming blogs. I think mostly dairy farmers are busy dairy farming, and not blogging about it. Thus, this is where I come in! Kris is doing the actual work, and I’m doing the writing!

Last year at the meeting they had an open position – dairy communicator. Dairy communicators volunteer at events to promote dairy, write to lawmakers, and generally promote dairy farming. I asked another woman who’d done it, and she said that you can do as much or as little as you have time to do. (She had four teenagers. I figured if she had time, I had time.) So I took the position.

Through this past year, they’ve invited me to events and conferences. I’ve not been able to go to even one. Since I also couldn’t attend today’s meeting, I asked Kris to mention my blog. So I’m trying to hold up my end in the dairy communicator position. Even though I can’t be physically present at the events, I can bring the sights and scenes of the farm to you through the wonder of the internet.

Not the smells, though. Poor iSmell – a device that "was supposed to emit odors as users surfed scent-enabled websites" – would probably be really helpful in bringing the farm to life.

That's what it's all about ...

Kris said that now with the feeder working, the milk production is back up. That's really our gauge of how our cattle are dealing with changes. Every day when the milk truck comes, we see how many pounds of milk they've taken out of our tank. It also gives us all the components, meaning it tells us how much fat was in the milk, how much protein, and how much other solids. They take these readings at the lab and email them to us. The history is online, so we can compare from day to day.

The amount of milk the cows give changes based on many factors. When less of them could eat at one time, the milk production went down. When the weather changes, it takes them a little while to get adjusted, and the milk production goes down for awhile. When we make feed changes, it can go up. Sometimes it goes up or down and then we have to figure out the reason.

Our milk has higher butterfat content than whole milk. It tastes like candy. When you put it on cereal, it coats it like cream. Have you heard the term 'lace' used to describe the foam left in a glass after a beer has been drained? Our milk leaves really heavy lace. Like the kind of lace you might wear outside in the winter.

So, the more milk they give, the more money we make. The fattier it is, the more money we make. Reason being? Milk is mostly water. Dairy products - butter, ice cream, cheese - are made out of the solids. The higher the solids, the more manufactured products that can come out of the milk.

So with the feeder back on track, so are the numbers. Slather that butter, scoop that ice cream, and pile on the cheese. It's winter, it's cold, and we all need to be a little more solid to keep warm.

News feed

Good news! Remember the belt on the feeder that was broken? The part just got in (I'm blaming the slowness on my personal theory that all productive works stops between Thanksgiving and the new year) and two men came to replace it this afternoon. Hopefully it'll all run smoothly during today's second feeding.

Here's the main feeder that still works:



Here's the back feeder, minus the broken belt:



What you can't see is that these run the entire length of the barn. What you can't see is that they move. That you can't see is that when it starts up, the cattle get super excited. What you can't see is much more interesting than what you can see. So come and visit, and I'll show you a feeder in action! ... Maybe even two working ones.

Heaven scent

Over Christmas break, I went for a walk with my sister and nephew. As soon as we stepped outside, my 7-year-old city-dwelling nephew made a face and said, "It smells like cow manure."

"It does? It does?" I said, sniffing the air. I couldn't smell anything.

"Yeah," my sister said. "Well, I can't really place whether it's feed or manure. It smells like ... a farm."

I tried and tried, but I couldn't smell anything other than 'the outside.' It's not like I'm incapable of smelling manure. I can smell it when we're spreading it on the fields, I can smell it when I'm in the barn. But on normal days I never walk outside (and we were a half mile from a barn!) and think about smelling cow manure.

In college, I spent a summer living in Colorado. When I came home, I went running around my parents' house and I couldn't get over the way everything smelled SO MUCH. Obviously, in Colorado the air is thinner. Also, I was living in the city. So when I returned to the humid, smell-drenched country, I couldn't get enough of the scent! The wonderful scent!

My nephew stopped talking about the smell as we continued on our walk - he was too busy giggling with his cousin, running, and throwing rocks. Even though I couldn't smell what he smelled, I still know what he'll think of when he smells it. The hominess of visiting the farm.

And I taught him what we taught our kids as soon as they could speak. (And what all farmers teach their kids.) What do you say when you smell manure? ... SMELLS LIKE MONEY!

Hello, new year

Kris and I spent a few days in Chicago to celebrate the new year. On New Year's Eve it was 55 degrees, the next day 15 degrees, with a wind chill of 0!

Driving back, Kris commented on how this weather was really nice for farmers. All the snow melted, but it's freezing, so everything isn't sloppy and messy. Everything stays cleaner - equipment as well as cattle.

It made me think about how your attitudes about weather change. A friend told me this summer, "I was depressed it was raining, but then I thought - Carla said her crops needed rain. So then I was happy for you, anyway! I never thought about it that way before."

When we were walking to dinner one night, two girls stopped us to ask where a certain hotel was. We didn't know that one, and Kris added, "We don't live here." "Oh! Okay!" she said. You never want to look like a tourist, so we were glad we blended in. (The Carhartt label on Kris' winter hat was very small.)

So as you look out over your frozen, snowless view (check local listings), remember that it's making some farmers very happy. Even farmers in the big city.