Sharp

When we got married, my aunt and uncle gave us Cutco knives. They were wonderful! I'd never owned such great cutlery - that actually cut food. Almost ten years and hundreds of meals later ... they really need a good sharpening. Today I was having difficulty slicing a thick-skinned tomato.

Likewise for the chopper. The chopper cuts the alfalfa and corn with knives. Kris was trying to adjust the position of them yesterday, and it wasn't working. It meant that they needed to be changed. So the dealer came today and took off all the old knives and put on new ones.

This is just a maintenance fix that needs to be done occasionally. Kris spent the rest of the day chopping. More tomorrow!

Maybe this'll spur me on to find some sort of sharpener for our home tools. I don't want to have trouble with that banana in the morning.

Good and bad

The good news - We fixed the leak in the pipe yesterday.
The bad news - Mike just called to say his well wasn't working. This means the heifers' waterers are affected, too. This obviously needs fixing as soon as possible.

The good news - Kris succesfully chopped corn all day.
The bad news - A cow went down.

So far, we're even. Let's hope the scales tip in the favor of good this week!



Shot Kris took while chopping corn. You can see the windshield wipers on the right.

Full day, normal day

The cows gave 2000 more pounds of milk today than yesterday! This could be due to many factors - feed, weather. But no matter what it was ... hooray!

There's lots going on around here. Today:

Josh is picking up square bales in the field. We hired a guy to bale some of our alfalfa into big square bales. We've been grinding bales so we can put the hay in the mixer and this might eliminate that step. I was watching Josh pick them up with the skid steer - they're huge! 8x4x3 feet. Definitely need a skid steer - no lifting those by hand.

We hired a guy to seed our heifer pasture. Mike finished working it up to get ready for the seed.

Mike has a big puddle in his driveway, indicating that a water line broke. It's to one of the hydrants for the water the cattle drink in the pasture. We called Miss Dig, which comes and marks all the telephone and power lines. We're going to call T.H. Miller, who will probably bring a mini excavator over, dig it up and find the leak.

Kris has a meeting tonight (like lots of nights). He just came home for lunch and currently is wrestling three boys at once.

Tomorrow, we're starting the corn harvest! Just a regular day, except for the milk influx. I'd like to make that a regular occurrence too!

Surprise

I was at a family wedding Saturday night, and I got a lot of questions about the welfare of the bloated calf. (Isn't that what you talk about at a wedding?)

After she bloated a few times, Kris separated her from the rest of the cattle and moved her into the old calf barn. He fed her only hay, instead of hay and grain like the rest of them her age were eating. She hasn't bloated since.

She is, however, lonely, which she lets us know by mooing a lot. Kris is going to move her back with her peers this next week when he's moving them onto TMR, which stands for total mix ration. It's a mix of silage, hay, grain, and minerals. She'll be happier to be with the herd and will hopefully not bloat anymore.

Apparently this is such a common topic of conversation, that after we eat my sons often take turns saying to each other: "Look at my stomach. I'm bloated," and stick their stomachs way out. The other one will poke his stomach with his finger, saying, "I'm going to deflate you." Then they suck their stomachs way in.

It was a beautiful wedding, super fun to see my family, and the tasty dinner ended with a wonderful surprise. Ice cream sundaes!



If only poking a finger into your stomach really made it deflate ...

Corn head

This isn't like calling someone a cheesehead. A corn head is an attachment for the chopper.

Just like you get attachments for lots of appliances, the chopper can change into a different piece of machinery. (This sounds very infomercial-like. "Call now and we'll throw in a corn head FREE!")

We took off the hay head and put on the corn head to chop the corn. Now it looks like this:


Not a combine

Kris chopped some corn this morning to feed the cattle. The corn silage from last year just ran out.

When you do it like this, it's called 'green chop', and you chop it and feed it fresh to them. He's going to do it like this until the corn is ready to chop (it needs to be drier for chopping and putting in the pile) which will be soon.

So the chopper harvests both alfalfa and corn, just with changing the attachment! CALL NOW!

Robot milker

It’s 2011. Remember how far in the future that seemed when we were all young? Where are all our robots?

For us, they’re across the road. And rapidly spreading.

Our neighbors, Howard and Mary Jo Straub, own Triple H Farms. They have a robot milker.

I know what you’re thinking. It’s not an R2-D2-like creature walking around the
parlor, tending to each cow.

The brand name is Lely. It milks all by itself, all the time. It costs about $250,000.



First, the cow enters the machine. She’s wearing a responder on her neck that communicates how much feed she’s going to get. She eats grain while she’s being milked. (The Straubs pasture their cows, so they graze outdoors the rest of the time.)

She steps in and stands over a grate. Not only does this space their feet correctly, but it also keeps the area clear of manure.

The brushes come in. Like a tiny car wash, the brushes go over each teat and clean them.



Since every cow’s udder is a little different, the robot scans the udder to detect each teat’s location. (It looks like little red laser beams going over it.) Then it attaches the four teat cups.



Then milking begins! As each quarter is done, the teat cup comes off. Then the robot sprays off the udder. The gate opens, and the cow walks out. The next cow, eager to be milked, steps in.



View from the other side

All of it is run by a computer. If there’s a problem with the milking, a different gate opens and she’s shuttled into a holding pen. If her responder indicates she’s in heat, she’s moved into there to be bred. It’s really an amazing system with tons of detail, like a weighing floor, milk quality measuring system, and management software that even lets you compare your results with other Lely users worldwide. (You can learn more about it here.)



People come from all around to see it. They have a viewing window and a chockfull guest book. We take all our visitors there. The Straubs had the first robotic milker in Michigan, and now Lely is putting them in eight farms in Michigan this year.

Mary Jo told me that if something isn’t working, Lely performs a service call. The other day, she said, Lely was at another farm and couldn’t be there immediately. So, their herdsman Dan used a piece of wire from an old political sign and rigged up the machine so it was working again.


Dan, Straubs' herdsman and our neighbor

Robots, just like we thought the future would be like. Pair that with farm people who can fix anything … it’s better than R2-D2.

Labor Day

Kris said, "There are a lot of people around here laboring on Labor Day." Our labor was mixed with fun - Kris needed to buy some more bulls to put in with the cows. He was going to our friends' farm to buy them, so the whole family went with him.


Hello, new bull. We have a job for you.


Their heifers were excited to see us off. Maybe the bulls had something to do with it too.

In this family, the wife and kids just went on a vacation. I asked the farmer what he did while he was alone. He sort of laughed and said, "Worked until dark."

Happy Labor Day! Especially to those who love their jobs - so much they'll do even MORE of it when they have the time.