March on

It's construction season! We're still adding free stalls on to the barn - now the other side - fixing the driveway, and making a new feeder. These are huge changes for us. We have people in and out all the time. It's been happening through the snow, ice, mud, and rain, and now ... it's spring and it feels fantastic!

A friend sent me this post from REAL Seal Dairy of my tiny boys. They were four years old here. 

And here they are yesterday, doing calf chores! They are so helpful. I rode with Cole while he drove the 4-wheeler - also called a quad, but we always called it a 4-wheeler, and he is a good driver. 

Kris and I have been running a lot, and we even started a Run Club in St Johns that is SO FUN!

My friend Annie Link, also a dairy farmer, is holding a race at her farm on May 8. It even goes through her barns! We're excited to run it, and you can sign up here:

Dairy Discovery Road and Trail 5k and 15k

I post many more pictures (and much more frequently) on Facebook and Instagram, and you can follow both of those here:

https://www.facebook.com/TruthOrDairy

https://www.instagram.com/truthordairyfarm/

Detroit Mom and Domino's Pizza tour!

Last fall blogger Elizabeth Lewis of Detroit Mom came on a visit arranged by UDIM! 

It was a fun, two-part visit - one, go to Domino's and make our own pizzas with owner Eric Arntson and his family. We focused heavily on cheese and how it got there in the first place, since most farming boils down to food. 

Two, the bloggers, their friends, their families, and the Arntsons came to tour our farm! So we all took the entire journey from the beginning - calves, feed, raising healthy heifers, cows, milking routine - to the end, cheese on your delicious pizza. 

THINGS FROM THE TOUR

1. Eric loves showing people how to make pizza, and he and his daughter Abby were really good at it. It was so fun to go behind the counter and do it ourselves. Our kids - all of them there - really loved it, too. Kris made his own cheese bread, which he orders all the time from Domino's.

2. We are Domino's lovers already. They are the only pizza place that will deliver to our farm, and we buy a lot of it for our family and for our team. A LOT. I mean, we have the app and are frequent buyers and we all know our order by heart. Eric and his family also live in St Johns, and we're happy they're part of our community! 

3. We talked about nutrition and safety and all of the important things people should know about milk and cheese, but we also talked about the wonderful taste.

4. My boys each had their own pizza to themselves, and THAT does not happen. 

5. Domino's has a great relationship with dairy farmers! Order extra cheese!

Then on the farm ...

1. During my tour, I told them there's no party without dairy. Pizza party! Ice cream party! We're there. It's hard to party without us.

2. Elizabeth's son Nolan really jumped in and did all the things that my farm boys did. Get in the pen with the calves? Climb up the side of the barn? Run in the pasture among them? Yep. He was all in, and we loved it.

3. Christina of Socially Chrissy was there with her daughter Eden, and she really made me laugh. She also has a fierce love of dairy, and it's so great hearing that!

4. Elizabeth loves cows in a serious way, and will travel any distance to see them. It's always heartwarming to have people on the farm who feel that way about animals.

5. Katie Jones of Lansing Mom came with her kids, and she was my kids' friends' parent's student teacher! You find me a person, I'll find a connection!  

Honestly, showing people around our farm, going through the end product of the milk, talking about the ins and outs and benefits and consumer fears - it's all so wonderful, productive, and fun. You're all welcome! I'll bring the ice cream, and Eric's bringing the pizza - it's a party!

Domino's Tour with Detroit Mom

Wardin Family Farm Tour with Detroit Mom

I assure you, they ate these like someone might try to take them away.

Kris is loyal to these jalepeno cheesy breadsticks.

Welcome to our farm! And windblown hair! I need a hat.

Katie, her son, and a giant cow

Detroit Mom, Lansing Mom, St Johns mom lowercase : ) 

The whole farmy gang

Christina feeding a calf a bottle

Nolan COMPLETELY at home

Maryn, Eden, and Nolan climbing the wall in the background

Is there anything cuter? No.

We love milk and our friend Jolene!

National Dairy Quality Awards

I'm so excited, because our farm won a National Dairy Quality Award - Gold!

I am so, so proud of Kris and every single one of our team members for their dedication to producing quality milk. 

As the introduction here says, farms were evaluated on quality measures, systems of monitoring udder health, milking routine, protocols for detection and treatment of mastitis, and strategies for overall herd health and welfare. We're also judged on milk components, and these numbers can only be achieved by the amazing work of our team members who are actually in the parlor, every day, three times a day.

Thank you to them, and thanks to you for drinking and eating dairy products!

 

Ended the year with a bang...

We really ended the year with a bang! On December 31, we had an electrical fire in our old tractor.  (Very old ... my dad bought it used in the early 90s.) No one was hurt, and due to the cool head of especially Mike and the guys, plus our fire department, the feed pile, buildings and cows were fine too! It really seemed the perfect way to end 2020!

I talked to Mike about it later, and he said he'd thought about it before - what he would do if a tractor caught fire. Like try to put it out with the fire extinguisher (check), move it away from the buildings and feed and cows (check), and spread sand on the burning diesel fuel (check.) What a guy! 

Now we're into 2021, and we're hoping it's not such a dumpster-tractor-fire of a year. 

Yesterday I got two messages from neighbors that there was a milk truck in the ditch, then they quickly messaged again to tell me it was actually a feed truck. The driver asked Kris to come and pull him out, because that's what happens every time a commercial vehicle around here gets stuck - much faster than a tow. But our tractor wasn't big enough to get him out - so we went to get another one, and another trucker came to pull him out. Good thing, because we are DOWN a tractor!

The builders are working on the barn project, the cows are happy with the relatively mild weather, and it's business as usual for all of us. Oh, except we're dealing with that mass hysteria, so my kids don't have school or sports. More time for sledding, I guess...here's to a shiny new year! May it be as bright as a tractor fire!

Thanks to our team members

 On my farm Facebook page I was going through a series of recognizing people who help us farm.  

There's no one more important than the people who are here every day - our team members. Some have been here longer than we've been here, some just a few years, one babysat me, I taught one to swim, and we're all neighbors! Thank you for farming with us. We appreciate you more than we could ever express.

Farmers and food pantries working together!

 

The United Dairy Industry of Michigan, which is funded by dairy farmers, gave away grants for coolers for food pantries. I asked for suggestions, contacted all the pantries I knew about, and the Roscommon Food Pantry wanted one! (Thank you to Elaine Palm for the suggestion.) Lynda Hogaboom is their delightful director who helped make it happen. Thanks to all involved parties for helping those in need! 

Ten year anniversary of Truth or Dairy

Oh my goodness...ten years ago I said to Kris, "I think I'm going to start a blog." He was supportive of me doing what I wanted, as long as he wasn't the subject. Blogs had been super popular for awhile, I read lots of them, but since I had a two-month-old baby, two three-year-old twins, and just one freelance writing job, I felt like I had some extra time on my hands.

Honestly, I just really wanted to share what was going on. We were three years into farming, and I wanted to share with my family and my community. It's turned into a large community! 

Ten years later, here I still am, and here we still are! I also post a lot on Facebook, Instagram, and even YouTube, if you'd like to check those out.

In these ten years, we've built barns, increased our herd, poured a lot of cement for feed pads, built a lagoon, and also ... done a lot with agricultural organizations, boards, and other farmers. So much! Looking back, it's been a great decade. 

This year was terrible in so many ways, yet on the farm, everything plugged away like mostly-normal. We are so sad about all the awful things going on around us, so many people suffering, and so many businesses being forced to close by uneven policies. We really feel for our fellow business owners. I truly hope that people wake up in 2021. 

This morning I walked over to see the work on the barn project, and Kris was looking at it too. I wanted to take his picture, and he didn't want me to do it. Some things never change.

As always, thank you for reading.

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