Wrapping up 2018

End of the year!  Let's reflect on what's happened with a list of firsts ...

1 - We added a new bulk tank.  First time in the history of the farm we've had TWO bulk tanks.  Now we have more milk in more tanks.  This means we're milking more cows, and they're giving more milk, and we have storage if the milk trucks ever aren't able to come. 

2 - First time we've been farming where the milk prices are this low for this long.  We're optimistic for 2019!  Really and truly!

3 - Hosted a podcast interviewing farmers.  Podcasts - remember when you didn't even know this term?  Me neither.

4 - We put in an awesome sprinkler system to keep the cattle cool while they're waiting to get milked.  We were rewarded with a super hot summer, which is usually the opposite of what happens when you do a project like this!

5 - Our boys drove various vehicles around the farm, including the wheel loader, tractor, go-kart, and who knows what else.  They will be so ready for drivers ed in four years. 

That's it for memorable firsts.  We're thankful for another year on the farm with my parents, our fantastic team members, and our wonderful herd. 

Just today I had a text from a friend who lives out of state.  She sent, "I have a milk question and I knew you were the best person to ask."  That warmed my heart, because I'm happy to answer anything, which is part of the reason I started this blog way back in December of 2010.  Thank you for reading, thanks for your questions, and here's to another year of happy firsts!     

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Modern farming

Well, November really flew by in a hurry.

Not only did Kris and I have a delegate meeting for our milk co-op, but we also had our annual meeting for Farm Bureau.  We had our first snow on November 9, which I thought was really early, but I looked back to last year and it ALSO snowed on November 9th!

I've been hosting a lot of podcasts and been sharing them.  I've learned a lot of interesting information about farms and people in general!  For instance, when I was talking to Christmas tree farmer Tony Stefani, he told me that if you broke the needles of a certain tree, it smells like citrus.  Then when we went to get our tree, our lovely neighbors Scott and Wendy told us the same thing!  (Go ahead.  We have a white pine.  Try yours now!)

On the farm, we're moving into winter mode.  The harvest is done, so it's mainly milking and (still) calving.

Kris says the best news about November was that it was so routine and good ... that nothing really stands out.  Hooray!  Let's hope the winter is just as regular!

Government to Gogurts

Yesterday Graham Filler, a friend who's running for State Rep, brought Congressman John Moolenaar to tour our farm.  He wanted to talk to farmers, see what was going on in our area, get our opinions on different policies, and basically hear what we had to say so he could be a better representative.  It's always nice when you meet one of your elected officials and you like them in real life!  No matter which party you're in, it's always appreciated when people want your view on your industry.  Thank you to John and Graham! 

Today I went to Mrs. Austin's and Mrs. Daman's begindergarten classes at St. Joseph Catholic School! We turned cream into butter, read books about dairy farms, and ate Gogurts and drank chocolate milk. The cutest part is when I asked who lived on a farm and most of them said they did ... even though Mrs. Daman assured me only one of them did. All in all, they were adorable, and it was great being there as usual.  Thanks, teachers!

Meanwhile on the farm ... we had a water leak under the calf barn and had to first cut into and second jackhammer the cement to fix it.  The new bulk tank is in and working, and the first bulk tank must be jealous because it immediately started being finicky.  We've had to have people out to fix things on it twice and it's still acting up.  There's always an adjustment period when the new baby shows up.

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Fill 'er up

Bulk tank #2 is finished!  Wall is built, window is done, door is in, and mostly important, it works.  We're using it already, and it makes us all happy to have enough storage for all the milk these wonderful cows are producing.

It's fall here, which means it's beautiful.  The leaves are gorgeous, the temperature has been one that the cattle like better, and our harvest is done.  We feel for the farmers that are still trying to do their corn and soybeans, because it's been really wet and they haven't been able to get into their fields.  

I have a friend that pays no attention to the weather, because - she really doesn't have to!  If your kid wears a jacket or doesn't, it's not a big deal.  But to farmers, there is nothing like checking your weather app and discussing the weather with other farmers.  Thinking about it, planning your life and business around it, discussing it - it's going to happen!  You can go years without talking about your bulk tank, but rain?!  Never.

It's homecoming in our town so I'm off for the parade and the game - so fun, and NO rain in the forecast!  

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Snake falling from tree

On Saturday, I was in my yard with Ty, and we'd just finished picking up sticks.  Beside me, a snake fell from the tree onto the driveway. 

It dropped.  From high.  I watched it fall.  Right next to me.

A SNAKE FELL FROM THE TREE.

I'm not scared of snakes.  They don't creep me out like, for instance, bats do.  In fact, I once found a snake in my laundry room and I was just annoyed.  (Note - snakes have never flown into my house and circled my head like some bats.  I would no doubt have a different view if this happened.)  In Michigan, we have a lot of garter snakes around, and they are small and harmless.  I kind of like them.

Yet!  I'd never seen one fall from a tree.

I ran to get the other two boys and the three of us stood and looked at it.  Its head was bloody, like its eye had exploded during the fall.

I was sure it was dead.  It looked dead.

DEAD SNAKES FALLING FROM TREES.

We wondered whether a bird had dropped it, but we didn't hear any bird up there when it happened.  Max poked at it with a stick and it sort of moved, so I suggested we leave it alone to die in peace.

We continued to work in the yard, and then Cole called to me. 

"The snake isn't dead.  It's moving!" he said.

"It's alive?!"  I said, amazed. 

We watched as it slithered through the grass, and winced as it continued hitting its congealed, bloody head on grass.  It kept sticking to it.  It would pull away, put its head higher, and move on.  It opened and shut its mouth wide many times.  It looked like it was in pain, but as it moved, it got stronger and stronger.

LIVE SNAKES FALLING FROM TREES.

"Where is it going?"  Cole said.  "Why doesn't it avoid the grass?  Why was it in the tree?"

We both lamented the fact he didn't speak Slytherin. 

We watched, fascinated, as the snake moved back in the yard ... and started climbing the same tree.

SNAKES CLIMBING TREES.

I googled 'snakes climbing trees'.  Sure enough, lots of people had videos of this amazing physical feat. 

The snake climbed about halfway up, with us cheering it on, and then hung out on the tree trunk.  We checked back on it over the rest of the night, and the next morning it was gone.  No doubt to wait in the tree for us.

Again, I'm not afraid of snakes, and I'm glad.  Because live ones are falling from trees in my yard.  On the farming side, the snake harvest is going really well this year. 

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Michigan GROWN, Michigan GREAT Podcast!

I've been hosting podcasts for Michigan GROWN, Michigan GREAT since August, and I've talked to a lot of wonderful and interesting people.

I've got this whole nifty little studio setup here.  It's Kris' office.  My office had too much ambient noise.  Kris is now used to coming home to a note on the door: "Do not come in or make coffee too loud."

To download the podcasts onto your phone, go here:  http://michigangrown.libsyn.com

To check out the site, go here:  https://michigangrown.org/podcasts/

I've talked to:

• a vet for veal farmers
• a truck driver who organized Ag Community Relief 
• an artist featuring farm animals
• a dairy farmer millennial and communicator
• a grain buyer and seller
• an Army Ranger turned farmer
• a farmer breaking stereotypes
• a dairy farmer running her own second business

I hope you like listening to them as much as I do.  Enjoy!

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Agri-Fit Challenge - 2018!

We had to do this on a course, so I'm guessing this was about the 12th time I was flipping it, due to my expression!

This weekend was my absolutely favorite race - the Agri-Fit Challenge!  Why is it my favorite?  Because it really IS a challenge!  

My boys and two of their friends were a part of it!  They had a ton of obstacles and just a little shorter run than the adults.  These cross country runners and friends did an awesome job, making up the top five!

Another thing I love about the race is it's doing activities that my kids, as farm kids, are used to doing.  Moving tires?  Yes.  5-gallon pails?  Yep.  Running as fast as possible?  Yes, sometimes after heifers that are out.  

After the kid race, it was time for Kris, our friends, and I to start our heat.

Our race was:

Jumping over round bales - I somehow did this flipping over my back.  Unplanned, but it worked!  Some people leaped over it like gazelles.

Running through tires - Like a football drill.

Crawling under ropes - Kris' cousin Jess was right behind me at this point, but I didn't know it was her.  Someone running behind you in the woods does make you go faster!

Climbing up boxes - Hard to do gracefully.

Climbing wall - It was made out of metal fencing, so climbing it was easy, since we do this all the time!

Carrying a bale around a circle - I was happy it was straw and not hay.  Kris ran with his like it was nothing.

Pulling a tire - When I started, I thought, I don't know if I can actually move this.  It was huge, but I got it going.

Flipping a tire down a course - See picture of effort this took!  Ultimately my favorite obstacle.

Carrying a 5-gallon pail of water - All in a day's work.

Crawling under barbed wire - One year I tore my shirt, but not this time.

Walking a balance beam over manure - I didn't even know it was manure until after.  I thought it was mud.  Kris thought we were supposed to run through it at first, and thought nothing of it.  It's a challenge, after all!

Climbing up a grain truck through sugar beets - This was fun!

Running through a pond - Mucky for sure.  Kris half-swam through it to go even faster.

...plus a 5k through the woods!

The toughest part for me was the tire flipping. Putting tires on the pile all summer was great training! You had to flip it about 15 times down a course, and then roll it back.  My parents and kids were cheering us all the time, giving me helpful advice like, "Catch it when it bounces up!"  (I did a few times, but really that was harder.)

We all had chocolate milk after, and celebrated Team Chocolate Milk.  Our friend and  Kris' fellow MMPA board member Gertie Van Den Goor was there, and she's also on Team Chocolate Milk!

I ended up second woman overall and first in my age group, and Kris got second in his age group!  (He also beat me - he essentially trains every day in more ways than one.)  It was a spectacular day with our friends and family.  My parents were as always a great support and took the nice action shots.    

The more the merrier - I hope to see you all there next year!  See race updates by liking the page here.  

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Podcast!

Want to get to know farmers in Michigan? Of course you do!

I'm hosting a podcast through the Michigan Ag Council and talking to interesting farmers around our state.  The first one we're featuring is Jed Welder, Army Ranger turned farmer.  You can listen to the podcast here!

Also this month ... we finished the fourth and final cutting of alfalfa this past week ... just in time to start chopping corn tomorrow!  Kris is very busy organizing all of the million things that have to go right to make this happen.  It's an exciting time of year and we're all happy and satisfied when the harvest is done.  Hopefully that will be this week, if the weather cooperates.  Every single farmer here is saying the same thing, every single year.

This month, for U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance, I spoke at the Leadership At Its Best training conference in Raleigh, NC! This is a leadership development program sponsored by Syngenta for the American Soybean Association and National Corn Growers Association. It was a great group of people.

As for the industry, there was big news that a dairy processing plant is going to be built right in our town.  Good news for all.  We went to the Ogemaw County Fair for the first time, as well as the Clinton County 4-H Fair for the perhaps 25th time. 

Our little calves that were born this year have now moved into group pens, because cattle are social.  They also enjoy watching kids ride on scooters, which is a little-known farm fact.

Aside from our farm, we've really been enjoying our neighbors' farms on Dewitt Road (Chants and Smiths).  Not only do they have sugar beets, which you don't see around here all the time .... 

Can you believe how great these end up tasting?!

but they also planted a beautiful field of sunflowers!  

I love driving by them every day.  This is the first year I've had sunflowers in my garden too (thanks to my friend Ashley, who gave them to me), and I never knew how much I liked them.  

Happy harvest to all the farmers, and happy end-of-summer to everyone!  School starts tomorrow ... but the boys are still helping with calf chores.  Calves like to eat no matter when school is happening. And that's a pretty well-known farm fact.

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And the gang's all here

This is just a little snapshot of a few of the million things that went on this month ...

We finished our third cutting, and this time we used trucks and a bagger.

                     

It's fun to watch.  The chopper blows the tiny pieces of chopped up alfalfa into these trucks we rented.  The trucks drive to the baggers, and they tip into the bagger as it moves forward.  Ahhh...nice, full, big bags of feed for the winter!

               

We had preemies. Not twins, but two tiny girls at the same time.  They were half the size of a normal calf - and so small they looked like goats!  They were healthy, though!  Our team member took them to her grandparents' house to raise them.  Before they left, she put little pink collars on them, which was a definite first for calves around here!  So cute.

                                     

One evening my neighbor Ashley called me and said, "I can see three of your cows in your corn."  Oh no!  I raced out of the house.  My neighbors and I easily got them back in.  Kris rode up on the quad and I said, "We got the cows back in."  Kris said, "Those aren't cows.  Those are heifers."  This meant that they didn't come right from where I could see them ... they had come from across the corn field!

We weren't dealing with three cows ... we were dealing with 50 heifers.  My parents, my neighbors, my kids, the three guys milking, Kris and I started searching in the 12-foot high corn for lost heifers.  We walked through, calling them, and they were so happy to find us and followed us out.  Meanwhile, we were trying to fix the fence, but we couldn't repair it until all of them were out.  It took about three hours for us to find all the heifers, and Kris was able to fix the fence before dark.  Whew!

                       

We had a lot of visitors, including my family.  One night all of her nine grandchildren helped her with calf chores!

                                                 

It's here!  I'm so happy with Sawyer in the Sky, my second book in the Sawyer in the Woods series.  So excited.  My boys loved it, and I hope your kids love it too! Available on Amazon.

                             

Something else new ... I'm going to be hosting the Michigan GROWN, Michigan GREAT podcast!  I start recording in August, and I'll be sure to post the link to the podcast here.  I'll be interviewing farmers and agriculturalists from around the state about what's happening on their farms!  I'm really looking forward to it, and I hope you enjoy listening.

Want to know more about the farm?  Like the page on Facebook, on Twitter @carlashelley, or sign up to get the blog by email - the form is on the right side of the page.

Summertime summertime sum sum summertime

What a month!

I started it off at my first ultramarathon - the Green Jewel 50k (31 miles), representing Team Chocolate Milk!  It was on a beautiful path between parks in Ohio, from Brecksville to Rocky River. Very fun!  Kris and the boys went with me, and it was a great time.  People yelled at me the whole way - "CHOCOLATE MILK!"

I then went to World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa, talking about U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance's social media app. 

My friend Thomas Titus (also a former Faces of Farming & Ranching) was there counting teats on the pigs before they went in the show ring.  This is a thing!  Erin Brenneman, (also FOF&R), was there and showed me around.  It was so interesting to see all things pig instead of all things cow, but the most amazing part of it was all the free food.  Tons of it.  Everywhere.  For free.  If you've been at trade shows where the only options are expensive, terrible food, and you just eat the mints you hid in your backpack, you can really appreciate this.

The next week I went to Austin to train urban teachers about teaching agriculture.  We went on a farm tour, went over the lesson plans, and answered questions about farming.  As an added bonus, I got to see my sister-in-law Meghan and my niece Anna!

My kids got out of school and it is SUMMER!  So, so much going on farm-wise.  Milk truck issues - they didn't have enough drivers and then the milk processing plant lost power.  We have a ton of calves.  Training employees.  Alfalfa harvest.  Moving the cattle around to different pastures. 

One super fun farmy thing we did was pick rocks.  Kris mentioned that he has no idea how I grew up on a farm and have lived on a farm for 11 years without ever going rock picking.  I told him - no one's ever asked me to go before! 

This was the first time Cole and Ty have ever driven the wheel loader.  I guess learning in a giant field where you can't hit anything is a great spot, but I was worried about the other kids and made them stay far away and only approach it to toss stones in when it was stopped.  They were good at it.

It's absolutely incredible the size and amount of rocks that emerge after the soil is worked up.  Not only will crops not grow where they are, but they are also detrimental to the equipment.  We worked for a few hours and added to the piles of rocks our ancestors have been putting alongside fields for 139 years.  My mom has used them for her lovely landscaping and rock wall at both of our houses!

I've taken only about one million pictures of the cattle in my backyard as the sun sets.  I told Kris we can never move - or if we do, we have to live somewhere where I have a clear view of the sunset and my cattle.  Not at all specific, right?  We even got a morning rainbow, which is unusual - more unusual than a gorgeous summer sunset, anyway. 

July and August promise to bring more excitement and ... sunsets.  Happy summer!
   
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It's a beautiful spring

My favorite scenery is cows on pasture.  They're in my front yard, my back yard, and my road!  I love it.

Everything is getting busy.  Our first three calves have been born, we're getting ready to cut alfalfa, and everything is about to EXPLODE.

It's my favorite time of year. 

Machines need fixing, schedules need making, problems need solving - but Kris and the rest of our team - plus my dad, who drove the chopper to the dealership - are doing a great job!