Bringing the community together

Family Fun at the Farm was today!  This year it was hosted by K&K Dairy Farms.

The committee does such a great job.  It's always so organized, so well-staffed with volunteers, and so fun for everyone who attends!

We've been every year - even when it was Breakfast on the Farm - and it just gets better and better. (This year just Kris volunteered from our family because I didn't know if I'd be home from a work trip yet.) I took the boys around and we saw not only the dairy farm, but all the extras!  Chicks, rabbits, a corn box, we made butter ... and saw everyone we knew!  The entire farming community comes together, and we also knew lots of the attendees who come for a great and free event.

This is Kristi Keilen, one of the owners!  Their farm looked great.

Kris was lucky to be stationed in the nice and cool freestall barn.  (It was really hot today.)  But the cows are kept cool with fans and a nice roof.  It was easily 10 degrees cooler in here.

They had chicks you could pick up and hold.  (I made the picking up chicks joke more than once.)

My kids were most looking forward to the corn box, which Rob West built and sewed the curtains for the night before, his wife Erin told me!  Nice job, Rob!  This was after dealing with a fire at the dairy he manages ... good time management.

They had tractor pulls ...

And here Graham Filler and Mindy Voisinet are showing people how to shake heavy cream into butter.  My son told me he felt just like 'Farmer Boy' (by Laura Ingalls Wilder.)

This display was great - not only could you milk water out of a cow, but to make it even more realistic - that is a bucket full of manure!  I felt this was really getting into the spirit of things.  I was talking to the guys running this station and one said to me, "Wait ... don't you live on a dairy farm?" As in, why are you here and why are your kids so eager to milk this pretend cow?  BECAUSE IT'S FUN!

I had to do a little research on this one.  Kids were running around with these gloves from the vet station.  My friend RaeLynne asked me why it had one elongated finger ... and I didn't know, since I'd never seen one like this before!  I asked and found out that it's for the internal ultrasound wand. Later, our friend Nick, who is our vet, said he hadn't seen one like this before last week.  It's apparently the latest in vet glove wear.  In stores now!

Stephanie Luark, Melissa Humphrey, and Caleb Stewart - this event wouldn't happen without people like this organizing every single detail ... and planning for months!  (Thank you to all of the volunteers and host farmers - we appreciate it!)

We ended with a visit to the parlor ...

And enjoyed some chocolate milk.  

We look forward to next year.  If you live in Michigan, we hope you can join us.

Then it was back to our own farm, our own cows, and our own little farmer boys.

Thanks, Family Fun at the Farm!

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Family Fun at the Farm - here and there

Recently ...

- Kris got kicked by a cow in the leg and she broke his phone, plus left a hoof-shaped bruise.

- I spoke at the Lansing Dietetic Association Annual Meeting.

- The cattle have been thriving on pasture and I can't stop taking pictures of them at sunrise, sunset, and when there are rainbows ...

- It's warm and the boys want to be with Kris all the time.

- About 3000 people attended Family Fun at the Farm today at Tubergen Dairy Farm, and I was one of the volunteers at one of the best-organized events around!

They milk 900 cows 3 times a day.  The Tubergen parents started the farm and they have three out of their four children working with them now.  It was a great place for the event!

Check out this clever sign and old milk cans, which seem to find a spot on every dairy farm:

The amount of activities!  Feed a calf a bottle, feel all the kinds of grain and guess what they are, petting zoo, visiting the milk parlor, corn pools, farm books, tractor rides, talk to a vet, cow bouncy house, lunch ... the list goes on and on.

My kids immediately gravitated to the pretend cow to milk:

My mom took them to everything while I did my job of tour guide on a ride around the farm.  (My brother asked me last night if I had lots of jokes prepared like the people at Disney.  Yes!  Just like Disney.)

Part of the tour showed off the farm's sand separator.  The farm is able to reclaim 95% of sand they use for bedding.  This is how it works - they use sand to bed down the cattle.  It gets pushed into the lagoons along with the manure.  This machine can separate the sand from the liquid manure, which they can then reuse for bedding!  And in a true testament to modern technology ... when it breaks, it sends a text message to the farmers.

Not only did they have all their calves, heifers and cows, but they had other farm animals to see ...

And of course, the people.  Thank you to the organizers, the Tubergen family, and all the families who came today!  

Farmers really love showing people their farms.  It's not always easy to do - (3000 people is amazing!) but with events like this, it really gives people an opportunity.  I talk to so many people who have attended a farm tour - like Family Fun at the Farm or Breakfast on the Farm - and I'm so happy that these events exist.  Thank you to the host family and all the people who work so hard to make it happen every year.

Even if you're from a farm - and live on a farm - it's always exciting.  My boys loved all the events, and ended the day with ice cream on the inside ... and on the outside.  

- Follow Family Fun at the Farm.

- Go to a Breakfast on the Farm this summer!

- For other ice cream tattoo stories, look here. : ) 

If you want to know more, you can like my farm page on Facebook, follow @carlashelley on twitter, or get the posts sent to your email by filling out the form on the right. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me! 

First calf! And your chance to see more

The first calf of the year was born today!

She's early ... she was in a pasture by my parents' house so my mom saw her first and called Kris. He picked her up, cleaned her belly button, fed her colostrum, and bedded her down with tons of straw in the calf barn. He found her mother so we can start milking her tomorrow morning.

He came home to tell us and of course we all wanted to go to the barn to see her.

She was like most newborn calves - sleepy, all cuddled up, and cute.

She's the first one in the barn, and it seems huge ... just waiting for more calves!  Soon all 152 calf pens will be filled.  

As Kris' shirt says - Clinton County has a great event called 'Family Fun at the Farm.'  It's FREE and super entertaining.  On June 14, two farms (Cook Dairy Farm and Sonrise Farms) will host visitors.  You can see cows being milked, learn about grazing, feed a calf, and take part in many other activities!  

There aren't any tickets or anything - just show up.  You can find out more about it here.  Kris is volunteering at it, as are many other farmers, so you can get any of your questions answered.  

You're welcome here, you're welcome there - and if you're not close, just look at that calf picture.  151 more cuties to come!  

Family Fun at the Farm

The boys and I attended Family Fun at the Farm today, while Kris volunteered in the milk parlor.  It was a great event!  At Jem-Lot Dairy, people could see cows being milked, feed calves, make butter, see pigs and baby chicks, eat ice cream, see farm machinery ... and more!  It was all so well-organized, informative, and yes - fun, just as advertised.  Way to go, committee! 

It's a lot of work to have one of these, and I'm really grateful to the farmers who do it.  In fact, the farmers hosting this one - Leroy and Stephanie Schafer - also baled our alfalfa yesterday and today.  They do what's called custom baling.  That means farmers pay them to bale their fields with their giant baler.

We baled this entire second cutting of alfalfa because we like to have the bales to feed the cattle.  This is in addition to feeding them the alfalfa chopped - feeding them dry alfalfa versus fermented, chopped alfalfa gives them a different type of feed.  It's dry, it's longer, and it forms a sort of mat for their rumen. 

Kris was taking bales out of the field until he couldn't see anymore last night.  There was a chance of rain and he wanted to get as much done as possible - because you don't want the bales to get rained on.  So as they're being baled, you pick them up, put them on a wagon, take the wagon to the barn, unload them with a skid steer into the barn.  Repeat!  Until finished!

We were really rooting for it to rain today ... and just as it started to rain, we were just about finished with the fields.  A few got rained on, but we'll just feed those right away.

So!  Lots going on.  Kris is busy, like all farmers this time of year.  But in case you didn't know ... June is Dairy Month.  It's a good time for it.  There's no time for anything else!