Sudax in ten days

We put our cattle out in our sudax field to eat it instead of chopping it - it all ends up in the same place! (Sudax is a sorghum and sudangrass hybrid that looks similar to corn, but without the ears. It grows fast and cattle love it.)

Our neighbors are so great...we had four of them contact us to ask if the cattle were supposed to be in that field. Isn't it nice they're watching out for us?

Kris and I were guessing how long it would take them to eat it, and all the leaves were gone, with most of the stalks chewed, after ten days. Ten days in one field! It was so interesting. First you couldn't see the cattle, then you could see some, and then you could eventually see them all.

Before

 

After

We have new Team Chocolate Milk gear, and I love it! I had a half marathon in Lansing this month, and it went great. I love this picture the race photographer took, because it captures how happy I am when I run.

I spend a lot of time working my full time job, driving the kids around, helping with homework, and hanging out with my friends and family. Kris spends a lot of time working, working with our team, and spending time with our friends and family. I run into strangers from time to time who read the blog, and I appreciate every single one of you. Thanks!

Highs and lows of 2014

I love end-of-the-year wrap ups.  As we look back on 2014, here are some farm highs and lows -

Highs - milk prices!  We saw the highest milk prices ever.  In the history of our farming, and in the history of time.  To follow - lows!  They're predicting significantly lower prices for next year. 

The funny thing is ... in our 7 years of farming, this has already happened.  The first year we farmed it was record high prices, two years later, record lows.  (It's like watching a rerun.)  So, no surprises here.  You invest in the farm when you have high prices, and you hold on, roller coaster style, when prices are low.  AIEEEEE!

Lows - We had a super tough winter.  It was the coldest and snowiest winter since the 70s.  It was hard on the guys and the machinery.  High - Thankfully, it wasn't as hard on the cattle. This was the first year they had the new barn to stay in.

Highs - We had a record number of calves and a record number of twins.  The downside?  We had a majority of bulls, and an inordinate number of boy/girl twins!  When there are boy/girl twins in cattle, there's a high chance that the heifer will be infertile due to the mixing of hormones in utero.  (Infertile heifers can't have calves, and therefore never produce milk.  As for the bulls, they aren't so hot at producing milk either.)

Highs - We were able to get a new used chopper.  Low - We had to buy a chopper.  There are other things I'd rather spend money on, but as my dad puts it, "Those don't chop."  Fill 'er up with the 290 gallons of fuel!  Likewise for the manure pump.  Sometimes your business investments are necessary, sometimes they're fun, but most of the time they're really exciting to one person - the salesman.

Highs - We have a really great team here.  Some people I've known my whole life, and some were born the year I graduated high school.  (Or even later.  I know!  Hard to believe they're not tiny infants!)  They're funny, nice, and great to work with.  We had another super year with them.  Lows - we have too many birds that want to eat the feed in the barn, too many critters that want to live in the barn, and cats that don't seem to care about chasing any of them.  But!  As long as the cows and the people are good, then that outweighs the bad.  FOR NOW, CATS.

When I met pig farmer Erin Brenneman, another of the Faces of Farming & Ranching, she said that a friend told her, "Whenever I buy a pork chop, I think of you."  I really liked that.  Since then, a friend sent me a really cute link to a picture of a pillow with a cow silhouette on it, with the words 'Moo-ry Christmas.'  She wrote, "Carla, you have to make this!" 

Credit:Facebook.com/HobbyLobby

Around here, my lack of craft skills is legendary.  I've failed at almost every craft you can think of - cross stitch, crocheting, painting, wreathes, any of the ones you help preschoolers with ... so!  When my friend thought of me when she saw the cow pillow, it made me happy.  I can't make a pillow to save my life - but I can write about the farm.

So, thank you, as always, for reading.  This is the four year anniversary of writing the blog, and each year it's a little different.  If there's anything you want to know about or hear more about, please let me know.  I'm glad for such a supportive online community.  Here's to another year - happy 2015!

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Following the rules

There was some news recently about a Kentucky farmer who said he didn't always follow the labeling protocols on antibiotics.  It was a painful article to read, because like anything - cops, teachers, lawyers - if there’s one person doing something wrong, it reflects badly on the entire profession.

In this instance, it’s even worse, because it affects all of us – and our entire food supply.

On our farm, we only use antibiotics when cows are sick.  For antibiotics, there’s a period of time on the prescription label that instructs you on the period of time it’s in their bodies and you have to dump the milk.

All antibiotics have a strict pre-slaughter withdrawal period, and we always follow that.  Of course you want to do all you can for a sick cow, but you want to make sure that the meat from the cow you’re having butchered is safe and healthy.  We follow the protocol that years of testing and FDA regulation have approved.  The slaughter price of cows isn't worth risking human health.

My family eats the same food and drinks the same milk everyone else drinks – there’s no way I’d want to be giving them something that was tainted.  I don’t want it for them, and I don’t want it for other consumers.  Label rules are the rules, and that’s what we follow.  

The article stated that the farmer has since retired and has no cattle.  I wish him well in his future endeavors … in retirement you can write your own rules.

 

If you want to know more about the farm, like the page on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @carlashelley, or get posts sent to you by old fashioned email.  Sign up - the form is on the right side of the page. 

Milk cans

Last week we went to a MMPA (Michigan Milk Producers Association, our milk co-op) meeting.  I was talking to a milk inspector, and she mentioned 'can dairies.'  "What's a can dairy?" I asked.  She said, "Those are farms that are still delivering milk in cans."

What?!  I had no idea that people were still milking into cans.  We - and many farms - use these as decorative items.  Many of us have them around because our ancestors used them back in ye olde dayes, but now ... we have automated milkers.

I kept questioning her and questioning her.  She said that they milk into the cans, they have milk can trucks (just like they used to) that come and pick up the cans.  The milk is considered Class B milk, which mostly goes into cheese.  She said that some of the farms are Amish, (which made sense), but not all of them.      

I found this so interesting - people still milk into milk cans!  I asked other farmers about it, and they didn't know that either.

So, my decorations are also still-used tools.  Or my tools are decorations?

Ah, it's a fine line.  I have a wagon wheel and an old cow waterer, too.  Apparently I'll take anything once used on a farm and call it 'decoration.'

***

Not the best luck this week ... one of our team members was doing some plumbing work on his house, and his utility knife slipped and he cut his forearm open.  So badly he had to have surgery!  He had the surgery tonight and said that it went well.  He's such a nice guy - he told Kris that he'd come in before the surgery, but Kris assured him we'd be fine - just heal!

Then, one of our cows had to have surgery too!  She got cut by her ear, and it looked so bad that we called the vet to sew her up.  He put her under, sewed it up, and she's eating well today.  She looks fine, now.  But ... that's enough, everyone!  No more injuries this week.  ... I'm sure by writing about it that'll make it not happen.  


If you want to know more about the farm, like the page on Facebook, follow me on Twitter@carlashelley, or get posts sent to you by email.  Sign up - the form is on the right side of the page.

Then and now

Last year we had a great time attending the National Milk Producers Federation annual meeting.  It's today in Texas, and due to social media, I felt like I really knew what was going on!

But no meeting this year - today was a busy day on the farm.  First, we had the rye planted.  It's in a field where we already harvested, so now we're planting rye for the spring.  It'll be interesting to see how well it grows, since this is a late planting ... due to a late harvest ... due to this late summer!

When I say 'we had the rye planted' it means that we pay a custom planter to do it.  Although we own equipment to do a lot of our field work, it's way easier for farmers to pay people to do it who already have all the (working) equipment.  Lots of farmers use them, so we're all basically sharing the cost of the equipment!  They're busy guys too - trying to coordinate to do all their customers' fields ... all at the same time.

We also unloaded a giant load of hay that we bought.  It looks so big, it doesn't even look like it'd fit on the road!  Of course, we also grow hay, but we buy big square bales to put out for the cattle.

Besides that, another piece of equipment broke, we got a big bill for a machine we had fixed, and we had ... 70 degree weather and sun!  It was like summer!  We spent all evening outside, much of it spent in the pasture behind our house.

Cows are curious.  These heifers see the boys all the time - but they still are so entertained.  There's kicking, running, and a lot of excitement!

    

... for both the cows and the boys.


I'm a finalist for the Faces of Farming & Ranching.  The winners get to go around the country and help educate people about agriculture.  Online voting is 25% of the final score.  You can vote and see a video of our farm here:

http://faces.pgtb.me/w2Sg4d

Thank you!

Tillamook Cheese

Like all good farmers, we spent part of our vacation in Oregon ... visiting a cheese factory!  (We did a lot of other things, but we also spent a lot of drive time commenting on fields and checking out animals on pasture.  "It must be so hard to farm on that slope!"  "Looks like they just harvested."  "Is that an emu?!" Sometimes we really live up to the stereotype.)

Tillamook Cheese has a self-guided tour at their plant, and it was so well done.

Parts that stood out:

- The first farmers that settled in Oregon were super depressed that they spent tons of time and effort clearing these GIANT trees and then ... they couldn't grow crops.  Bad for them, good for the dairy industry.

- A man said that he remembered how to make cheese, but his first batch was so swollen it exploded on the shelves.  He guessed maybe he didn't remember that well.

- We got to see all the factory work, which I always find fascinating.  So many machines, moving parts, and people.  We watched as one stopped working and they discussed how to fix it with a mechanic.  

- I loved this old ad:

- And this is exactly how I look when I serve dinner: 

- They had free cheese samples and we tasted them all, and then they had an ice cream stop.  It was $5 for 5 scoops of ice cream.  I told Kris I only wanted one scoop ... could he really eat 4 scoops of ice cream?  He scoffed.  "Of COURSE I can eat that!" he said.  I'd like to point out it was 9:00 a.m.  (Of course, he'd eaten pie ala mode for his entire breakfast the previous day, so what's the difference?)

- Tillamook is different than our co-op, because Michigan Milk Producers Association employs people to sell our milk to companies that want to use it. We don't make our own products.  If we did, maybe you'd really see us driving something like this little beauty.

8. Educational, fun, and ended in ice cream.  Nice vacation stop! 

In today's farm news - the corn is done!  Kris and the guys chopped from 11:30 a.m. until 7:00 p.m., then furiously worked to cover the pile as fast as possible because it was the last time of the season!  We talked briefly before he went to bed, mostly about how cheerful and great our team members are.  It's because of them that we can ever even go on vacation - and plunge ourselves into dairy history! 

If you want to know more, you can like the page on Facebook, follow me on Twitter@carlashelley, or sign up to get the blog by good old, old-fashioned email - the form is on the right side of the page.

Giant food processor

I'm not a big machine girl.  The other day I really laughed on the phone with my friend, because about 15 minutes into the conversation, she said, "Did I tell you I got a new car?"  I said, "No - and so funny that you didn't mention it until now."  She said, "I actually got it last week."

So that gives you a little insight into my level of machine interest.

However ... you know what's interesting to me?  Really powerful machines.

I rode with Kris in the chopper today.  It's fun, because the chopper takes these big, giant, strong stalks of corn, and chops it into tiny little bits!  So tiny, they're then blown into a wagon!

I find it all amazing.  Just watch this:



Fun, right?  Powerful!  The entire plant is shredded in seconds!  (I suddenly sound like an infomercial for a food processor.)

It's small, digestible, and the cattle love eating it. We put it in a pile, let it ferment, and feed it to them until the next harvest.

But all of it - the readying of the soil, the planting, the fertilizing, the worrying about too little or too much rain - the harvest is the payoff!  What you can't see in this video is that the corn is as high as the chopper cab.  We had a great growing season for corn, and it's going to give us a lot of feed.  All good news.

Plus, this machine is cool.  I'll bring this up in any phone conversation tomorrow by at LEAST minute 14.

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Background

I sent this picture out to some friends last weekend, and it got a lot of comments - not about the boys, but about how it looks like the cattle checking them out. They don't just seem like they are - they ARE very interested. Our cattle love looking at people that are different, and anytime these darting, small creatures come around, they have their undivided attention. (They also like Kris a lot, because he means food.)

This evening at 8:30pm I was going running and Kris asked if I would run through the pasture to check one more time for calves. I was running along the fence line, in with the cattle, and they were SO EXCITED. They all ran alongside me, getting as close as they possibly could before kicking away, then running back again to catch up. I got splattered with a lot of mud. I spotted a calf, with about five cows hovering over it. I couldn't tell who the mother was.

When I got back and told Kris, he said, "Was it a bull or a heifer? Did a heifer or a cow have it?" Hmm. He said, "I'll send you with more specific instructions next time."

Even though it was 9:00pm, he'd already showered and changed, he put his work clothes on and went back out to take care of the calf. He said if a heifer had it, the chances of it feeding her calf weren't great, because first-time mothers don't know what to do. Or if they do know what to do, the bossy cows crowd all around the calf, trying to take care of it. (I will draw no comparisons between humans and cows in this paragraph.)

When he went out to get it, he saw another cow trying to have a calf. So he warmed up colostrum, brought the calf back to the barn, and made sure the second calf was born with no trouble. Showered again, and collapsed into bed before starting it all over again in 7 hours!

Even though it's tiring, Kris loves this exciting time of year because due to his extreme physical activity, he can eat whatever he wants. Some of us have to go running year round. But we're both doing our part, right? He's taking care of the cattle's every need, I'm bringing the evening entertainment.