Michigan State University class tour

Today Michigan State University animal science professor Miriam Weber Nielsen brought her class out for a tour! She's brought many classes in the past, but it has been a few years now, and so it was so wonderful having them back.

Kris and I talked about our farm, how we do it, things that might be different than other farms they have been to (like cattle on pasture and natural bull breeding), and the economics of dairy farming. We walked through the calf barn, then went to the dairy barns, manure lagoon, and showed them the expansion on the free stall barn - the stalls and the maternity section.

Points:

- I love giving tours of the farm. Many of these students had been on a dairy farm before, but there are always questions you have never gotten before. 

Today, my favorite question came from Tony, who said, "I've been to farms, and I have to ask - why the Toyota Sienna? Why do you all have one?" 

My answer was immediate. "Farmers usually have a lot of kids, they get great gas mileage, and if things really got bad and we lost everything, we could put down the seats and sleep five in the back of it."

Ha! I didn't even know other farmers had Siennas! 

- The students were talking about how they had a presentation from the United Dairy Industry of Michigan last week, and Ryan said, "I bought a gallon of milk after hearing that presentation. I've been drinking a glass a day." That warmed my dairy-loving heart.

- I encouraged all the students to find a favorite calf and take pictures with it, and they played along. Of course, animal science people are usually animal lovers. No one took me up on my offer to take a kitten or a tire home. (I was kidding about the kittens, but I was not kidding about the tires. Everyone - come and take a tire!)

- The students were talkative and enjoyable, and Miriam was great as always. We have an open door policy - come and visit anytime! I'll even give you a spin in my farm Sienna.

Thank you Miriam, and thank you students!

I post much more frequently at https://www.facebook.com/TruthOrDairy and https://www.instagram.com/truthordairyfarm/ - come and join me!

Ag-STEM Gateway 4th graders visit their class farmers

Gateway North Elementary in St Johns is our Ag-STEM school (Agriculturally based in science, technology, engineering, and math.)  Kris and I are the fourth graders' farmers.  I've visited their class this year, and today it was their turn to visit us!

Jenn Parker and Natalie Berkhousen, fourth grade teachers (and my friends)!

They spent the morning learning at AgroLiquid, and then the 63 kids came to us for a tour.  (AgroLiquid also was kind enough to let us use their people movers.  It seemed much better than letting the kids walk, because ... well, it's a place where you might get shocked by a fence.)

The students loved the calves - including two that were born just this morning - and had lots of questions about them.

- Why don't you keep the boy calves and raise them to eat them?  (We don't have room or feed.)

- Why is the calf licking me?  (They're like babies with pacifiers, plus you taste salty.)

- Can we climb that hay? (No, it's straw, and we have to keep it nice to bed down the calves.)

On to the cow barn!  We all piled in the people movers and Mike, my dad Jack, and Kris drove.

Aren't they jolly?

We went in to see them, and the kids were delighted by cows' natural behaviors.  The cows were amazed at the sheer number of small people.  After we walked around and looked at them there, we reconvened for some more questions.

- Why does she have a ring in her nose?  (When she was young,  she tried to suckle other heifers' udders.  This ruins or infects the udders, and then they can't give milk.  If you put a light, hollow ring in her nose, it prods the heifers, and they won't let her do it.  It saves their udders and breaks her of the habit.)

- Do they go to the bathroom out of their udders? (No.  An udder is for milk, not for waste.)

- How many bulls per cow?  (25 cows to 1 bull - JUST like The Bachelor!  There must be something about that number.)

Then off to the milk parlor.  Since the cows were actually being milked, we took small groups and showed them the parlor.  I haven't done this with a large group before, but it went well because everyone got to see an actual milking in progress.

We headed back to the calf barn and the kids saw the calves one more time before getting a GoGurt from me and leaving on the bus.

I thanked each of the kids for coming, and they asked their last questions -

- Why on earth would you want a giant lagoon of manure? (When you store it you can apply the fertilizer at the exact right times of the year.)

- Are we going to go into that pasture with those cows? (No, but you can look at them from here and not get shocked by that fence.)

- What is your address?  Because I want to come here every day after school with my mom.  (Just tell her to go on this road and look for cattle.)

When I was in kindergarten my class took a field trip to my farm.  I remember how much I liked showing my farm to everyone ... that feeling hasn't faded at all.

Thanks to Gateway, Mrs. Parker, Mrs. Berkhousen, and the fourth grades!

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Go Green!

Today Professor Miriam Weber Nielsen from Michigan State University brought her Introductory Dairy Cattle Management class to our farm.

They make a yearly visit, and every year the students are always engaged and interested.  Great conversations!

Kris and I talked about our farm, and the students had specific questions - different than what people not involved in agriculture ask - like what pasture grass we grow, if the calves ever suck on each other, what specific feed we use, the benefits of pasture, about growing our own feed, what kind of illnesses the calves get, how we work with natural bull breeding, etc.

They all have different interests too - one student came from a 50-cow dairy farm, and she wants to be involved in cow care.  Another came from a farm but wanted to learn all about cropping, because it's new to him.  Another wanted to work somewhere like the MSU extension office.

Miriam also mentioned to the students that part of the reason she brings a class to our farm is because Kris and I are good communicators.  All that talking I did through all my college classes is finally seen as a positive, instead of a negative!  If you wait long enough ...

Thanks again to Dr. Weber Nielsen and our beloved MSU!  If you ever need us to take this bus to football games, we're in.

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Farm tours

Every summer, we have a ton of visitors.  Granddaughters of friends, neighbors, friends, friends of friends, and family.  We love showing people the farm!

Our cousins came to visit and my cousin's boyfriend made this great video.  He has a little GoPro camera (which even takes video underwater) and made this of our day on the farm.  It captures a lot of the cute little scenes you get to see on a farm with kids, cows, and calves.



As for us ... Kris has been putting in some serious hours!  He leaves the house at 5:45 a.m. and gets home around 10:30 p.m. where he can enjoy a fresh, gourmet meal prepared by his chef-like wife.  Or, really, he warms up whatever I made the boys five hours previously for their dinner.

What is he doing, you may ask?  Well, he's helping cows have calves, taking care of calves, feeding, pushing up feed, and recently, they also harvested the alfalfa for the second time this summer.  Besides that, there's the regular herd care of giving them vaccinations, taking care of any that need special attention, and working with the rest of the team (milking, calf care, feeding) to make sure everything goes smoothly.  Plus, my family has been visiting, so he's been making time to hang out with them!

We do get away for things like golfing, or spending an afternoon with the boys, and we got to spend a lot of time with our families on July 4th.  Again, this is thanks to great employees and my dad!

Probably our best night out was when we spent two hours at AT&T trying to switch to them from Verizon.  (We can't complete a call in our home or on our farm any longer.)  Two hours later ... they still hadn't switched us over, due to the longest process in the entire world.  We gave up.  Let me tell you - when you get a night out that's exactly how you want to spend it.

So, that's our July here.  Calves, alfalfa, family, and fun.  Enjoy the video and your summer days!

International

We had a lot of farm visitors today - five people from North Carolina, four from Kalamazoo, three from Dewitt, one from Bay City, and one from Germany!

Sandra was my friend Julie's exchange student in high school. She comes back to visit occasionally, and this time she came to tour her very first dairy farm.

After we'd shown her everything there is to see here, she told me her conversation last night. She said to Julie's dad, "Well, you hunt deer, I know. And Julie told me tomorrow she's taking me to a deer farm."

"A what?" he asked, just to hear her say it again.

"A deer farm?" she asked.

"No, a DAIRY farm!" he said.

Sandra's English is perfect, which makes the misunderstanding even funnier. She said they teased her all the way here, pointing out cows and saying, "Look! There's an American deer!"


Visitor dressed specifically for the dairy farm tour. Can you see the ice cream cone on her shirt?

Good Friday and friends

Brad and Liz from Illinois stopped by today. We got to meet their kids for the first time and take them on ... the first farm tour of the spring!

At one point, when we were in the milking parlor, Liz said that she didn't realize that farmers still didn't milk cows by hand. The other day, someone mentioned to me that they didn't know cows had to have a calf every year to give milk. But really, why would they know? They know cows give milk - but if you don't know a farmer, don't drive by farms, never are exposed to it ... why would you think about these things until someone teaches you?


Modern day parlor

So it's always fun to have people here and to be able to answer their questions about everything - like what the feed pile is. (Liz said she'd seen them in other places and thought they were some kind of sledding hill. They do look super fun.)

While they were here the milk truck came and I met Andy, the guy who was driving today. He showed the kids how he was taking samples of the milk and then pumping the milk into the truck. He even honked the horn for them.





And kids LOVE tractors. (I remember loving them when I was little too. I distinctly remember the first time I lied. I was playing on the combine after being explicity told not to do so, because I was wearing nice clothes and we were on the way to a graduation open house. My mom came out of the house and said, "Were you playing on the combine?" And I said, "No." THAT is how powerful the allure of equipment to a kid is!)


She would never lie. Look at her!

The spring tours will continue - we have more visitors coming tomorrow! Maybe even at some point our tours will not end in the words, "Well, let's go in. I'm freezing."