Rainy Monday

Hooray - we can breathe a sigh of relief for another planting season. Kris finished planting last night!

My dad, though he's retired, always helps when we ask. Last night he went to get more corn seed so Kris didn't have to stop to do it. It also rained last night and today, so Kris was especially glad he was done. It's too rainy to plant today, but the seeds should love it! (As much as a plant can express love.)

A third heifer calf was born this morning. Three heifers is a good start. Now we expect a run of bulls. It's just the way it works, but it always seems to even out in the end. (Literally.)

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Sue Lounds of the Clinton County News wrote a nice article called 'St Johns middle school students get healthy lessons', where as a representative of Michigan Milk Producers Association (MMPA) and United Dairy Industry of Michigan (UDIM), I educated kids about dairy and handed out milk.

She wrote another article called 'Go Fly a Kite Day' for St Johns spray park is May 12.' I'm helping with fundraising for the spray park and Uncle John's Cider Mill is hosting this event. I hope we have a great turnout. I'm thankful to Uncle John's, too. I've been going there since I was a little girl, and I've seen it evolve from a cider mill into a tourist destination! It's super fun to go there and see agritourism flourishing.

While I love seeing the rain today, I don't want it to rain at all on May 12 from 11-4.  Some farmers might.  It doesn't matter ... the weather doesn't pay attention to any of us.

A weekend of planting

Kris planted corn all weekend long. He's still - at 10:00pm - doing it right now!

We strolled down to see him yesterday evening.

On the way, we stopped to meet the new calf. Two heifers, now! The newest one looks huge next to the preemie.

This field is 100 acres. My grandpa always said (I know this through my dad) that this was the best field on the farm. So I've always liked it, too.

Since we had the field worked up, it unearthed a lot of rocks. This is what an old-fashioned rock picker looks like. No, not machinery. A guy with a truck, picking up rocks:

Kris came over to see us. He said these were a fraction of what he picked up, since he also throws and rolls them off to the sides of the field. Rocky, eh?! You'd never guess it by looking at it ... until you're trying to plant in it, I guess.

One of the best things about farming is that we can visit Kris whenever we want. He took the boys for a ride with him to finish up the planting. (It's okay. Common sense prevailed on the child labor laws against working on farms ... it's been dropped.)

Kris was hoping to get the planting done before the influx of calves. It looks like he'll be done either tonight or tomorrow. Then, soon ... this barn will be full!

As full as Kris' and the guys' summer schedule.

Planting corn

Kris is planting corn! 

Timing when to plant is always stressful - why?  Because it depends on the weather.  I was out on the roads driving a lot yesterday and every farmer was out in his fields, planting.  We even saw them at 11:00pm at night, lights ablaze, working away.  It's really nice conditions for planting THIS INSTANT, so everyone wants to take advantage.

We hire a company to do some field work.  It works out for a lot of farmers that you can pay someone to do something (like field finishing), rather than own the equipment yourself.  Plus, these companies have huge equipment so they can do it super fast.

So this was our entertainment yesterday morning.  After it went by, my son said, "That was loud!"

As soon as he drove away, it was once again so quiet you could almost hear the grass growing.  And soon, corn.

Barn cats

Like lots of farms, we have cats. We’ve had cats as long as I can remember. We’ve never acquired a cat on purpose, but we always feed whatever cats show up.

They’re definitely useful. They live at the barn and eat mice. I assume they scare away other critters, too.

For the last year we’ve had a really friendly cat come around. (Either that or he’s two cats. I can’t tell them apart.) My boys named him (or them, they’re even worse at it than I am) Jack.

We feed him, they pet him, and my youngest really likes him, even when Jack’s accidentally knocking him over with affection.

Last week I took the boys out to eat and brought a burrito home for Kris. When we were getting out of the car, my son forgot to shut the car door. (I asked him if he did it, and he said yes. Sadly, he was dead wrong.) I was planning on going back out to get Kris’ burrito and the leftovers, but instead I started giving them a bath.

Kris walked in and looked sad. I said, “What’s wrong?” He said, “I came home to find the cat eating my burrito.”

That’s right. The cat had gone into the car, opened the bag, chewed open the tinfoil, and ate half his burrito.

Kris had put the pitiful remains on the counter. Kris said he couldn’t blame the cat – burritos are great. Jack hadn’t touched the boys’ leftovers though (he apparently prefers pork to chicken) so Kris ate theirs.

He moved to throw the half-eaten burrito in the trash. I said, “Wait – why don’t you give it to the cat?”

He said, “I sort of wanted to punish him.” But he got a bowl and set it outside.

Jack couldn’t even eat any of it – he was so full.

I’m pretty sure the mice ran rampant in the barn that night.

Mad cow

I'm going to get all serious on you.  The U.S. Dept of Agriculture announced that a dairy cow was infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in California.  It's better known as mad cow disease.  (Much catchier name.  But not catching!  Important difference.)

The National Milk Producers Federation said in this article: 

"Milk and dairy products do not contain or transmit BSE, and animals do not transmit the disease through cattle-to-human contact. The infectious prions that transmit BSE are found in neurological tissues, such as brains and spinal cords."

Translated - Not in milk and dairy products. 

BSE hasn't been found in cattle in our country since 2006.  This is the fourth case in our country EVER.  So the rarity of it is a positive.  The fact that they test for it is reassuring.  As a result, no meat from this animal was ever in the food chain.

Obviously, we have standards and testing in place to keep us all safe.  News like this is bad for everyone ... but it's not as bad as it could be.  It's not a person that was infected.  Let's keep it that way.

Let's talk

Annual Dairy Communicator conference today! The speakers, the people, the facts presented - it was all very interesting!

Just a couple of notes:

There's a lot of milk in the US right now. I wrote notes like: "708 million more pounds than last year in the US. Hope for blazing hot summer ... in a different state." (Just kidding, southern states!)

United Dairy Industry of Michigan is promoting chocolate milk as a refueling drink at 18 races this year! The first two marathons were really successful, and we heard lots of testimonies about how great chocolate milk is for runners - from runners. I like the site: RunHardDrinkSmart.com.

Mitch Smith from UDIM said that for all Happy Meal orders, McDonald's workers are now being trained to say, "Do you want white milk or chocolate milk with that?"  (Maybe supersizing the milk will also be an option someday.) 

As always, talking to the people was a lot of fun. You know ... communicating with communicators. It's what we do best. That, and writing about it online afterward.

Emergency

I got the call this morning. They needed a farmer, and they needed one now.

The preschool in town was hosting the Book Barn, donated by Farm Bureau. It's a cute little traveling bookshelf, shaped like a barn, that's filled with farming books. (Accurate agriculture books! The cows all have the proper amount of teats. Farm Bureau selects them.)

But ... they needed a farmer to read to them! The farmer they'd lined up couldn't do it at the last minute. They didn't mind me bringing my kids, so off we went.

The preschool kids all got animal hats and a coloring book about dairy cows. One of the books I read was: 'Extra Cheese, Please!: Mozzarella's Journey from Cow to Pizza.'

It was good! Entertaining, informational, real pictures, easy to understand.

The kids were adorable. I was asking them about it afterward and one of the boys repeated the book back to me, practically word for word. They had lots of questions and comments and the whole experience was great.

I love writing a blog because I can communicate with people everywhere - here and around the world. But like all things comparing the internet with face to face ... it's nice to see people. I like to put a face on farming, especially to kids who've never learned this before.

I'd do it anytime. Need a dairy lesson? Just call my hotline. I specialize in book emergencies.