Dairy Delivery

A point of interest on every tour of our dairy  farm is the little shed building we call the 'maternity barn'. It's special because it is like the labor and delivery room of a hospital--not sterile like a hospital but a place where we can assist  in the delivery of a calf if the mother is having difficulty. 

 

Yesterday this heifer  needed assistance while giving birth to her first calf  so she was walked from the pasture by our house  to the maternity barn for assistance in delivering her baby.

 

 

On a recent tour of the farm with a group of Northwest Arkansas  registered dieticians, the maternity barn was empty but these soon to be mothers couldn't resist having their picture taken before delivery!

 

                                                   Can you tell that we were having fun?

                                
                Although we didn't have any deliveries on the day of the tour, I  did enjoy sharing
          how we work everyday to produce high-quality milk by caring for our cows and the land.
               I appreciate how these registered dieticians tell what dairy delivers to consumers!

Souped Up Monday

After Saturday's rain in Northwest Arkansas, there's a definite feeling of fall on the farm. I'm thinking about getting 'souped up'  on Monday with a recipe I found on the Dairy Makes Sense website.

Cheesy Broccoli Potato Soup

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup onion,chopped
1/2 cup flour
4 cups chicken broth
4 cups low-fat milk
1 (16-oz) package frozen chopped broccoli
2 cups potatoes, peeled and diced
11/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper


Preparation:

Melt butter in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook until tender. Add flour and stir until blended. Gradually stir in broth. Heat until slightly thickened. Add milk,
broccoli and potatoes. Cook over low heat for 30 minutes or until broccoli and potatoes are tender. Stir in cheese and seasonings.

                                                                 Happy Monday!

Back Porch Makeover

If the back porch of our old farmhouse could talk, I know it would have a lot of stories to tell. My mother-in-law  was born and raised in this house and  told me a few of those childhood stories of how they would eat on the porch in the summer before the days of air-conditioning or used it for  overflow dining  when company came to visit.
 
Today the back porch of our 92 year old  farm house is not only the walk through to inside the house, it's also the storage place for items that Farmer-Husband   might need occasionally  but must keep it on the back porch  to be sure it's handy, a dozen  raincoats for four people, and an assortment of boots and shoes for every occasion and event on the dairy farm.

The planned porch  make-over  happened this week. My Mother and I marked our calendars for this special project--she's my partner in crime on projects like this! It's not that it's such a big space but the fact that there was so much stuff to move and so much dirt to clean out before we could start the project!

Here's how  the steps of the project went:

• First step was to  wait till Farmer-Husband left town for three days. This  first step allowed me to move everything with out listening to any complaining about moving the stuff that might be used.
• Second step was moving everything out to another space which actually required  a move of more of Farmer-Husband's stuff without his permission. Good reason for step number one.
• Third step was back-breaking , knee bruising scrubbing to prepare for the woodwork and floor  painting.
• Fourth Step was to paint and allow plenty of drying time and keep the porch off limits for an extra day for drying.

 

 

 The back porch is now  clean , shiny and clutter free!

 I'm still hearing a little grumbling from the Farmer-Husband about where I've moved  his stuff, but it's worth it when I look at   the improvement to our old farmhouse from the back porch makeover!

Dairymom's Thankful Thursday

 

It was a bit foggy this morning when we fed calves and found this  mama with her new baby in the pasture. New life is always a celebration on the dairy farm.

 

                                                                   
                            I'm thankful for these early morning  life- on- the farm pictures I
                                                   experience  every day with my family.

Celebrate National Farm to School Month

October is a perfect month for fieldtrips and farm tours. The Farm to School Program strives to connect schools to local farms, with the objectives of serving healthy meals in schools, improving student nutrition and  promoting agriculture, health and education opportunities to support local and regional farms.


In case you aren't able to visit a dairy farm this month,  here's a few dairy facts I'd like  to share with you   for National  Farm to School Month:

Milk travels from local farm families--to inspection,  processing and pasteurization, to you--in 48 hours or less.

There are 51,000 dairy farms in the United States and 98 percent of them are family owned.

It only takes 5 to 10 minutes to milk a cow on today's dairy farm.

Fresh milk straight from the cow is 101 degrees. Milk is quickly cooled and kept cold at 35-40 degrees F.

A single dairy cow yields about 6 to 7 gallons of milk per day.

Today's dairy farms produce almost three times more milk than farms of 19--and with about half the number of crops.

90 pounds of feed and hay are consumed by a dairy cow each day.

Dairy farming provides 130,000 jobs in the United States.

Water used to clean the milking equipment and barn is recycled to irrigate fields to grow crops.

Manure is recycled and is used by dairy farmers to fertilize their crops and for many of us to fertilize our gardens.

                                            I'll be celebrating with milk--how about you?

Dairymom's Sunset Adventure

 

Early in the summer, Ryan cut the hay on an acreage surrounded by subdivisions   at the edge of Centerton, not too far from our farm. Since we're considering renting the pasture for cattle, I was asked if I would like to take a ride on the four wheeler to check fences all around the property. Sunset adventure  rides with a dairy farmer are pretty irresistible!

 

It was worth all the adventure --blackberry briar scratches, chigger bites and a few tense moments when I wasn't sure the four wheeler would carry us out of the jungle of weeds above our heads--to see the beauty of an  overgrown Arkansas  meadow in early fall.

 

 

 

Underneath all these colorful weeds (I call them flowers), is a pasture of carpet thick grass.

When you compare this year to last year's drought--we are so blessed!

 

 

 

The earth is the Lord's and all it contains.

The world, and those who dwell in it.

---Psalm 24:1

 

Happy Sunday!

Dairymom's Thankful Thursday

Silage chopping has a lot of moments of frustration and irritation when dealing with a machine that has so many moving parts that often create mechanical breakdowns.

 

 

 

 

I'm thankful for the never give-up attitude of these young farmers and the not so easy lessons learned on the farm about dealing with disappointment and frustrations beyond our control on the dairy farm.