Sorry it has been so long since I posted. I didn't realize it was nearly a month. We were extremely busy right up to July 4th with haying, replanting beans, spraying, fertilizing corn, installing fans in the barn and other SPRING projects. Since the 4th, there have been repairs to catch up on and cattle to pregnancy check and vaccinate. I've tried to get into the office some because I'm way behind there also.
July 5th marked 6 years since we expanded the dairy and started milking at our current site. It feels like a life time ago, I believe corn was around $2 per bushel when I worked on the initial projects, $15 dollar milk seemed extremely profitable, no one around here knew anything about robots milking cows, auto-steer in tractors was very new, variable rate technology wasn't talked about, we didn't know much about stray voltage, Brent had just finished college, I was still doing tax work in town and Madi was just over a year old. Fast-forward six years and we have robots milking the cows, the tractor is steering itself planting directly over the strips of fertilizer applied in the fall, we have survived the worst dairy economics since the 1930's, we have fought a tremendous battle with stray voltage that killed 50 some of our cows in 2008, we produced record corn and bean crops and have witnessed record corn and bean prices which also means record high feed costs, there are 4 kids/grandkids growing up on the farm now. This past week our kids had calves and projects at the county fair, this marks Mandy and my second county fair as parents of 4-Hers.
All these changes have happened in just the last six years, during the fair this past week I visited with many people that I haven't seen very often since I was a kid showing cattle at the fair. It was really an eye opening experience to think about how much has changed in the last 20 years. I can't believe how much understanding of the farm lifestyle has been lost in one generation. I showed cattle and grew up with people that came from very similar backgrounds and worked on their farms growing up. They understood cattle, equipment, and the way of life on a farm. Now, just 20 years later, many have chosen other careers and even though they treasure their experiences growing up, their kids simply can't relate. I saw many examples of this. Twenty years ago the dairy show lasted all day and the younger calf classes had 30-40 dairy calves. This year I don't think any class had over 4 calves or cows.
It makes me wonder what things will look like 20 years from now? It also brings me back to why I wanted to start this blog. More and more people are getting farther removed from the farm and technology is changing farming faster than it has since the invention of the tractor. I still carry a pocket knife but I also have a smart phone in my pocket that allows me to look at the radar when I'm in the field, see what is going on with the robots at the barn, even taking pictures of parts to text to the repair shop. I also carry USB drives that backup the data from the robots or the GPS unit in the tractor. I'm going to make more effort to keep the blog updated. This is our responsibility as farmers to keep the public informed. We are also going to try extremely hard to be ready to start giving tours of the dairy farm and robots as soon as next summer.
I'll end this post with some pictures from the county fair. Also check out Mandy's blog she has an excellent post relating to the fair and farm life.
jumping in the straw in the dairy barn
Just out of the show ring
pulling hard
Ty's first trophy
2nd place in his first tractor pull
Keeping the barn clean
