My Coveralls

Much Cleaner Than Mine

They say you can tell a lot about a woman by the contents of her purse. The make up she has, the type of wallet, her phone, the fact that it has diapers and wipes or not, all tell something about her. Perhaps you can tell a lot about a farmer by the contents of his coveralls.

This morning I finally made it to the washing machine before my wife and was able to put my coveralls and coats in. Before I could do anything I had to make sure the pockets were all empty. In no particular order here's what I found.

• A pocket knife. You can't go to the farm without one.
• Twine Strings. Many uses for these, like a poor man's duct tape.
• Fence Steeples. Because you never know when you'll find a fence in disrepair.
• An uncracked pecan and some chocolate wrappers. Because you might get hungry out there doing all that fencing!
• A 9/16's wrench I forgot to put back in the toolbox when we worked on a silage conveyor.
• A pair of gloves that were very dirty and needed to be washed, too.
• Grain, hay, and other bits of trash that can't go in the washer!

I'm not sure what the contents of my coverall pockets say about me. I'm just glad I have a pair to wear on cold days on the farm.

Wordless Wednesday

A beautiful sky this evening while we finished up at the barn. One lonesome pregnant cow and our old brick silo.

Go Toward the Light and Avoid the Sinkholes

Our dairy cows go out on pasture everyday. My first job in the morning is to drive the tractor out in the field and round up any of them that didn't come in on their own for the first milking. Today when I went out the lights died on the tractor. Pitch dark. It didn't bother me and I decided I would just make a small loop around the field and any cows out there would hear the tractor and follow me in.

It is funny how the mind can wonder sometimes. While driving around I thought back to when I was in high school and my science teacher who told some crazy stories in class. One was about a farmer who walked out in his field to check on some cows and disappeared. His family was watching from the house and saw him just slip out of view and was gone. The theory my teacher proposed was that he fell into a tiny sinkhole in the ground and was gone. Did I believe the story? No, but was I thinking about it as I drove around in the dark? Yes.

There are no sinkholes in the pasture. No lost farmer and no lost cows. I followed the lights back to the barn and two cows followed me in for the morning milking.

I think fixing those lights will be very high on our list of farm chores today.

Dairy Farmers Sharing Their Story

I've always thought it was important for farmers to share their stories and their love of their livelihood. As more and more people grow up and never get a chance to visit a farm or talk to a farmer it even more important for those stories to be told.

The great folks over at SUDIA put together a few videos as part of their Dedicated to Dairy program.  The best part about it is that the videos are "just let the film roll and let the farmers talk" with scenes of farm life mixed in. You get to hear them speak from the heart and talk about the pride they have in what they do.

You can find more at their videos page. The one below is from my friend, Mac, one of the best dairy farmers I know.

Are There Snow Days on Dairy Farms?

There's just one reason that my kids perk up and want to actually watch the news.  It is when they hear the magic word: snow. Or as they say in White Christmas:



So when the news of possible snow arriving tonight was mentioned they have been very excited about the chance of missing school. I'm sure they'll use their guaranteed method of wearing their pajamas inside out to make sure they get some of the white stuff on the ground.

But what about dear old dad?  No, there's no snow days for dairy farmers.  The cows have to be fed and milked just like any other day.  Bad weather of any kind just makes our chores a little harder.  We usually have to cut back on any extra things we might want to do in order for us to have time to make sure the cows and calves have plenty of water and feed.  We have a generator in case the power goes out so we can still milk the cows twice a day and feed.

Here's a video from a few years ago where we were out feeding a round bale of hay to our pregnant cows after a small snow.

2012 Starts With a Bang

I hope we're getting all of the bad of 2012 over with on the first day.  It sure would be nice, but I don't have high expectations.  It started on New Year's Eve when a shaft broke on the silo unloader's blower.  This morning a cow fell down and the grain auger that goes in the barn had problems.

The good news was the cow, who fell while fighting another cow, got up all on her own. We're keeping her separated from the other cows for a while to make she didn't hurt herself. The grain auger only had one bolt that broke and we fixed that in about 15 minutes.  The silo unloader will have to wait until tomorrow and we do have some spare parts ready.

Maybe the worst isn't over yet for 2012, but maybe the problems we have won't be hard to solve.