Snowstorm prep on the farm! Welp – I guess Lane says the word “fricking” now. We have another FRICKING snow storm coming and we’ve got to prep. I had to bribe the twins to come to the farm with me by letting them pick whatever they want from the gas station.  We’ve got lots of calf chores to get done so we have to be at the farm! You gotta do what you gotta do. 

Welcome to the milking parlor where we milk our cows!  We milk around 600 cows in a double 8 parallel parlor, meaning we can milk 16 cows at a time. It takes about five minutes to milk each cow and then they go back to their pen to live their best lives aka do cow stuff like eat, poop and lay down. We use a teat scrubber to sanitize the teats before applying the milking unit, ensuring cow health and comfort – and ensures you’re getting high-quality milk! The cows that are waiting to be milked hang out in the holding area chewing their cud. 

Tom also does important work in the shop – like fixing Sage’s pedal tractor. We also have the case of the missing glove. Mine though, not the kids.

Today we had calves to move out of their hutch and into a group pen. As the calves get older they get moved from their individual hutches to group pens where they join the rest of the herd. We do this after their at least 8 weeks old, weaned off milk, eating lots of grain and drinking plenty of water. Basically, they’ve graduated from their hutch to the next pen. We use a custom made skid steer attachment to move four calves at a time. 

And that’s it for another busy day on the farm!