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I’m writing this column at the very beginning of June Dairy Month and trying to put down my thoughts about checkoff is harder than ever. This year, promoting milk and dairy has a different meaning to it than normal.
2021 has started the way I expected but hoped it wouldn’t: the same as 2020. As an example, I’m already late getting this column in to my understanding and totally professional editor, Emily Gwin.
My husband and I officially bought the cows three years ago. We’ve been learning together, working together and making the farm ours, slowly but surely. We took over the farm in the middle of a long downturn of the industry, and Michigan (where we live) was hit especially hard. We joked about why would we want to start farming in good times? Our mantra has been, “If we can make it through this, we can make it through anything.”
If you follow along with any of my social media profiles, or you have read my past HERd Management columns, you might know 2019 was a difficult year for me.
In 2017, my New Year’s resolution was that instead of complaining about things, I was going to do something about it. I learned a lot that year. I accidentally found some things I’m genuinely passionate about. I also discovered I cannot do it all. This led to my 2018 resolution – saying no to things that don’t bring me joy and passion.
“I think cows in general are beautiful creatures. I easily get inspired by personalities, coloring, spots, wrinkles or folds, if they have fluffy ears or long eyelashes, droopy eyes or nose freckles – the list goes on. I love specific details that will grab your attention within seconds.”–Andrea Jorgensen
A little over a week ago, our farm welcomed a TV crew onto the farm. We have had film crews on the farm, but filming a show for a national network is a whole new beast. The entire experience is intense and goes quickly. There are also a lot of people involved in filming a show.
When we were pregnant with our first daughter, people always said, “It takes a village to raise a baby.” If you’ve never had kids, you might not realize that maxim is definitely true. Even if you don’t have kids, having and running a farm is really similar.
It’s 7:45 a.m., and I am sitting on my couch uncomfortable and wondering how difficult it’s going to be to get back up off the couch when I am done. Although I am only 36 weeks into my pregnancy, I only made it 35 weeks with my last, so this is like my 40 weeks.
Spring is coming. Well, we hope it is, but as I’m writing this, we are supposed to get snow today – again. I keep telling myself the warmer weather is coming. But once the warmer weather is here, we get busy. Fieldwork starts; all of those extra good weather jobs get added to the to-do list; and farm visits begin.
