I stumbled across some posts on Pinterest of lists of questions to ask your spouse, children, friends, etc. I thought, “Well, this might be fun” and clicked on a post. I called the kids in the room and began to ask them random questions.

I was sitting there in the doctor’s office as the nurse went down a list of questions for my son’s checkup. I was doing my best to listen to the questions, but I had also been sick all morning, so I was partially zoning. My answers were pretty much all the same as my son is very fortunate to not have any allergies, nor does he take any medications. Then she asked if he ate a lot of dairy, to which he quickly told her that he does. She proceeded to tell us that dairy causes behavioral problems in children. He looked at her like she was stupid and gave me a look like “Who is this lady?”

I have to have a plan. I am constantly asking my husband, “What is the plan?” It drives him absolutely insane. It’s just how I am. I need to know what the day will look like, be able to glance at the week ahead and know what is coming up next month.

It's no secret that the past year has been devastating for our entire industry. As farms continue to sell out, those of us left standing can't help but wonder when we will be next. Folks are worried, scared and flat out pissed off at the current state of our industry. Many are in survival mode, while others are just hanging on a little bit longer in hopes that cull cow prices will go up so they can sell the herd.

I shared the following recently on social media: “I was recently asked what I am most excited for in the new year (2018). I thought; then I thought some more. To be honest, we are currently diving head-first into some of the worst milk prices we have seen since we started farming. I'm nervous. I'm concerned. I'm a tad bit scared. I am not sure how many dairy farms will be left by the end of the year here in the U.S. Who's to say it won't be us. ... You honestly never know.

I sat down the other day to write down all the upcoming appointments, church activities and sports for the kids. As I continued filling in the space for the next couple of months, I found myself feeling a little overwhelmed. How in the world am I going to do all this with a newborn baby? I caught myself wondering why in the world would I sign up for this many things.

Growing up, I never imagined I would some day marry a dairy farmer. In fact, I really didn’t give farming much thought as a child. I was a child of a wildland firefighter and had deep family roots in the timber industry.

I will be honest: I didn't know anything about veal farming until after I started blogging about our family dairy farm a few years ago. As my content began to be shared within activists groups, the accusations that we “murder our baby cows” started to flood in.