At the Dairy Strong conference on Jan. 23, award presenter Laurie Winkelman painted a picture of someone who invests money, time and resources into promoting dairy farming and bettering the community, even in ways that don’t seem to be related to dairy farming.

I am a dairy farmer who didn’t grow up on a farm, but I always had some desire to be around dairy cattle from exposure to my dad’s family farm as a small child. That seed planted in my heart as a kid led me to join FFA, and my friends who grew up on farms were pretty willing to let me tag along and help with chores from time to time. I learned so much from not only helping with chores, but also from their parents and grandparents.

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.

New Year’s resolutions made a few months ago may seem like distant memories, after the fierce and what seemed like a never-ending winter we are just now emerging from.

We all need people. Without other people, there would be no market for the large quantities of high-quality food we produce. Without people, it would also be nearly impossible to produce all that food, process it and get it delivered all over the world. We need people, and for many more reasons than just to help us produce and consume our product.

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of blogs Rebecca Shaw will be providing about female entrepreneurs and what the dairy industry can learn from them. “My best successes came on the heels of failures.”

In 2016, dairymen and women were among the agricultural coalition that helped flip traditionally blue states red – places like Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio – during Donald Trump’s journey to the White House.

Each year, for eight days in January, hundreds of thousands of people flock to Harrisburg to visit the Pennsylvania Farm Show. This event is known across Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic region for its delicious food, animal shows and family-friendly exhibits but, mostly, it’s where city people go to learn about farming.

Some things that happen on our farm are difficult to write about, especially what happened here recently. But in farming, like in life, things don’t always go nice. There are hard times and disappointments.