Guest Blog

Don’t ever feel like you have to hide your sensitivity. Your empathy gives you the ability to detect details that would have gone unnoticed, like that calf who just doesn’t seem herself today. You have a heart – and it’s OK to listen to it.

Advocating isn’t what it used to be, because what it used to be isn’t enough. As time goes on, we need to find new and innovative ways to communicate with our consumers. Not only does it need to be innovative, but it needs to be something that expresses who we are and what we’re about. What’s an impactful story that we can tell?

Prior to my return to our family’s dairy farm, I worked for an electrical contractor. In my time there I completed my apprenticeship and worked my way from foreman to superintendent to project management in a 12-year career.

A hoof trimmer from Illinois calls a client in Missouri, who calls a friend in Indiana, who calls the dairy farmers closest to exit 57 on Interstate 64 where a breakdown has occurred. No, this isn’t one of those “a fireman, a policeman and a doctor walk into a bar” type of jokes; this is a situation that occurred around 10 p.m. on a weekend following the North American Livestock Expo.

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.

It all started with an innocent comment on a Facebook post in a local community group. A young woman was looking for a place in town to start an animal rescue. I politely told her city and county laws dictate that one must own at least 10 acres to house livestock.