Guest Blog

I used to be organized. I was the Type A person who carried their Franklin Covey planner around like a baby. Then I married a dairy farmer, started farming with him, had kids, started homeschooling and ran a business out of our home. Things got crazy and unorganized fast.

Even though it happened many years ago, lots of Americans remember Dec. 7, 1941, as Pearl Harbor Day. It was the day Japan attacked the U.S., without a declaration of war, and killed thousands of Americans and destroyed so much of our naval force and air force at Pearl Harbor.

No matter how hard I try to think of topics that are strictly farm related, I always sit down and seemingly pour my heart out to the blank page about something that comes out sounding more like a Sunday sermon than a dairy farmer’s blog post.

Winter is a tough time of year regardless of how you milk your cows. Things freeze. Snow, ice and cold are here. Things take longer than they should. Winter was tough when we milked in our parlor, but making the switch to robots meant completely relearning winter.

“We are going to get some projects done.” That was my mom’s declaration each time company was coming. It didn’t matter whether it was a graduation, holiday or anniversary. It was a deadline to get a big goal accomplished. “How silly,” I thought. “No one is going to notice.”

It’s been a tough year for dairy farmers; milk prices have been low for two years, and in some places like Michigan, a deduction has taken another bite out of milk checks to cover the cost of milk sold at a loss by their cooperative.