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Gestur was a quiet man. When you said something, his face lit up and it was apparent he cared about what you were saying, but his own sentences were short and direct. Eventually, I lost the urge to fill the silences and settled comfortably into reticence as we moved between his barns.

As I watch the stores fill up with over-stuffed Easter bunnies, baskets and chocolate eggs, I scurry around preparing for that wonderful day when the Easter Bunny hops into a perfectly green yard and hides eggs and little gifts among the shiny red tulips, golden daffodils and brilliant blue crocuses for children.

As farmers, we have a multitude of resources available to us. We need to make a conscious effort to utilize them to help us, our animals and our farms. There are two major areas where I feel we are granted a significant amount of help: webinars/seminars and veterinarians/veterinary teaching hospitals.

It’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of our day-to-day lives. Many women in agriculture juggle numerous responsibilities from farm work or an off-farm job to children, extracurricular activities, household responsibilities and more.

I’ve had calls from two friends lately. “We’re out of hay, I don’t know what to do, can you help us?”

It’s all too easy to look at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange right now and think, “Wow, class III is $23 per hundredweight (cwt)! It’s about time dairy farmers got a break.”