Dragonfly

Having trouble with my post scheduling so here is last weeks Wordless Wednesday

Sunset on Wordless Wednesday

Ice Cream

 
Just a reminder to get over to Progressive Dairyman and vote for Dryer's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream, and all your other favorites, by Clicking on the link near the bottom of the page here.  Help get us a win in round two over Ashley Messing / Michigan State University's Final Four Fudge Dribble
Although Ashley is a very nice person you know that chunks of cookie dough taste better than "malt balls" found in our competition. Also, you can't afford to "dribble" your ice cream when it tastes as good as Dryer's Cookie Dough.
You also might be interested in checking out a giant ice cream sundae by clicking here 

Sweet Corn Sprouting

We raise sweet corn to sell on the roadside. It is good to see it growing despite the cold wet spring. The heat over the past week has helped a lot.

More Rain and More Planting (Tractors)

We nearly got an inch of rain on May 29 and repeated that since yesterday afternoon. Those two storms alone gave us what an average month usually brings us here in May And June.

What the sky looks like almost every other day.

You know it's wet when water fills the tracks.

I guess the wet ground has been good for the earth worms. This is a good sample of what we get nearly every shovel full.

This tractor got stuck just trying to find a way out of the field after pulling out the other tractor.

Ice Cream Flavor Face-Off Vote for our favorite: 

DRYER'S CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH

Progressive Dairyman is hosting an ice cream Flavor Face-Off to celebrate June is Dairy Month and July is Ice Cream Month. We were lucky enough to be chosen to help out. 

We chose Dryer's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough to represent our farm.  It is the perfect combination. The creamy smooth vanilla melts in your mouth, and you gotta love the crunch of the chocolate chips and the texture of the cookie dough. After all, who doesn't make a batch of cookie dough just to eat half of it?

 So click here to go to the Progressive Dairyman Website right now to vote for our favorite flavor, I guess you can vote for your favorite if it is different than ours if you really, really, really, like another flavor. After the contest concludes they will randomly select a voter to win $100 worth of the winning ice cream. 

You can also see how fast you can recognize excellent ice cream by playing Dryer's Match a Snack It's a fun game for the kids (we know they are already asking you what to do for summer break) 

Planting Tractors

We have become quite good at planting tractors this year. I guess on the positive side of things we also have become fairly quick at pulling them out and a little better at stopping before we sink all the way to the axles, frame, and fuel tanks. These pics are of a time we didn't get that lucky and it took a lot of digging and placing railroad ties under the wheels to get us up out of the mud hole.



I took a small chain out because my dad told me it should come right out but then volunteered to stay at the barn and milk while I took one of my workers out with our smaller tractor.  I think he knew it wouldn't be quite that easy. As soon as I looked at the far side of the tractor I knew we would be there a while. So we got shovels and started digging out from under everything and behind the wheels. My neighbor came out and went back for a heavier chain. Another neighbor had been watching from his farm on the hill and brought his tractor down also. We must have prepared good because we only had to use our tractor and it came right out.  When my neighbor went to leave he found a wet spot with his tractor and we nearly had to pull him out. I drove around the field for a while looking for a place I wouldn't sink while it was parked.


My dad went back out and found another wet spot that wasn't anywhere near the spots we already found. I notice one of our railroad ties was missing and had to go shovel and poke around in the mud till I could find it in the previous spot You can click here to see us pulling it out the next morning, it was quite and easy pull. Luckily our neighbor was smart and offered to work our field with his much smaller and lighter tractor and disk. He was able to get most of our field disked which should help it dry if it ever quits raining on us.

Wordless Wednesday

It is still plenty cold and wet. We have not been able to get any spring planting done yet.

2011-04-26 12.54.40

2011-04-26 12.54.40, a photo by hull dairy on Flickr.

Dry cows in the dirt lot behind our house in the lovely spring weather we are having. This post is a test on uploading pics a new way but hope you enjoy anyway.

Quality Animal Care

There are thousands of farmers that spend countless hours providing quality care for the animals they are raising. It can be a very stressful way of life often putting the animals needs before our own.  It is sad when a someone doesn't care for their animals properly but even worse when activists groups use it to promote a lifestyle they have embraced and feel that all others should do the same.  
Here are some links to blogs of people that care for animals for a living:


Heather Koehler talks about the difference between pets and livestock


Around the Farm Blog


Ray Prock discuss these issues and also has compiled a list of other farmers doing the same


Ray-Lin Dairy


Emily Zweber shows how they care for the calves on their farm in a video 


Zweber Family Farm

Some dairy cow terminology

• A young female before she has had a calf of her own is called a heifer. They usually calve for the first time around two years old. They are considered cows after they reach three years old.  
• A young female that has had only one calf is occasionally called a first-calf heifer. 
• A springer is a cow or heifer close to calving
• We also call them close ups and start feeding them a grain mix similar to what they will get when they calve to help them through the transition

Answers To Name The Parts of This Dairy Cow

Wordless Wednesday

Radiation in Milk

There have been some stories over the weekend about radiation in milk sampled from dairy farms on the west coast. It is important to know that:

"According to the EPA’s statement, milk, water and other select products were tested for radiation. These very low amounts were anticipated, and will likely continue to appear over the next few days of testing. Federal and state government officials, and medical experts from around the country continue to underscore that minuscule levels of radiation detected do not pose a health concern to the U.S. food system, including U.S. dairy products." 

We are exposed to radiation everywhere in our lives and after reading more about it I am more concerned with radiation from electronics than I am about radiation in our food.

Check out "The Wife of a Dairyman" blog here for her insight on this information and a lot of other excellent posts on being a dairy farmer.

Wordless Wednesday

How many can you guess???

Let's see how smart you are....comment with your guesses and we will post the answers next week.

Hauling Nature's Fertilizer

Lots of sun for hauling manure. The snow provides quite a contrast.

Stuck

The ground was not frozen enough under the insulation of the snow. Had to dump the whole load and dig the tractor out with shovels, unhook it from the spreader and luckily drove it out. Then we were able to dig out the spreader and pull it from the rear to get it back on solid ground.

Check out this video of us doing chores with 

our twins. Kinda fun.

http://www.hjnews.com/photography/2011/01/14/hull-dairy/