Photos of the Week

Here are a few photos I snapped over the past few days that can help tell the story of what's been happening on the farm.

Monday morning we "worked" a group of 65 Holstein heifers and Angus-crossed calves. We ear tagged those that didn't yet have one and gave them their vaccination booster shots before moving them to a new pasture.

I didn't go looking for a beautiful sunset on Monday evening, but I found one while my son and I were trying to get a couple of loose steers back into their pasture. The milking herd gathered along the east side of their pasture to check out all the commotion and provided us with this photo opportunity.

One of my favorite speeches

Following up on my post about former Milk Mustache Contest winners, I'm gonna treat y'all to a little more nostalgia.

Delivering a speech at an agricultural
conference in Kansas, 2010.

I've had the opportunity to give quite a few speeches over the years. The first I remember was in my sixth-grade English class, and by the time my high school days were over I would go on to represent my school in the Public Speaking Contest at the Alabama Beta Club Convention and deliver the valedictory address at my class's graduation ceremony. My college speeches ranged from the ridiculous (a tongue-in-cheek defense of professional wrestling) to the sublime (on the importance of self-sacrifice), and I've given more speeches at agricultural meetings and conferences in the past 15+ years than I can even begin to remember.

Thirteen years after speaking at my own graduation, I was invited to deliver the commencement address to Lamar County High School's Class of 2010. Getting up and speaking in front of agricultural acquaintances and total strangers was old hat by then, but the idea of speaking with the eyes of my hometown upon me really made me nervous. That's what also made it special. And for a little over eleven minutes that May evening I tried to impart some useful, practical advice to the forty-some-odd graduates seated before me in a way that would make my former teachers and fellow citizens proud.

The address I gave that evening is certainly not going to show up when you search for "Best Commencement Speeches" on Google. Heck, it's not even the best speech I've ever written or delivered. But the occasion made it one of my favorites, and there are a few truths sprinkled in there that I still need to remind myself of from time to time. Hopefully you will find a few pearls of wisdom you can use, too, if you choose to give it a listen. 

Checking in on former Milk Mustache Contest winners

Once upon a time I would promote a kids' Milk Mustache Contest as a way for our farm to celebrate June Dairy Month. From the best of my recollection, it started around 2006 and ran through 2014. I was curious about what these former winners are up to now, so I reached out to as many of their parents as I had contact information for. Several were gracious enough to share an update I could use for a "Then and Now" promotion, and I have been sharing those across various social media accounts throughout the month.

With Dairy Month now drawing near its end, I've decided to post all of those updates here in one place. My thanks to all the kids (and parents) who participated in this project, as well as everyone who took part in our Milk Mustache Contests over the years.

Mid-June update

Well, folks, we've made it past the mid-point of June. And though we've been very busy on the farm these past few weeks, we still have a whole lot of work ahead of us.

This past week was a productive one...and unseasonably comfortable to boot! I sprayed and sidedressed our last remaining acreage of "hill ground" corn, and now all it needs is a few rains between now and harvest time. I was also able to drill roughly 40 acres of pearl millet seed into the ground which I hope to see pegging up by the end of this week. We also fertilized our hayfields, some with a commercial blend and a couple others with manure slurry. We have several pastures that need to be sprayed over the next couple of weeks, and our bottomland corn will likely need to be sprayed next week as well. We have a pretty good chance of rain every afternoon this week, and that will have a big impact on how much or how little tractor time I get over the next 7-10 days.

Our milking herd is still holding at 188 cows, though I figure we will dry off a few of the pregnant ones toward the end of the week. We opened up our final silage pit on Monday, and I'm not sure we won't run out before the first of this year's silage crop has been harvested and adequately ensiled. Reducing the number of cows in the milking herd along with their reduced summertime appetites will help extend our supply a bit, as will presumably our first cutting of millet. If we can make it through August off last year's crop, great! If not, we may have to buy and feed a "one shot" built-in-roughage ration for a couple of weeks.

Depending on weather, we may start vaccinating our heifers and steers before the week's up. If not, we'll jump on that job early next week. I figure it will take at least three days to work through them, though we'll probably hold off on the oldest heifers until we can get a "preg check" lined up with our veterinarian. There is usually a lot of loose manure (and a few loose words) flying around the catch pen when we work heifers, but I'll try to keep my clothes...and my language...as clean as I can.

I'll leave y'all with last week's MooTube Minute. I hope you all have a dairy good week!

Farm Update - 5/31/19

It's been another hot, dry week on our farm, but we've managed to survive it and get a little bit accomplished along the way.

The most important thing going into this week was to get the last 35 acres of this year's corn silage crop planted down in our bottomland, and to that end we were successful. We spent the first half of the week getting the ground worked up and fertilized, and I spend Wednesday afternoon and most of Thursday running our four-row planter across the dusty fields. I looked back through my records and figured out that our five-year average planting date in those fields is June 2, so we beat it by a couple of days. That wraps up our corn planting for the year, and next we'll move on to a few acres of a pearl millet variety we are trying out. Well, we'll move on to that once it rains again and softens the ground a bit.

2019 corn silage crop...planted.

We really are starting to hurt for rain now. Our earliest planted corn is ready to be side-dressed but I'm hesitant to do it until we get some rain in the forecast. The fields look alright enough in the mornings, but as the sun starts bearing down it's obvious the corn needs a drink. Same goes with our pastures. I did help out one of the hayfields we harvested last week by spreading eight honeywagon loads of manure slurry on it this afternoon, and I imagine that will continue for a couple other fields on Monday and Tuesday.

On the cow side, we currently have 188 in the milking herd. The heat is driving them out of the pasture around mid-morning and into the loafing barn where they can cool down under fans and sprinklers. It's had a negative effect on milk production, but we're pretty much in line with where we expect to be this time of year. Milking times are running around 2.75 hours in the mornings and just over 2 hours in the afternoons.

cow no. 603 serving as a lawnmooer outside the milking barn

If you'd like to get all this information in a condensed, video form, be sure to check out the MooTube Minute I post at the end of each week. I used to post farm videos all the time, but both I and my viewers seemed to get burned out after a few years. I'm really enjoying easing back into it though, and hopefully it will help folks learn more about what happens around here.

And with that I'll bid you farewell. Thanks for your support, and have a "dairy" good weekend!

Farm & Life Update (5/16/19)

originally posted Thursday morning at 6am

Good morning from the parlor where Dad and I have now milked 170 of our 193 cows and the sky’s changing hues herald the sun’s impending arrival. Fans have been circulating cooler fresh air through the barn to keep both us and the cows comfortable, a task that will be increasing difficult as we approach and soon enter the summer.

Despite two flat tires slowing progress yesterday and one of our farmhands needing off at least part of today, I think we are still on track to get our “hill ground” corn planted by the end of the week. If so and we stay relatively dry heading into next week, we could be looking at a run of days that are extremely busy even by dairy farm standards. There are hay fields to clip, bottomland fields to plant, corn to sidedress and spray, calves to vaccinate, and of course the cows still have to be milked twice daily.

On top of the farm work, I have a family to spend time with, Wednesday night Bible study lessons to prepare for June, cross-state meetings to attend, phone calls to make, and I’m sure a number of other responsibilities that aren’t immediately coming to mind. It can be overwhelming if I try to look too far beyond the horizon, so I just try to make the best of today and put myself in a good starting position for tomorrow. There is such a thing as being too busy, but Luke 12:48b says, "From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, even more will be expected." The Lord’s given me opportunities to be useful in different ways to different people and He’ll sustain me as long as I'm faithful to stick to the path He’s laid out for me.

So let’s all work diligently today but remember that our worth isn’t solely defined by our work. Take time to smell the roses, extend kindness to your neighbor, and have a dairy good day.

There's something about this place

Sometimes I catch myself staring at a particular spot in a field or pasture for no apparent reason. Occasionally I'll park a tractor in the middle of doing field work, climb up onto the hood, and spend a minute surveying the farm around me. I enjoy soaking up the beauty of my surroundings in the the quiet moments I often spend on my front porch after the morning milking or at the end of the day.

There's something about this place.

the view from my front porch this morning

I was told growing up that I was smart enough to go anywhere and do anything I wanted. But there's something about this place that made it impossible for me to believe I could ever be happy being anywhere else or doing anything else.

I've spent the last fifteen-plus years heavily involved in several different farming organizations, and that involvement has often required me to spend significant time off the farm. Perhaps the effort has not always yielded the intended results, but there's something about this place that drives me to use my abilities in a way that helps enable myself and others to farm more freely and successfully.

I've spent countless hours sharing the story of my farm and industry with classrooms, reporters, civic groups, and thousands upon thousands of people I'll never actually meet on the internet. It can be a grind at times, but there's something about this place that's worth telling people about...especially those who have no personal connection to such a place.

I wonder if my ancestors ever reflected on the past and pondered on the future of this little spot of ground like I do. I think about all the decisions that must have been made by my family members over the last century-and-a-half that have led to my opportunity to call this place home, as well as how many times a different decision along the way could have completely re-written my story before it ever started.

Our farm isn't blessed with especially fertile soil, and we fight more than our fair share of kudzu and privet and pigweed. But it's ours, and it's home. It's both where I live and make my living, and I pray that holds true until I draw my final breath. Perhaps our kids will choose to make their lives and rear their families on the farm, perhaps their dreams will carry them elsewhere. Only God knows what the future holds for this place, but we are thankful He's entrusted its stewardship to our family for multiple generations.

There's something about this place that makes it worth conserving.

There's something about this place that makes it worth fighting for.

There's something about this place that makes it the only place I'll ever be able to call "home."

Springtime brings more milk and more work

Springtime is upon us and life on the farm is about to get much busier than it already is. It's been a few weeks since I've given y'all an update, so I figured I'd try to catch you up to speed before I start tackling some of the projects on this Saturday's "to do" list.

Fewer cows, more milk

Good ol' Ms. Nosey

Our milking herd topped out at 213 a couple of weeks ago, but we've since culled fifteen and are now sitting at 198. And while we have three more in the maternity pen that should calve within the next two weeks, we also have a half-dozen that are nearly ready to be "dried off." So, if we do cross the 200 cow threshold again it won't be for long.

Removing those lower producing cows automatically raised our herd's average daily production on a per cow basis by a couple of pounds right off the bat. Per cow production has continued to climb over the last couple of weeks thanks in part to better weather, and now our total production is exceeding what it was before we sold those fifteen cows. We'll "weigh" milk on Monday or Tuesday morning, and by the end of next week we should have updated production profiles for all of our milkers. That information will help us make decisions about whether or not we have any more cows ready to cull and which pregnant cows might need to be dried off earlier than two months before their due date.

Getting ready for field work
The days are getting a little longer, warmer, and drier, and I'm itching to be in the field. We still have a little ways to go before we'll be ready to break any of our corn silage ground, but with good luck and favorable forecast we may be able to have some bulk fertilizer spread within the next 10-12 days. We've been able to spread enough manure on the fields adjacent to the dairy to get by without needing any commercial P & K, this year, but we'll still need a blend spread over about 2/3 of our "hill ground" acreage. I haven't even pulled soil samples in our bottom land yet, and I figure it will be at least mid-May before it is dry enough to plant. If all goes as planned, though, we'll be looking at planting around 170 acres of silage before all is said and done.

A Super time in Atlanta

It's hard making a cow-print shirt look good, but I manage.

This past weekend's Super Bowl may have been a dud, but I had a blast with a few fellow dairy farmers at the SB Fan Experience event a couple of days prior to the big game. We were helping hand out free grilled cheese sandwiches and chocolate milk to folks who passed by, giving away "Undeniably Dairy" medallions, and answering questions people had about dairy farming.

I'm not sure how many people stopped by our food truck during the two-day event, but there was steady traffic while I was there Friday afternoon. We were able to convince the majority of people walking by our setup to stop and enjoy a sample, and most seemed genuinely glad that they did. A few even asked me about the brand names of the cheese (Cabot) and milk (Mtn. Fresh Creamery) and if they were available where they lived. And these folks lived all over, too! About half of the people who stopped by were Falcons fans, but there was also a large contingent of Patriots fans that had come to support their team. The Eagles, Steelers, and Cowboys were well represented, but the Rams...not so much.

While most folks only stopped long enough for the free samples and UD swag, our group did have a few good conversations with people who were excited to meet "real life" farmers and learn about life on a dairy farm. On the whole, I believe we built up some goodwill and perhaps even spurred some folks to start including a little more dairy in their diets.

One final note. As you can see, we were dressed to mimic referees...only trading the traditional "zebra stripes" for a Holstein pattern. We each had a whistle and a cow-print penalty flag we could through, too. I was told these outfits were specially made for the event and not available for general purchase. That makes them a rare collector's item, and I'm willing to autograph and auction mine off. Bidding starts at $5k, let me know if you're interested.

I joined five dairy farmers from Georgia along with promotion staff to help give NFL fans an Undeniably Dairy experience.

Atlanta Falcons cornerback Robert Alford stopped by to sample our grilled cheese and milk and take photos with fans.

I had a great conversation with Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier about what it's like living on a dairy farm.

What will happen to our dairy cows as we transition to beef?

"What will happen to your dairy cows?"

It's a question I've been asked several times over the last few months as I've mentioned our farm's gradual transition from dairy to beef, and there are really three different directions for our dairy herd to go.

Our dairy herd will naturally shrink by
breeding for more beef crossbreeds and
fewer Holstein replacement heifers.

The first direction (and most critical to our transition) is that we will shrink it by having fewer replacement heifers.  Until recently, our breeding program has been designed to yield roughly 80 Holstein heifers each year which would in turn join the milking herd once they have their first calf around two years of age. We changed strategies last year, which should result in roughly 60 Holstein heifers when our current calving season ends in a few weeks. We are currently breeding to only get roughly 30 Holstein heifers in the next calving season as we are focused more on the cross-bred calves we need to get our commercial beef herd established.

The second direction for our dairy cows is the beef market. Culling is a normal practice among dairies as we move out lower producing cows to make room for the replacement heifers. In our case, we send our cull cows to one of the local stockyards where they are bought and sent to slaughter. We have enough replacement heifers to keep our milking herd at its current level for another 2.5 years if we maintain our normal culling rate, so over half the cows we are currently milking will leave the farm through this process.

The third direction for our dairy cows is to be sold to other dairies. Once we get ready to close the book on dairy farming, we will look to sell the majority of our producing cows to dairies with expansion plans. Whether that's done by auction or private arrangement is yet to be seen and will largely be determined by cattle prices. Any that don't sell for milk production will be sold for beef.

Some people have asked about the fate of specific cows that I highlight on social media, such as Ms. Nosey and Trouble. Those two are both likely to fall in that second category based on their age, but both are currently pregnant, physically sound, and should be around for a good while longer. I wrote a blog a few years ago that deals with the issue of parting with favorite cows, and I invite you to read it if you're interested in the intersection of sentimentality and business. ("Saying Goodbye to Ol' Number 07")

Milk production is up

We're finally back over the 200-cow threshold in our milking herd (202 this afternoon), and so the increasing number of cows we are milking has obviously led to an increase in total milk produced. We still have 30ish more expected to freshen over the next 6 weeks, but I expect we'll send a few lower-producing cows off to the stockyard and give an extended dry period to several others to keep from going much over the 220-mark.

Part of our milk increase has also come from a switch to higher quality corn silage in the cows' feed ration. Last year's big silage crop exceeded our storage capacity, so we had to "ground pile" everything that we couldn't pack into one of our three silage pit bunkers. It was the first of last year's crop we fed because we knew it simply wouldn't age as well as the other. We fed the last of it a few days ago and started feeding better preserved, higher quality silage out of one of the bunkers. The cows immediately responded with increased production. Not substantial, but noticeable. And both the silage quality and milk production should continue to improve as we get a little deeper into it.

The weather has been a big limiting factor on production this winter, but has improved somewhat of late. We don't have a free-stall or pack barn, so our cows are out in the open most of the day. Keeping them out of the mud and finding halfway dry places for them to rest has been a real challenge with all the rain we've had, but fewer rainy days over the last couple of weeks has made pasture management and cattle flow a little easier. That translates into improved cow comfort, which in turn results in more milk.

Dad and I ran our monthly production "test" this morning, recording milk weights and collecting samples from each cow that came through the parlor. The samples and records were sent off this afternoon, and by the end of the week we should get a breakdown of each cow's milk production (quantity and quality). We will use that information to help us make the culling and early dry-off decisions I mentioned earlier, as well as to identify which cows we want to breed for replacement dairy heifers and which ones will be bred with Angus semen.

Sorting out breeding-aged heifers

We spent most of this morning sorting through a large group of 59 heifers that had been running together in the big pasture across the road from our dairy barn. We pulled the oldest 25 (ages 15-17 months) and hauled them to another pasture along with a newly purchased Angus bull. We had originally planned on using sexed semen on this bunch of heifers, but it's looking less likely that we'll need as many replacements three years from now. Depending on how our milking herd's pregnancy-check goes later this month, we may AI the next group of heifers that will be ready to breed in February.

It was a nice, clear morning to sort heifers.

I'm expecting a fairly standard afternoon ahead: milk the cows (181 of 'em), feed the cows & calves, and put a few bales of hay out in pastures. Here's hoping for a drama-fee ending to Hump Day.

FLASHBACK: 9 years ago...

January 9, 2010 was a big day for me as I was elected chairman of the American Farm Bureau Federation's Young Farmers and Ranchers Committee at AFBF's Annual Meeting in Seattle. I wuld learn a lot in the coming year about agricultural and organizational policy, leadership, service, and managing people (and their egos). It gave me opportunities to visit parts of the country I had never seen before and allowed me to meet many interesting people. It also helped prepare me to take on more leadership responsibilities within my county and perhaps one day my state.

Farm Update: January 8, 2019

We are enjoying a sunny, dry, and unseasonably mild start to our week here on the farm, a welcome change from the seemingly constant rain that had fallen over the previous several days. Our cows' milk production has been lagging behind where we think it ought to be, but there are signs that maybe they are finally turning the corner. We are currently milking 180 cows after sending 25 to the sale barn over the past month. We have roughly another 55 set to freshen within the next two months, so we'll cull a few more of our lower-producers and will likely give some pregnant cows an extended dry period so as not to exceed our management capacity.

Outside the milking barn, yesterday's activities focused mostly on calf management. We moved 20 weaned calves (Holsteins and Angus-crosses) to a new pasture to make room for 16 more that we weaned and vaccinated that morning. This morning we'll move 20 calves (2-4 weeks old) from single to group pens and repair some fencing around another pasture to prepare it for a group of breeding-aged heifers.

Y'all enjoy this nice weather while it lasts...we're sure gonna try to!

Our cows aren't filling up the bulk tank quite yet, but production is starting to climb.

Ten years later: the rest of the story

This morning I found myself in a reflective mood thinking back to mid-July 2008 and one of the most hectic weekends of my life. I blogged about it at the time and recommend you give it a quick look over before proceeding with this post. You can read my original account by following this link.

In the post I linked above, I made a short reference to a meeting I attended on that Saturday. Today, the only reason I remember anything about that weekend is centered on that meeting, why I was there, and how I got there and back without missing a milking shift.

And now, the rest of the story.

I was serving as the chairman of the Alabama Farmers Federation's Young Farmers Committee at the time. My committee's goal that year was to eliminate a couple of old contests and reallocate resources towards new contests and programs we thought would help attract and develop new YF members at the county level. Though we were convinced this was the right move for our program's future, we expected a lot of resistance. These contests, the Miss Alabama Agriculture Pageant and Talent Find, had provided entertainment at county and state annual meetings for years and were considered to be "sacred cows" by many of our members.

Getting our county YF chairmen on board with the proposed change wasn't difficult. Many of them were fed up with these old programs and ready to move in a different direction. The trick was going to be convincing the Federation's Board of Directors and County Presidents that this was in the best long-term interest of our whole organization, not just the Young Farmers program.

After briefing the Board at its June meeting, I was given the green light to address the County Presidents at their conference in July. The Board would weigh their input and then make a final decision later on in the year. The problem was I couldn't attend that July meeting. My father (then our county president) was already registered to attend, and our farm labor situation was such that we could not both be away from the dairy at the same time. Driving down and back in between milking shifts was out of the question since the conference was being held nearly 300 miles away in Point Clear.

About a week before the conference, our Young Farmers director and I began discussing how best to deliver my committee's proposal without me actually being there. I can't remember for sure, but I think we were settling on the idea of him clicking through a PowerPoint while I talked via teleconference. Toward the end of our conversation he asked if there was any way at all I could make the trip down to Point Clear and deliver the presentation in person. I jokingly replied, "Not unless your bosses will sign off on sending the company jet up here to shuttle me back and forth."

About an hour later my YF director called me back and told me his bosses had indeed signed off on it.

So that Saturday I met the plane in Hamilton after the morning milking and flew down to Point Clear (a 45-minute flight versus a five-hour drive). I presented my committee's recommendation and...to my great relief...received near unanimous support from the County Presidents. I was flown back to Hamilton and was milking cows by 1:30pm. The Board officially accepted our recommendation later that Fall and the final Miss Alabama Agriculture Pageant and Talent Find contests were held at our Annual Meeting in December.

In the ten years since, our organization has grown participation in Young Farmers events and developed a deep roster of strong future leaders. And while my committee's efforts in 2008 probably won't be remembered by anyone who wasn't directly involved, I like to think we played a part in paving the way for the good things that were to come. If nothing else, the experience helped prepare me for the leadership roles I've held since. And for that I'll always be grateful.

And now you know...the rest of the story.

Elected and ex-officio members of the 2008 State Young Farmers Committee

Farm Update - July 7, 2018

Hey, folks! It's been a few months since I've given y'all a farm update, so I figured I'd take a few minutes to get you caught up while I'm waiting on my post-milking coffee to finish brewing.

We're in the midst of another hot, humid Alabama summer. Thankfully, though, we've only had one or two "dry spells" over the last couple of months. Timely rains have kept our corn and hay fields green and growing, and it's looking like we might finish the season with a pretty good crop of each. Our first cutting of hay wasn't that great, but we'll be harvesting for the second time next week or as soon as the forecast says we can string together three days with low rain chances. The second cutting is usually our best, and we could also get a strong third cutting (and a fair fourth) if everything "hits" right. Our earliest planted corn will be ready to chop in 2-3 weeks, and so far it's passing the eyeball test. I won't be sure how the yield and quality compares to last year until we have it in the bunker, but I am optimistic it will turn out pretty good.

Cows heading from the milking barn to their feed trough around sunrise.

On the cow front, we currently have 170 coming through the barn each day. We've been drying off pregnant cows fairly regularly over the last six weeks, and we still have a good many more to send out over the next few months. We will have a handful calve toward the end of the month, and then it will start picking up steadily around mid-August. Milk production is down as it always is this time of year, and likely won't start ticking up until September.

Our long-term prospects for staying in dairy still aren't very good. The price we are paid for our milk has inched up a little bit but we're not expecting any kind of big bump in the foreseeable future. And regardless of price, our regional infrastructure is deteriorating at such a rate it just doesn't seem like staying in is a smart/safe course of action. That said, we are hopeful we can continue on for a couple more years and "milk" as much out of the next positive price cycle as possible. Ultimately, though, it looks like a transition away from dairy will be the most sustainable thing for our family farm. 

With that in mind, please keep us and our fellow dairy farm families in your thoughts and prayers in the coming weeks and months. Times are tough, and we're all facing difficult decisions over our farms' futures. While we are hopeful that we can make a strategic farm transition on our own timetable, many are finding themselves with no option but to sell their cows and equipment as soon as possible. It's a sad state of affairs, but we each have to play the cards we've been dealt.

To close this out on a more upbeat note, I want to take just a moment to brag on my son. We told our two farmhands to take a three-day holiday this past week, and LG was really helpful lending a hand in their absence. He's still about a year away from being a full-fledged milk hand, but he can do enough to make a noticeable difference when there's only one adult in the parlor. I'm hopeful that I can provide enough farm work (dairy or otherwise) in the coming years for him and my daughter to earn a few dollars and...more importantly...establish a strong work ethic that will serve them well in whatever career they ultimately choose for themselves.

Thanks for taking a few minutes to read, and have a "dairy" good day!

Gilmer Dairy Farm featured by "This is Alabama"

I was contacted by a member of the This is Alabama team several weeks ago and asked if I would be willing to allow them to compile and share a few of my Instagram photos. According to TIA's website, they "celebrate the great state of Alabama and uncover the amazing people, places and experiences she has to offer." They ultimately selected nine different photographs that touch on several aspects of our farm: cows, crops, farmscapes, and family.

The photos they selected were featured in the Sunday (3/4/18) editions of the Birmingham, Huntsville, and Mobile newspapers before being posted on their website. You can check out the online feature here: 

Alabama farmer Will Gilmer offers a look inside his family farm.

Updates and random thoughts

It's early Saturday evening, and I've just gotten in and cleaned up from the afternoon milking. The kids are watching television, my wife's taking a nap, the rain continues to make the recent drought a distant memory, and I'm here to share a few updates and random thoughts with y'all in between sips of a mug of milk stout. So without any further ado and with no particular order in mind...

Milking herd update: We broke the 200 cows-in-milk threshold this week for the first time in several months. How high we climb over the next six weeks will depend largely on how many cows we dry-off early or cull from the herd, and with no cow records in front of me at the moment I'll guess we'll top out around 215. The herd's milk production hasn't been as good as we'd like but should improve as we start feeding corn silage with a little higher grain content.

Is processing in our future?: While we are taking steps to establish a beef herd as an exit strategy, I'm finding myself more and more interested in the idea of processing and marketing our own milk. Over the next few months I hope to visit several small-to-midsize dairies in the Southeast that are doing just that and get a better feel for the opportunities and challenges. If I can make it pencil out without running myself slap to death, Gilmer Dairy Farm milk, cheese, butter, or ice cream may be coming to a store near you one of these days. We are a long way from that point, but it may be the last best option for staying in the dairy business.

Milk price update: Ummmmm, let's skip to the next one.

I'm not the agvocate I used to be: Back in the day, I used to blog and tweet a lot more about the larger issues connected to agriculture. I faithfully fought the good fight, addressing people's misconceptions of how their food is produced and explaining how a particular public policy could make or break an entire industry. I may have never been one of the ringleaders or most influential voices when it came to the heavy-lifting of agricultural advocacy, but I did what I could. And it about burned me out. Nowadays, I just enjoy sharing the day-to-day of life on my dairy farm without the pressure of trying to be an "agvocate." Yeah, I still talk about issues from time to time, but I pick my battles. Honestly, I think people might put more stock in my opinions because of that...kind of that whole "they won't care how much you know until they know how much you care" thing. By the way, "agvocate"...shorthand jargon for "agricultural advocate"...is a dumb, made-up word and I've been wanting to say that for years. Don't @ me.

Meetings, meetings, and more meetings: Lots of agricultural meetings are scheduled for the first three months of the year because no one's in the field and row croppers don't have anything better to do (again, don't @ me). Back in January I went to my first American Farm Bureau Federation Annual Meeting since rolling off the Young Farmers & Ranchers Committee in 2011. I saw lots of old friends and loved being part of the policy adoption process again. This past week I had dairy meetings down in Montgomery, and I'll be going back to the capital on Monday to hear candidates for statewide office give their pitches as to why Alabama's farmers should support their election bids. Follow that up with a county Farmers Federation meeting the next night and I'll be about all meeting'ed-out for a while.

The highs and lows of basketball: As of this posting, my beloved Mississippi State University's women's basketball team is undefeated, ranked #2 in the country, closing in on a conference championship, and looking every bit a contender for a national championship. The men's team has rebounded from a slow Conference start and is finally showing some real hope for the future. My own kids' teams...well, that's a different story. Neither have won a game all year and they are about out of chances. Bring on baseball/softball season.

Alright folks, my stomach is telling me it's time to get up and throw some smoked venison sausage in the frying pan. Kudos if you made it this far, and I hope y'all have a "dairy" good weekend!

Cheers!

From the milk house to the courthouse?

"So, are you running?"

It's a question I've been asked with increasing regularity over the past few weeks in regard to the soon-to-be open position of Probate Judge in Lamar County. For those of you unfamiliar with my county's politics and interested enough to continue reading, our probate judge essentially serves as our county's CEO with duties that include overseeing all matters of probate (obviously), issuance of car tags, and serving as the chairman of the County Commission. Our current judge recently announced he would retire at the end of this month rather than serve out the final year of his six-year term. This leaves Gov. Ivey with the responsibility to appoint someone to fill the position until a candidate is elected in November.

I've playfully teased the idea of running for public office on social media before, from posting faux campaign images like the one above to sarcastically tweeting about my willingness to fill Jeff Session's former Senate seat if asked. If there's one political job I've ever been genuinely interested in, though, it's the one I'm now being asked about.

Checking in with a long overdue farm update

Hello, folks, it’s been a while. I apologize for not posting to this blog over the past few months...sometimes I forget that not everyone follows along with the daily goings-on via Twitter. But now I'm back and happy to share a bit about what's been happening on the farm and where we see it going in the future.

Howdy!

The happiest news coming out of the summer is that we had a very good corn silage crop. We only planted corn on three-quarters of our available acreage this year, yet we harvested enough to fill all three of our silage pits. Without a doubt it was one of the best silage crops I can remember. We also rolled up over 550 bales (roughly 220 tons) of bermuda and crabgrass hay. That's a little short of our normal yield but should be more than enough to see us through the winter and early spring. 

Weather permitting, we will finally begin drilling oats into fields and pastures over the next few weeks. Some of the planted acreage will be used for spring grazing, but most will be harvested as baleage. It doesn't provide quite the kick of corn silage, but it's proven to be a better option on some of our marginal ground. Other farm chores on the docket include clipping pastures, seemingly endless equipment repairs, keeping hay rings filled, and of course milking cows twice a day.

Speaking of the cows, we currently have 167 in the active milking herd. That number should climb steadily over the next few months as more cows freshen than are dried off. The same could also be said of our cows’ milk production. It’s been slowly improving since the summer, but our nutritionist expects next week’s ration change to boost milk 4-6 pounds per cow. Let’s hope so!

And now…the bad news.

"Fancy"

The dairy business is not very good right now, particularly in our part of the country. We've seen worse prices and margins a couple of times in the past ten years, but it appears we are now in a period of what could be called "persistent mediocrity."  The price we are receiving for our milk lets us pay the bills, but that’s about the best I can say about it. The dairy industry’s long-term outlook is bright, but I don’t know how many dairies in this part of the country will be around to see those better days. In Alabama alone we’ve lost nearly 100 dairies over the last fifteen years, and we have barely more than 30 operating today. There are many factors that have led us to this point, but at the end of the day it’s a matter of supply and demand: too many cows in this country producing more milk than we can sell for a good price in the marketplace.

I regularly pray that God will give us wisdom to make good choices about the direction of our farm, and recently we have made a big one: we are taking the first steps to transition from dairy to beef. Breeding our way into owning a commercial beef herd will take time, so there will be several million more pounds of milk produced on our farm over the next few years. And don't worry...I’ll continue to promote dairy just as hard as I possibly can until the last Holstein leaves our farm!

Over the past 65 some-odd years, dairy farming has provided a good living for my grandparents, my parents, and my own family. Breaking away from that legacy is scary, but I’m at peace with our decision. As much as I love what I do every day, I’ve come to believe this change gives our farm a better opportunity to be productive and profitable in the years to come. I’ll continue to pray for wisdom as we make decisions along the way, and I would certainly appreciate any prayers you could spare on our behalf every now and then.

Rocking into July

Move over fidget spinners, there's a new fad in town: rock hunting.

According to a Facebook Group called "205 Rocks!," people are painting rocks and hiding them in parks, near businesses, around churches, and in other public areas in our local communities. Once these rocks are found, they can be kept as souvenirs or re-hidden for someone else to find. These rocks come in all shapes and sizes and the artwork on them is just as varied.

my kids hid five special "prize" rocks in Lamar County

Activities like this offer golden opportunities for business promotion, and a few local businesses have hidden "prize" rocks that can be redeemed for anything from trinkets to t-shirts. My daughter decided we should get in on that act, so Saturday night she and her brother hid five black and white "Gilmer Dairy Farm" rocks between Vernon and Sulligent. My wife posted a photo of them on the 205 Rocks! group page with the instructions that anyone who found one could stop by our milking barn one afternoon and swap the rock for a prize package.

Two kids stopped by while we were milking on Sunday afternoon to claim their prize. Two more of the rocks have been found according to photos posted on the Facebook page, and the status of the fifth is still a mystery. I'm not sure how long the interest in rock hunting will last (or how many prize packages we will give away), but it is a neat little activity to help keep kids active this summer.

Happy hunting, and have a "dairy" good day!

my daughter holds the first rock redeemed for a dairy-themed prize package