Walking in the Furrow
In 1962, Dad bought a Jersey dairy calf for 4-H from Dan Snider in New Paris. He bought milking equipment from his grandpa in 1965 and began selling milk at the age of 12. He milked his cows twice a day for 56 years and only missed milking chores for three days when he was on his honeymoon. During that time his folks milked the cows and did the chores for him.
Farmers sell their milk to a dairy and the price is based on "hundredweight" of milk, not gallons. It takes about 10 gallons to equal a hundredweight of milk. In 1965, Dad earned about $6 per hundredweight for his milk. The highest price he was ever paid was about $25 per hundredweight. Toward the end of his life, prices continued to drop and the dairy farms were closing. He stopped milking cows when the price of milk no longer covered the expenses.
Bedding the cows and hauling manure in the winter gets old real fast. We all look forward to warmer weather even though we know spring planting and summer chores will usually push a dairy farmer to his or her limits. But there is a celebration of the farm every spring, when the cows run, jump and dance into a green pasture. It is fun to throw open the gate and watch the herd of cows run headlong into a field after being confined in the barn all winter. Their tails go up into the air and they spin around and around, chasing each other like little kids. Finally, after awhile they settle down and start eating, and turn the lush, green grass into milk, filling the bulk tank with bonus milk for the hard-working farmer.
It is the bonus milk that became the problem as milk consumption dropped when schools closed for the summer and the price per hundredweight of milk still falls off. We often referred to June as the opportune month for milk inspectors to crack down on dairy farmers. They always showed up unannounced and the only warning you got is when the cows go crazy because of strangers in the barn or when the dog starts barking. They add extra black marks to the inspection sheet and look for those they can degrade to grade B status and pay even lower prices.
The problem with surplus milk in the summer caused some grocer organizations to gather and brainstorm in 1937. Two years later, "National Milk Month" was created. June became the official month to promote dairy products including milk, ice cream, yogurt, butter, cheese and more. Even though June is dairy month, it seems to profit the dairies and the grocers the most. Please keep enjoying those dairy products, because a lot of farmers need your support.
Now that the days of milking cows are behind us, we still frequent the milkhouse daily. Our 4-inch well has been running slower lately and I don't like to waste time while waiting for the field sprayer to fill between loads, so my first thought was going to TSC to purchase a large poly tank and framing overhead platform so water could fill the sprayer tank quickly by gravity. It was then that I got the idea to use our old refrigerated, stainless steel 400-gallon Surge bulk tank in the milkhouse instead. I have a 300-gallon Clark sprayer, so rather than waiting for the water to slowly trickle with just a garden hose, I now can now fill the bulk tank with water while I'm out spraying. The use of a sump pump in the bulk tank to fill the sprayer at the milkhouse has sped things up so I can be on my way back to the field quickly.