Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Postscriptum

Considering I haven't posted on this blog in over 2.5 years, you might not have heard the news that we are no longer in the dairy business. We sold nearly half of our dairy cows in September 2022, then completed our full transition from dairy to beef when we sold the remaining Holsteins in late February 2023. I wrote about our final milking shifts on my Substack, which has more or less taken the place of this blog.

If you are wondering, life after dairy farming is quite enjoyable. My father and I still have a long way to go before we get our beef operation where we want it, but we are getting there.

I appreciate everyone who has supported and encouraged us throughout the years, and I covet your prayers as our family farm continues to move forward in a new direction. I don't anticipate posting anything new to this blog, but I'll keep the archives public for a little while longer. If you'd like to stay up to date with our new farming adventures, you can like our Facebook page, follow my Twitter/X account, or subscribe to my aforementioned Substack newsletter.

In closing, I am sharing a few links to different media stories about our farm leading up to and following our exit from the dairy business. Thank you all again so much for your time and attention, and have a "dairy" good day.

On The Farm - our farm's story was one of four featured in the EMMY-winning documentary On The Farm by MSU Films

Simply Southern - Episode 907, aired February 2023

Milking the Market: Lamar County Farm Transitions from Dairy to Beef Production - Article by 1819 News published August 2023

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Recapping our family trip to Nashville

My wife, kids, and I made our first family trip up to Nashville last week. It wasn't really a vacation in a classic sense (I was there for a conference), but we had a good time over the two and a half days we were in town. 

After settling into our downtown hotel room late Thursday afternoon, we made the short walk over to Nissan Stadium to attend Nashville SC's match again Atlanta United. For all the soccer my son and I watch on television, it was our family's first time to attend a professional soccer match. We. Had. A. Blast! NSC had to settle for a 2-2 draw after two of their goals were disallowed, but we had too much fun to care about the result.

Friday's conference agenda called for a morning meeting and evening dinner, leaving us with a free afternoon. We ventured to The Row Kitchen & Pub on Lyle Avenue for lunch where we all ordered the Nashville Hot Chicken. It did not disappoint. From there we made the short drive over to Centennial Park and spent an hour touring the Parthenon. After returning to our hotel, we walked a few blocks to get ice cream and cookies at Mattheessen's.

We enjoyed a late lunch Saturday afternoon at Puckett's Grocery & Restaurant on Church Street. The Country Music Hall of Fame was next on our agenda, and I really enjoyed all the different exhibits that walked you through the origins and evolution of country music. After returning to the hotel room for a nap that we all needed, we finished the day eating supper at a little place in the Germantown district called Jack Brown's Beer & Burger Joint. If you ever find yourself there, you can't go wrong with the Dr. Gonzo burger and sweet potato fries.

One day I'd like to go back to Nashville and take in more of the live music scene with my wife, but I'm thankful for the quality time the four of us spent together this past week.

The Parthenon at Centennial Park, Nashville


we enjoyed watching Nashville SC play at Nissan Stadium



inside the rotunda at the Country Music Hall of Fame



the Dr. Gonzo burger at Jack Brown's


life's better with ice cream

Monday, July 5, 2021

A hidden cost of rural broadband

Back in January '09, I was creeping down the information superhighway at 28.8kbps before "upgrading" to 1.5Mbps DSL in 2010. Over a decade later, in late April of this year, our local electric cooperative's Freedom Fiber broadband venture finally made it to our farm in all of its 100Mbps glory. And we could get up to a Gig if we needed it.

It is FANTASTIC!

Unfortunately though, we have discovered a hidden cost of having rural broadband on the farm.

Because our fiber network has been installed by our electric co-op, the lines are suspended beneath existing electrical lines rather than buried. That's not really a problem until they run too low across your fields.

A couple of tractors pulling hay equipment confirmed today what our eyes have been telling us for the past several weeks: there are two fiber lines crossing one of our hay fields that aren't high enough for all of our equipment to pass under. Thankfully, the equipment we had in the field today did just clear the lines, but we'll be out of luck if something doesn't change by the time Spring silage harvest rolls around.

these fiber internet lines are a few feet higher than my truck...but only a few inches higher than a tractor

The good thing about these lines belonging to our local electrical co-op rather than a big national company is that they'll work with you to solve the problem. I reached out to them this afternoon and have been told a crew will be coming to look at options within the next few days. Hopefully we can find a solution that doesn't involve having a pole sunk in the middle of the field, but we can deal with it if that's what it takes. Losing a few square yards of  hay or silage production around a utility pole is much better than losing a ten-foot swath the whole width of the field due to low hanging lines, and it's a price worth paying if that's what it takes to keep the broadband we've waited so long for.

UPDATE: The problem was fixed (without adding a pole!) less than 24 hours after I reported it. As I mentioned, that’s the benefit of doing business with a local company.