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.

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

Weekend Farm Recap

I'm just got in from the milking barn on Saturday morning and thought I'd share a little bit about what's been going on this past week. 

thumbs-up to more milk

We've had two dry cows and two heifers give birth this week, running our total number of cows in our active milking herd up to 177. They have been slowly inching up on milk production and should bump up a little more once cold weather sets in. Their TMR diet currently consists of corn silage, bermudagrass hay, wet brewers grains, and a custom mix of ground corn, soy products, dried distillers grains, etc. that we purchase from a feed mill.

Weather-wise, we've had damp and mild conditions most of the week. The wet conditions have prevented us from planting any ryegrass this week, but the wheat and rye we've already planted is really benefiting from the moisture and the temperature. And since we couldn't do anything in the field, we turned our attention Thursday morning to our beaver problem. Beavers have built dams all up and down a small creek that runs through our farm, causing water to back up into and flood one of our pastures. We busted four dams and "let the water off", but we still have at least three more to tear out.

On to the links:

• The Tuscaloosa News ran a story in their Sunday edition's Business section about me being named a finalist in the USFRA's "Faces of Farming & Ranching" contest. Read the story here, and don't forget to vote for me every day through December 15!

• My dad and I left the farm in the hands of our farmhands during the first part of the week so we could attend the Alabama Farmers Federation's Annual Meeting in Montgomery. You can watch this nice wrap-up video to hear from our organization's new president, meet our new Outstanding Young Farm Family, and learn how much money was raised for the Foundation for Agriculture.

• Speaking of videos, I have followed up 2009's "The Gilmer Dairy Farm Christmas Song" with a new one entitled "Have a Dairy, Merry Christmas" and I hope you like it. If you do, be sure to hit the "like" button on YouTube. It's been entered into Proud to Dairy's holiday song contest, and the video with the most "likes", G+'s, & "favorites" wins. And remember, sharing any of my crazy videos with your friends is sure to bring them holiday cheer!

Have a "dairy" good weekend, y'all!

Gilmer Dairy Farm Update, 12/10/09

Both my father and I spent a couple of nervous nights off the farm a few days ago while we attended the Alabama Farmers Federation's Annual Meeting in Mobile. Even though we have good, capable employees who we know can handle all the chores when we're both gone, it's always a little nerve-wracking worrying about the things that could go wrong on the farm while you're away. I'm happy to report that the farm was still here and functioning properly when we got home.

My return home was delayed a little on Tuesday as I stopped by the Precision Agriculture & Field Crops Conference in Atmore to speak to the attendees about using social media to proactively tell the story of agriculture. One of the things I shared with them is how taking the time to tell our stories is much like paying the insurance premiums for our farm policies. You can read more about what I mean on the FB Blog.

Back on the farm, we had around 6 inches of rain fall on Tuesday, mostly from late afternoon through the night. Yesterday was beautiful but very windy, and the forecast for today and tomorrow call for clear skies and cold temperatures. As always, we'll find plenty to do to keep us busy. We now have 23 breeding-age heifers we have pastured next to our barn and will be observing them each for signs of estrus. We also have a Select Sires representative coming this afternoon to look over a group of 30 first-lactation cows. He'll look at their physical traits and genetics and will then recommend which bulls' semen we should use to AI each of them.

As it is getting colder we're also feeding alot more hay to our drycows and heifers. You can learn a little more about that in our latest GDF MooTube Minute. Y'all have a "dairy" good day!

Cloudy Monday

I returned home yesterday from Birmingham, where the Alabama Farmers Federation's 2008 Commodity Producers Conference had been held since Thursday evening. It remained overcast all afternoon before lightly raining in the evening, and I don't think the temperature ever climbed out of the 70's.

It looks like we'll have a little more of the same today. It is supposed to be a little warmer, but it's quite pleasant right now, and much different from this time last week. We've got a fair shot at rain today and tomorrow, but most of it is projected to go south of us.

We'll probably be a little slow today, but will pick up steam during the week. We've got about 35 acres of bermudagrass ready to cut for hay right now, and we plan to start on that either tomorrow or Wednesday (depends on the forecast).

Tearing up the asphalt

Before I begin, it doesn't look like we'll be planting anymore BMR sudex unless we get more rain over the next couple of days.

Ok, I've hit another period where I'll be gone more than I'll be on the farm. I was in Montgomery yesterday for a FarmPAC meeting, and will be going back down there on Monday for another all-day meeting. In between, we'll be leaving in a few hours to drive over to Tuscaloosa. We'll be having our annual State Young Farmers Committee summer planning meeting there, which will begin this evening and run through Saturday morning.

Live from Montgomery

I've been in Montgomery today for the Alabama Farmers Federation's monthly Board of Directors meeting. I'm staying here overnight and will be traveling to Huntsville in the morning for an animal-welfare issues training event. I'll be back home on the farm sometime Wednesday afternoon.

I know dad and and our employees were cutting some ryegrass today with the hope of dry baling it later this week. I guess we'll see if the rain will hold off long enough to do that.

Wrapping up the Week

It's been a productive, though sometimes frustrating, week. Here's the day-by-day:

Saturday/Sunday -- A warm, dry weather forecast for the first part of the week meant I could go ahead and cut down some ryegrass during the weekend afternoons. The cutter-conditioner was leaving some occasional skips, but I got the job done.

Monday -- Don Allison Equipment delivers our new Jay-Lor Model 6/750 Mixer Wagon. Our old single-screw Jay-Lor was about worn out and on the verge of needing major repairs, so we bit the bullet and got a new twin-screw. Since we're going more to a hay/baleage program (with less corn silage), we really did need something with more capacity. It looks great too..but we find out that the concrete pad we feed the cows on is to narrow to turn the long thing without great difficulty. Dad and I will figure something out.

Tuesday -- Still not used to the length of our new feed wagon, I attempt to back it up across a culvert in our pasture. Mistake. It slides off the edge into a ditch...with 4 tons of feed in it. So I have to call Eskridge Wrecker Service to pick the wagon up out of the ditch so we can pull it forward with the tractor. In the end, no harm done except lost time and a wrecker bill. My own bad luck would continue as I bumped my head pretty hard while greasing our hay baler a little while latter. It was one of those bumps that hurts too bad to curse. I'm still wearing a knot. Things did get better that afternoon and dad got a little over half of the ryegrass baled.

Wednesday -- We start off dark and early about 3:00 am weighing our cows milk. Nothing major, it just delays breakfast by about 45 minutes. Once we get back, we have some heavy dirt brought in to widen out a spot at the feeding area so we can get that new mixer wagon turned without any problem. So far, it's been a pretty good day. Then, it's my turn to run the hay baler. I started about 9:40 and made pretty good time up to lunchtime. Right at noon I estimated I estimated it should take me about fifteen minutes to finish, so why not sacrifice a few minutes of lunch to keep from coming back? That's when my twine arms started messing up. Fifty minutes, five bales, several trips in and out of the tractor, and a whole lot of inappropriate language later, I finally finished. So much for lunch, it's time to hop on the four-wheeler and run the cows from their grazing pasture to the milk barn. I get that done, go home a choke down some leftover chicken fingers, then get the herd's evening TMR in their trough. Meanwhile, our new grain drill, a Haybuster 107, is delivered (with no problems, thankfully).

Now, it's time to start silage wrapping what got baled Tuesday! This process involves someone in the hayfield loading them on the dump truck and then dumping them at the stack site where I'll wrap and place them. Now, these bales looked really good coming out the the baler the day before, but over night they lost some "density" as the moisture in them equalized out (that's our theory, anyway). Being dumped off a truck doesn't help their shape, and they become more oblong than round. This presents a problem scooping them up with the wrapper, so my earlier frustration with our hay baler carries over into the rest of the afternoon. Thankfully, once the milking is done Dad was able to come over and space out the unwrapped bales (which made it much easier for me) while placing the wrapped ones once I dumped them. We finished up about 6:00 and I was glad to have that day behind us.

Thursday -- Another long day, but of a different sort. I leave the house about 5:00 am headed for Montgomery, where the Alabama Farmers Federation is having a Board of Directors meeting. No problems with the meeting, but the aches and pains from the previous day made for uncomfortable travel. On the plus side, that probably kept me from falling asleep at the wheel! I was back home at 7:00, which is a good bit earlier than when I usually get home from Montgomery.

Friday (as of noon) -- A pretty routine Friday so far, except the gasket on one of our tractor's hydraulic filter blew and lost lost all its fluid. That's what I'm about to go fix as soon as I get the cows out of the pasture. Let's hope it's smooth sailing from here on out!

I'm home, but not for long

After spending the last couple of days down in Mobile for our annual Young Farmers Leadership Conference, we returned home about 3:30 this afternoon. I won't be working much over the next few days, though. I'll be attending a FarmPAC meeting in Montgomery on Wednesday afternoon, and will be flying to Baltimore for the AFBF Young Farmers & Ranchers Conference on Friday. I should be back home from that trip in time to work on Tuesday afternoon.

I certainly have picked a bad time to come down with a cold.

Anyway, our cows had slowed down on production due to all the wet weather recently, put they're now picking back up. Our spring forages are looking pretty good, and we'll be hitting them with fertilizer before too much longer.

Back Home Again

After two days of attending meetings at the Alabama Farmers Federation office in Montgomery, I'm certainly happy to trade my dress shoes for rubber boots and get back outside. We're enjoying sunshine today, but there's a pretty chilly wind blowing. We're expecting rain tomorrow and several more days of cool weather.

Live from New Orleans

We're about halfway through the American Farm Bureau Federation's Annual Meeting in New Orleans, and so far it's been a pretty good trip for our Alabama Young Farmers delegation. Our state's member on the AFBF Young Farmers and Ranchers Committee, Townsend Kyzer, has been elected to serve as that committee's national chairman. Chris and Monica Carroll, our Outstanding Young Farm Family, are among the "top ten" finalists for the Achievement Award (winner will be announced this afternoon). Other than that, it's been several good informational meetings, good fellowship, and good food! The business session will be all day tomorrow and then Wednesday morning, and I hope to be back on the farm by late Wednesday afternoon.

On the Road Again

After spending Monday and Tuesday in Montgomery, I'm off again...this time to New Orleans. The wife and I will be attending the American Farm Bureau Federation's Annual Meeting and will not return until Wednesday. I'll be observing several of the Young Farmers & Ranchers competitions and will serve as one of the Alabama Farmers Federation's voting delegates at the business session.

Back from Mobile

I left home on Friday but now I'm finally back from Mobile and the Alabama Farmers Federation's 86th Annual Meeting. Our Young Farmers Committee was responsible for four programs during the event: Miss Alabama Agriculture Pageant, Excellence in Agriculture competition, Talent Find Contest (I served as emcee), and Discussion Meet competition (I served as moderator).

Our Young Farmers Business Meeting was Sunday night, and I was fortunate enough to be elected as our committee's chairman for 2008. It became official during Monday's AFF Voting Delegate Business Session, and I'll now serve as an ex-officio member of the AFF Board of Directors through 2008.

I'm excited for the opportunity to learn more about how our organization works and take an active part in moving it forward. After receiving the Federation's 2008 calendar of events, it looks like I'll be away from home approximately 60 days in 2008 on AFF Board or Young Farmers related events.

It's going to be an interesting year...stay tuned!