You Decide 2009 - GDF Milk Mustache Contest!

It was tough just picking three finalists from all of the many good entries in our 2009 Milk Mustache Contest, much less a winner. So, we're asking for your help! Please vote for your favorite Milk Mustache photo on our farm's Facebook page this weekend. The votes will be tallied and the winner will be announced on Monday, June 15!

Back on the Blog

The Dairyman's Blog returns today after a few days of inactivity. For some reason, sleep's been hard to come by at night around here and post-milking, pre-breakfast "blog time" has been replaced by "nap time" lately.

We're looking at a pretty cool day here on the farm. Overnight temps dropped down around the freezing mark and we're not supposed to get much over 50 degrees by mid-afternoon. We'll be cold again tonight before highs climb back into the 70's tomorrow. Rain possible for Thursday and Friday. And there's your weather, lets throw it back to the news desk.

I had hoped we would begin harvesting some of our spring forage this week, but it's looking doubtful. If the rain chances are knocked down a notch by tonight I'll probably pump down our captured nutrients and fertilize some of the milking herd's grazing land to stimulate some regrowth.

The cows are still holding daily production around 63 pounds each and are in really good condition. We only have 5 in our maternity pen right now, and only three heifer calves that haven't been weaned yet (which will happen later this week). We have a group of 18 breeding-sized heifers next to the barn that we're watching for natural heat, and so far we've bred six of them.

That's about all I have to report before heading back over to the dairy. Remember, you can learn more about life on Gilmer Dairy Farm from three other sources: our farm website, Facebook fan page, and Twitter.

Have a great day, and make sure that three servings of dairy products are part of it!

Saturday Morning, 3/21/09

I've been up since a little before 3, and I'm really starting to feel it now. We went through the normal weekend routine of milking and feeding everything before breakfast, and I've been back home for about an hour. I probably should have taken a nap, but that would have made too much sense. After all, sleep is overrated.

I'm currently uploading some pictures, like the one you see here of my boy, to Gilmer Dairy Farm's facebook page. If you're not already a "fan" of ours, I encourage you to become one today!

I'll be going back over to the farm in about a half hour to help dad move the herd onto their grazing paddock for the morning. Afterwards, I foresee either yardwork or Sunday School teaching preperation in my immediate future.

And you never can tell...a nap might just sneak up on me before the afternoon milking after all.

Be a Fan

While I'm still relatively new to the Facebook scene, I have created a profile for Gilmer Dairy Farm. Check it out, and consider becoming a fan!

On an unrelated note, I have more evidence that we in agriculture must constantly educate the public about what we do and about what agriculture is all about. Someone landed on our farm website today after typing this into a search engine: "do male cows have udders". Wow!

On the Book

I was never really sure what "Facebook" was all about, and never really had any thoughts of participating. During my trip to San Antonio last week, however, I found out that several of my peers are using it as a forum through which to talk about agriculture. So, I've decided to give it a shot. It'll probably take me a while to figure it out completely, but hopefully it'll be worth my while (and drive some traffic to to this and other agri-blogs/websites).

If you've got a Facebook account, look me up. I'm looking for some new "friends".