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.

Looking back at the past decade, looking forward to the next

Hello folks, and Happy New Year's Eve!

I've noticed as I've scrolled through Twitter today that many people are going beyond their usual December 31 "year in review" posts to recap the whole last decade. I guess I might as well play along, too, so in a few broad strokes I'll try to paint you a picture of what life has been like on the farm over the past ten years.

Me at the start of the decade versus me at the end of the decade.
I'm ten years older and wiser...and about twenty pounds heavier.

We entered 2010 coming off what was considered to be the worst stretch for milk prices in a generation. We obviously survived, but we've been hamstrung by it ever since. Prices briefly recovered, then fell again. Then we actually went through a couple of years of really good milk prices, but they would soon be offset by another sharp decline and stagnant recovery. Plans to build new and update existing facilities were tabled indefinitely then scrapped all together once we decided that the capital investment wasn't worth the risk based upon the long-term outlook for a 200 cow dairy in Alabama. We began the decade with plans to keep our dairy operational well into the future, but we're closing it out as we work through a plan that will see our farm fully transition from dairy to beef production.

But it's not all been doom and gloom on the dairy these past ten years. Yes, some years the milk price was good and more years it wasn't. Same goes for our forage crops...some years the weather was kind, others it wasn't. And while we make plans for the weeks and months and years ahead, we can only live one day at a time. Thankfully, there have been a whole lot more good days than bad. For all the challenges we've faced, I've been able to lay my head down each night knowing that what we do is all worth it.

my father & my kids in our milking barn, Spring 2015

Switching the focus from the farm to farm life, it's been quite the eventful decade. My wife and I began it with a toddler and an infant and are ending it with a teenager and a preteen. It's been such a blessing watching our kids grow and develop! Both are excellent, gifted students and involved in all kinds of activities. There's no telling how many hours we've spent at ball fields and in gyms over the past ten years, and now we're adding music to the mix. Our son may have found his niche playing trombone in the high school's band, and our daughter has recently taken to playing the piano like a duck to water. What we're most proud of though is that they both have placed their faith in Christ and are growing spiritually just as they are in every other aspect of their lives.

And since I mentioned faith, one of the positive turning points for our family this past decade was the decision to step away from the church I grew up in and be open to God leading us somewhere new. It only took a couple of months to find that place. I've said before that there's a difference between going to church and having a church family, and that's exactly what we've found at Fellowship Baptist over the past five years.

Looking ahead to 2020, better milk prices should lead to a good year on the farm as long as the weather cooperates and we do good with our forage crops. I have no idea where we'll stand by the time 2030 rolls around, though. Our oldest kid will be an adult and our youngest should be halfway through college. The last dairy cow will have long since left our farm by that time as we will have already completely transitioned over to beef production. The biggest question (worry) I have is whether or not our beef herd will generate enough income for both my parents and my family. If so, great! If not, I reckon I'll be in my 40s looking for an off-the-farm job for the first time in my life. Come whatever may, there's not much I can do but take things as they come day by day, trust in the Lord, and do the best I can to serve my family, church, and community.

My parents, wife, children, and I on the farm in 2010 and at my deacon ordination service in 2019.

I hope both the coming year and decade bring blessings to you and your family, and thanks so much for following along with me over the past years both here and on social media.  I hope I've given you an accurate glimpse of what life's like on a small dairy farm in rural Alabama...and maybe a little something to smile about along the way, too.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

Reintroducing the "MooTube Minute"

I created a YouTube channel for my farm shortly after purchasing my first smartphone in the Summer of 2009. After getting a little bit of attention for my "Water 'n Poo" song, I decided to to start uploading a series of short farm updates called "MooTube Minutes" every few days to keep people up-to-date with what was happening on our dairy farm.

These videos where originally shot and with a smartphone, but I eventually upgraded to a tripod-mounted FlipCam that allowed me to merge different clips together and upload a higher quality video from my desktop. I posted these updates fairly regularly for a couple of years, but several weeks would go by between episodes by the time I recorded my last one in May 2014.

But now, the "MooTube Minute" is back.

I've been using other apps to share farm video over the past couple of years, including a few different live-streaming services. I started doing a daily live stream on Periscope recapping the day's farm work a couple of weeks ago and have decided to begin uploading at least some of them to YouTube. These new MooTube Minutes are generally going to be a little longer than the originals (3-5min) and will more often than not be shot "selfie style."

If you would like to interact with me while I stream/record, I encourage you to download the Periscope app and set a notification for when I go live. If you simply want to watch, you can do so live or later via Periscope and Twitter, or you can watch the ones I upload to YouTube without the live comments popping up on the screen.

My Periscope channel: www.pscp.tv/gilmerdairy/follow
My YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/gilmerdairy

Forty heifers wandering in the Wilderness

We knew early on Wednesday that we might have a problem.


One of our farmhands and I were making the last stop of the morning feeding rounds in a pasture we call "The Mountain." The sprawling 120 acres of hilly open pasture and wooded bottom land gets its nickname for steep hill that offers a clear view across Beaver Creek Bottom. The group of 40 pregnant heifers currently residing at The Mountain receives feed pellets every-other weekday, and we usually find them enthusiastically waiting at the gate on those days. This time they were no where to be seen. We decided to pour the feed into their troughs and then ride up and down the pasture's hills until we could find them. We were unsuccessful, and decided they must be in one of the pasture's wooded areas. We left to attend to other farm chores but decided someone should check back later to see if the heifers ever made it to their troughs.

A group of forty heifers, some of which are seen here eating spilled feed pellets from the bed of a pickup truck, went missing from their pasture on May 24, 2017

The heifers were still unaccounted for after lunchtime, so halfway through the afternoon milking I sent the aforementioned farmhand back to the pasture with an ATV to conduct a more thorough search. He discovered an ancient wooden fence post had fallen over and allowed the heifers to step over the barbed wire and into the woods. He called to report back and then began tracking the heifers into the pines.

Podcasts I enjoy in the tractor cab

It wasn't too many years ago that the radio of the primary tractor I used on the farm went on the blink, leaving me to find ways to keep myself entertained. Thankfully, radios can be fixed and technology is always making entertainment easier to access. I occasionally listen to the radio, especially if a Mississippi State baseball game is on the air or if the local country station is playing songs from the 70s-90s (I won't listen to the new stuff). If I'm in the mood for music, I'll usually listen to the eclectic blend stored on my phone that ranges from Conway Twitty to Meat Loaf or tune into a 90s channel on Pandora. I mostly listen to podcasts these days, though, and for whatever it's worth I thought I would share some of my favorites with you.

Sports

I was really liking
whatever I was listening to.

• The B&B Show This daily Mississippi State sports podcast is the first I listen to every morning, generally as I'm putting out feed for my milking herd around 6am. Brian Hadad excels in his role of "voice of the fan" while Bob Carskadon provides insight from within the school's athletic department. 
• More Cowbell The second daily MSU sports podcast I listen to is hosted by the oftentimes sarcastic and cynical but always entertaining Brandon Walker, a former MSU beat writer who now works for SEC Country.
• Total Soccer Show Yes, I am a farmer from Lamar County, Alabama, and soccer might just be my favorite sport to watch and follow. TSS puts out an entertaining yet informative daily podcast that provides previews, reviews, and analysis of the week's top matches. 
• Blood Red Podcast  A round-table discussion about Liverpool FC that's published 2-3 times per week.

Political/Current Events

• The Federalist Radio Hour One of my daily "must listens" that focuses on politics and current events with occasional detours into culture and sports. 
• Intelligence Squared U.S. Debates Hour-long debates on current political, economic, and cultural issues published 1-2 times a month.
• Common Sense w/ Dan Carlin I don't always agree with him, but I really enjoy listening to Dan Carlin lay out his viewpoints and arrive at his conclusions in this monthly-ish podcast.

Faith

• The Briefing Another one of my daily musts, host Dr. Al Mohler of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary bills the podcast as "a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview" in which he examines the headlines in light of Scriptural authority.
• Signposts Published 2-3 time monthly, Dr. Russell Moore of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission talks about "the latest books, cultural conversations, and pressing ethical questions that point us toward the kingdom of Christ."
• ERLC Podcast  Speaking of the ERLC, their own weekly podcast offers insights into current moral, ethical, and cultural issues.

Miscellaneous

• The Popcast with Knox and Jamie Billed as "a weekly pop culture podcast seeking to educate on things that entertain, but do not matter," this one often has me laughing hard enough to make me stop the tractor. The Popcast is the jug of 3.5% butterfat in a world full of skim pop culture podcasts.
• Dan Carlin's Hardcore History Every few months Dan Carlin comes out with a new 3-5hr Hardcore History podcast in which he weaves together a captivating narrative from historical accounts of people and events within a certain historical time period.
• This American Life One of the most popular podcasts out there, this weekly radio show usually tells the extraordinary stories of otherwise ordinary people.

This isn't the exhaustive list of the podcasts I enjoy, but these are certainly the ones I listen to the most often. Let me know if you are a fan of any of these, or point me in the direction of any of your favorites you think I might enjoy.

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

Hey folks, it's been a while

Hey folks, it's been a while. Let me catch you up to speed on what's been happening on Gilmer Dairy Farm recently.

We currently have 223 cows in our active milking herd, which looks like our "high water mark" for this year. We will be sending several cows to the stockyard over the next couple of weeks, and I anticipate a herd size of around 210 after the next round of dryoffs, calvings, and cullings. Our daily herd production topped out at roughly 13,750 pounds of milk a couple of weeks ago, but our average per cow should improve by two or three pounds in the coming days for a couple of reasons. First, simply removing a few lower producing cows will boost the average. Secondly, we expect to see a production increase when we begin incorporating corn silage into their ration once again.

We had an incredible drought this past year, one that lasted well into late Fall. As a result, our dryland (non-irrigated) corn crop yielded far below what was needed to feed the herd for a whole year. Over the last couple of months we have been relying on last Spring's bumper ryegrass baleage crop, dry hay, and cottonhulls in a ration that allowed us to conserve our corn silage. This ration has worked well for us and our herd, but the cows' milking potential isn't as high as it is when they are on a diet that includes quality silage. We're at the point now we believe we have enough corn silage to make it into the summer, so we will be transitioning the cows to a new ration over the next couple of weeks.

Speaking of crops, we hope to be putting a lot of seed in the ground during the month of March. We were unable to plant any ryegrass or small grains last Fall due to the drought, and it's about been too wet since the first of the year. We should get a few days of dry weather after today's batch of thunderstorms rolls through, and I hope to begin drilling about 50 acres of late Spring oats on Monday. Our goal for this crop will be to harvest it as baleage in late April or early May. In addition to the oats, I hope to begin planting our silage corn crop the last week of March. We're looking at roughly 110 acres on our "hill" ground this year, and another 40 in our bottomland.

On a personal note, it seems like there's always somewhere else I have to be. Don't get me wrong, because I really enjoy being involved in my industry! But speaking at a dairy conference in Savannah, two meetings in Montgomery, and judging a farm contest in Natchez over the last five weeks has made it pretty tough to "get in the groove" farming wise. And over the next two weeks my schedule includes speaking at an elementary school, SXSW in Austin, and my regional dairy checkoff's annual meeting at Stone Mountain. And on top of that I'm helping coach my son's baseball team which begins practice this weekend. So yeah, I have a full plate in front of me, but better to be busy than bored. Besides, if I have too much free time on my hands I might start seriously considering making good on my threat to run for office...

Thanks for reading, and y'all have a "dairy" good day!

Making baleage

The first 50 acres of our corn silage crop has been planted, and now we turn our attention to the ryegrass that occupies the next 100 acres of corn ground. 

Yesterday we rolled-up and wrapped 72 bales of ryegrass that had been mowed in an 11-acre field on Monday afternoon. We will move the baleage from the field to a storage area later today. The weather forecast likely means we will not try to harvest anymore this week, but I anticipate mowing several acres over the weekend in order to resume baling and wrapping on Monday. 

The baleage shoud be properly ensiled and ready to feed our milking herd in 6-8 weeks. Once it is ready, we will begin mixing it with last year's corn silage in our cows' daily feed ration.

ryegrass baleage ready to be moved out of the field

DHIA test kicks off a full Tuesday

What's set to be a busy Tuesday kicked off at 3:30am in the milking barn with our monthly DHIA (dairy herd improvement association) test. During the test we use meters to measure and record each cow's level of milk production during that particular milking shift, and we also collect a small sample of each cow's milk. The weights and samples will be sent to a lab in Missouri later today, and we should know each cow's daily level of production and milk quality by the end of the week.

milk meters are used to record each cow's milk production once a month

Next up on the schedule is planting corn. I was able to get 23.5 acres-worth of seed in the ground yesterday, not quite half of the total we're shooting for in this first round of planting. I'll be planting a few small Mycogen variety test plots in one of our fields this morning, and hopefully I can get a total of 15-20 acres planted before I have to dog-off to go to Vernon to help coach my son's baseball team at 6:00 this evening. Our county's Cattlemen's Association board of directors is meeting after that, so it'll likely be tomorrow before I can finish the initial corn acreage.

While I'm doing all that, all of our animals will be fed, manure will be spread, cows will be milked again this afternoon, and I'm sure a few other farm chores will be taken care of.

Farm photos by Cameron Carnes

Checking Twitter while milking cows.
photo: Cameron Carnes

Birmingham-area documentary photographer Cameron Carnes spent a few hours with us last Wednesday to take pictures of our farm, our cows, and of us milking our cows. Cameron is currently working on a project to photograph how and where food is grown and raised in Alabama, and we were happy to provide him the opportunity to learn a little bit more about where the milk he drinks originates.

You can view an online photo gallery from Cameron's day on Gilmer Dairy Farm on his website.

Lessons learned from my Dad

My sister and I were blessed to grow up in a Christian home with a mom and dad that loved us and were (and remain) engaged in our lives. And since today is Fathers Day, I thought I would share with you a few of the many lessons I've learned from my dad over the years.

Dad taught me how to drive a tractor. This would prove to come in really handy seeing as how I've never worked anywhere but on our family's farm. By the way, he taught me how to milk cows, too.

Dad taught me how to play sports. Or perhaps more importantly, he taught me how to make time for my kids even at the end of a long work day.

Dad taught me how to always look enthusiastic on family vacations, as this photo so clearly shows. While he really enjoyed our snow skiing trips back in the day, he had little use for the beach or the Smokey Mountains (as pictured).

Dad taught me how to be a sharp-dressed man. Actually, I'm pretty sure that mom picked out both of our outfits on this particular day. (note: I've long since relieved Dad of that sports coat and now claim it as my own).

Dad taught me the value of good conversation.

Dad taught me how to be a good husband. I don't think Mom has had too many complaints over the years, and up to this point I don't think my wife has either.

Dad taught me all of these things and so much more, all which added up to teach me how to be a good dad myself. And now he's teaching me something for future reference: how to be a good granddad!

See also:

"My Farming Forefathers"

"My Farming Forefathers, p II"

"My Dad: A farmer and a family man" 

Favorite farm photos of the week

Happy Saturday morning, folks! Over 2.5 inches of rainfall on Monday kept us from making any progress toward planting corn, but we found plenty enough to keep us busy. And through it all, I was able to snap and share a handful of farm photos. In case you missed them, here are a few of my favorites from the past week:

Palm Sunday sunrise

the milking herd beginning the second grazing rotation

Cow no.88 won't leave the road until she's had her head and neck rubbed.

A traffic alert/PSA letting people know how our cows' route to and from grazing
would affect their commute. I think we had to stop two cars over the course of three days.

Have a wonderful Easter, everyone!

Gilmer Dairy Farm lands big heifer class on National Signing Day

LAMAR CO., Ala. - It's now official: 48 Holstein heifers are expected to join the Gilmer Dairy Farm milking herd this coming Fall.

Current projections have 18 heifers calving into the milking herd between 8/28-10/2, with the remainder freshening in either late October or mid-November. Nine AI sires are represented, though the class is dominated by Roland (18) and Rib (12) daughters. Four of the heifers in the class were sired by former GDF herd bull Roberto, and 12 can claim other home-grown bulls as their maternal grandsires. 

We caught up with dairyman Will Gilmer and asked for his perspective on this latest signing class of heifers. In the video linked below he discusses the size of the class, expectations for their future, and the farm's recruitment strategy.

(VIDEO: Gilmer talks NSD)

A list of all 48 heifers sorted by their projected calving date (pending veterinary pregnancy confirmation; subject to change) is listed below. Stay tuned to this blog and other GDF social media accounts for further updates on these heifers as they progress to the milking herd.