Thursday Farm Recap

Today started off without incident. The cows were milked, the cows were fed, and we adjourned for breakfast. Halfway through my second cup of coffee, my wife told me to look out the back door. There I saw three calves wandering around on the wrong side of the fence. I put the coffee down and went out to put them back in there place. The road I live on curves in front of my house and limits how far a person can see ahead of them, so it certainly would not have done to let the little things wander down the hill and into the road. Luckily, I banged on the feed can a couple of times and the went right through the gate.

After returning, things still continued to flow smoothly. We a.i.'ed two heifers and then three of us resumed patching the cracked engine block on our JD4030 while a couple of others went to repair fences. As the morning progressed, we decided that I should hook up our grain drill, drive through a few pastures, and plant wheat into any bare spots I found. Well, to hook up the drill I first had to unhook the manure spreader. I dropped the jack, pulled the pin, and unhooked the pto and hydraulic hoses. I cranked the tractor and put it in forward, thinking everything was good to go. I had forgotten, however, to throw out the spreader's unloading speed rope. So, as I pulled forward the metal handle on the end of the rope pulled hard into the back glass and shattered it. So if any of you have the back window for a Case 5230, please let me know.

Anyway, I did get the drill hooked up and spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon planting wheat. I parked the tractor for a few minutes mid-afternoon to again talk about this blog on DMI's webcast. Meanwhile, normal afteroon duties of milking and feeding were being handled by my dad and our employees. The day ended with dad and I replacing a valve on a leaking water trough.

So here I am, back home and finishing up a blog that I'm not sure is too terribly insightful or interesting. But, if you made it this far into it, I guess it was worth something! Now, if you'll excuse me, my smell of my wife's hamburger steak is beckoning me into the dining room.

Live from the Lamar Co. Extension Service Center

I'm blogging live from the Lamar Co. Extension Service Center in Vernon, Alabama, where I have my laptop plugged in to the myDairy Advocates Webinar.

I just did my part of it and I hope it didn't come through too scatterbrained. I ran off and left my notes at home, so I wasn't nearly as smooth as I needed to be. Hopefully I got my point across, though.

Overall, there's been some really good information presented, and I think it's definitely going to help improve this blog. It's also going to help me coordinate Gilmer Dairy Farm's internet presence through this blog, our website, our Facebook page, and other social media such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube (as soon as I get broadband). It should be an interesting next few months as I try to implement some of these improvements/strategies.

Live from Sacramento

It's been a few days since I've been able to blog. I've had internet connection problems at home, and it's been a struggle just to download my email.

Anyway, everything has gone well at the farm. Since I last posted we've had a rather "routine" week. We also had a veterinarian out to the farm on Friday to do a routine herd check.

I'm now off the farm and will be for several days. I'm currently attending the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual Young Farmers & Ranchers Leadership Conference in Sacramento, California. I'll be flying home on Tuesday, and will be turning right around on Wednesday to drive to a grazing conference in Memphis.

I'll try to get a post or two in here or there, but until then remember to keep dairy products an essential part of your healthy, balanced diet!

Creeping down the information superhighway

To the best of my knowledge, I was the first person in my high school class to have an internet connection at home and an email address. My parents subscribed to a dial-up plan that brought the world to my computer screen at 26.6kbps...pretty decent for a country boy in 1995.

After having the wonderful experience of using high-speed internet at college, I returned back to the farm in 2001 and signed up for the only 'net connection option available to me...dial-up. I'm still using it and on a good day I can get a 28.8kbps connection.

There are higher-speed options available to me. A local company installs wireless internet, and I could always subscribe to a satellite service. What I would really like is for the phone company to extend their DSL service by LESS THAN A MILE so I could get access to it, though an operator once told me, "it could be between three months and three years before it's available at your location." I don't want to pay $40 more monthly for a wireless connection that's 128k slower than the basic DSL package or $50 more monthly for a satellite connection (plus equipment costs and a 2 year commitment) that's equal to the mid-range DSL package. I need better options!

We in rural America need reliable, affordable broadband access. Especially farmers, who now more than ever need access to up-to-the-minute information, educational "webinars", and other 'net applications that are only practical with a high-speed connection. And that's just the receiveing part of it. More and more of us are using the 'net to promote our products and farms and are using it to share the story of agriculture with the populace at-large. A good example of how broadband access would be beneficial for me is that it would give me the ability to post videos of my farm. These videos could be the best avenue through which to share about my operation, but I simply don't have the connection I need to upload such large files.

Thankfully, there are other people concerned with this issue. Alabama's governor, Bob Riley, issued an executive order last May creating the Alabama Broadband Initiative. The goal is to extend broadband capabilities throughout our state, and hopefully that will include Gilmer Dairy Farm. Provided all the technical issues get worked out, I'll be participating in a video conference (from a location with high-speed, of course) Monday morning and will address some of these concerns. I certainly look forward to the opportunity and hope that I can make a meaningful contribution.

I don't expect someone to knock on my door next week and tell me that broadband is available to me, but knowing that our state government is making a committment to expanding it at least gives me a little hope. It also means I'll be patient and stick with dial-up instead of switching to wireless or satellite...at least for a little while longer.