Christmas Day at Soaring Eagle

Christmas Day at Soaring Eagle in many ways is just like every other day.  Since it feel on a Sunday this year, it meant that there weren't a ton of scheduled chores needing to be done and for me the day went from 4 am - 10:30 am.  Just enough morning left to clean up and get to Christmas Dinner!!

Here are some videos of what Brittany and I were taking care of this morning.  This first video shows us cleaning the dry cow pen.  We clean the beds, scrape the alleys and then sort out any of the moms we think will have their calves in the next day or two.

Here's an up close look at the two moms delivering calves this morning. 

Two Christmas bull calves were born during our shift.

Merry Christmas Everyone!! Enjoy the holidays with family and friends and God Bless all for 2012!!

U.S.Dairy Farmers Care!!

Thank You to Merck Animal Health for putting together this video.  It does a great job showing how todays dairy farmers are "Doing More with Less".  Please click on the link below and Enjoy!

US Dairy Farmers Care

This winter, I plan to spend more time posting video and information on cows and what my sisters and I do on a daily basis in the barns.  Please keep checking back and if you want to see something particular or just like what you see, feel free to comment. 

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

It is that time of year again for us to take pause and be grateful for all the Good Lord has blessed us with.  Family and friends top my list and I always try to ask for help being responsible with all God's blessings.  I hope you have the opportunity to enjoy a Thanksgiving Feast with family. 

If you have moment, I ask that you read something I recently came across in one of my farm magazines, Progressive Forage Grower.  The author is Baxter Black, an American cowboy, poet, philosopher, former large-animal veterinarian, and radio commentator.  His works include writing a column titled On the Edge of Common Sense and I found this writing fits that bill.  Here goes:

Baxter Black: Thanksgiving thoughts

Not everyone has a car, owns a home, carries a cell phone, can swim, knows the 18th president and can hum “Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain.”

But everyone in this country — rich or homeless, conservative, liberal, gray, green, black, white, brown or yellow — eats what we in agriculture produce; everyone, no exceptions.

Do those of you who farm and ranch think about the lives you touch? Steve Jobs invented Apple computers, Oprah Winfrey had a talk show that reached 7.4 million people five days a week, J.K. Rowling sold 450 million Harry Potter books, and 111 million watched Superbowl XLV. Talk about reaching out.

But every day, every person eats something you produce. Your contribution to their well being exceeds Hollywood, the Nobel Prize or their psychiatrist.  The public’s dependence on your ability to keep them fed is deeper than their need to text, jog, work, play golf or go to school.

You are more essential to their lives than their bookie, their broker, their drug dealer, their teacher, their boss or even their best friend.

This week we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. It’s still a real holiday — you can tell because most of the work force gets the day off. I think of it as a time when we thank God for the blessings we have been given. Usually the Thanksgiving table is covered with food — food that we in agriculture produced.

Even the needy in soup kitchens, home-alone bachelors, single mothers, on-duty soldiers and orbiting astronauts will eat something we grew; a piece of ham, canned peas, a drumstick, a Happy Meal or pumpkin pie. Regardless of what is on their plate, it started in some farmer’s pasture or plowed field.

I don’t mean to be boastful. I don’t even expect the average urban Thanksgiving diner to remember the farmer’s contribution to their day. Many praises will fall upon the one who cooked the meal.

That is due, but without mentioning the farmers who grow it is like praising the painter of the bridge while the man who designed and constructed it, stands in the shadows.

It is common to hear that farming is a “noble calling.” That is flattering but its importance is much more profound. I agree that what we who work the land do is noble, but more, it is as vital to their lives as air and water.

What they eat is the gift of our labors, and somewhere down deep as they sit down to Thanksgiving dinner Thursday, they might conjure up a picture of a farmer leaning on a hoe or a cowboy on a horse. That thought might just be the connection that helps them understand where their food comes from: real people.

 Happy Thanksgiving to all!  May the tryptophan in the turkey not cause you to dose off while the Packers are beating the Lions on their way to 11-0!  Go Pack Go!!

Thank You Paul Harvey!

As Thanksgiving approaches it seems appropriate to share a great video regarding food production!  Thank you Paul Harvey for the kind words.  It sums of the pride I have to be part of creating healthy, wholesome food for the world!!



2011 Harvest Season Completed!!

The past 30 days have been SUPER busy.  I'm so very happy to say that on Tuesday, October 25th we tossed the last of the tires on a feed pile, covering the high moisture corn which will be fed to the cows over the coming year.  Here are some facts about our high moisture corn pile:

- We harvested 180 acres of corn for grain, using a combine to take just the kernels off the cob.  The average yield early in the season was about 185 bushel to the acre, however some terrible winds dropped the yields in some fields to about 160 bushel per acre from corn stalks braking off, making it impossible for the combine to harvest. 

- Taking an average yield of 160 bushel per acre, off of 180 acres, puts the total corn harvested and stored on farm at 28,800 bushel.  Today, corn traded on the market at $6.50 per bushel.  Not having a feed bill to the tune of $187,200 JUST FOR CORN, makes all the hard work of growing our own crops worth it.  It also makes us grateful for being provided with a good growing season, allowing us to take some corn for grain.  During a poor crop year, we don't have that luxury.

- There were 6 of us out pulling plastic and tossing tires on the pile on Tuesday.  I challenged the group to come up with a guess to the number of kernels of corn on the pile.  Guesses ranged from 4 billion to 6 trillion.  Based on "Yahoo Answers", there are 72,800 kernels in a bushel of corn, so a rough estimate is that we combined, ground and stored 2,096,440,000 kernels of corn. That's a tough number to read - it's just over 2 billion kernels.

- When we plant corn, we plant about 39,000 seeds per acre.  On the 180 acres of corn that we harvested for grain, we would have planted 7,020,000 seeds, with a return over 2 billion kernels or a return of nearly 300 kernels for every one planted!  To bad the stock market can't provide that!!!

Anyway, here are some videos of the process we go through once all those seeds get back to the farm.

The View from my Office!!

The weather the past weeks has been AMAZING!!  We have had temps in the 70's which is unseasonably warm for us this time of the year.  Last week one day, I had to take wheat seed to a field of ours about 7 miles from the farm.  While it could be said that the tractor I had to drive was far from comfortable (it's a very old Farmall 350), the trip was enjoyable none-the-less.  The views along the country roads were breathtaking with the sun shining and showing off the fall colors.  Roundtrip it probably took me a solid hour to get to the field and back and that probably ranked right up there with one of the best hours of the week! 

Corn Silage Harvest is Finished!!!

This year, we harvested about 750 acres of corn for silage.  September was particularly busy since while we were filling our 2 existing bunkers, we were also pressing to get a new feed storage pad built.  In addition to hiring an engineer to design the pad, we needed to submit our plans to the DNR and get their approval. 

The above picture was taken on a Friday, September 16th.  You can see the large earth movers on the left side of the mirror - they were working on building our vegetative treatment area.  This is a 5 acre piece of land that will act as a buffer should any nutrients run off the feed storage area.  The large rectangular piece to the right of the mirror is undergoing final grading and where 4" of asphalt was poured the following week.

This next video was taken the following week when the silage pad was complete.  My nephew's Austin and Nate found this to be a great place to run with their RipSticks.  Unfortunately, they only had a few days before we started putting silage on the pad.

This video was taken from the pack tractor as we were putting feed on the new silage pad. 

The overall size of this pile is 120' x 275'.  In all it holds about 5800 ton of corn silage off of 250 acres.  It took this group (plus 4 others not pictured) about 2 hours to roll out the plastic and lay out about 2400 tires on the pile. 

Unrealistic Expectations....

The past few weeks have been VERY full...until a rainstorm last weekend that dropped 3 inches of rain in our neighborhood.  That brought things to a screeching halt.   We still have 285 acres of our own corn silage to put up and some of our uncles as well.  That will be followed by manure applications for next years crops, a cutting of 80 acres of oatlage and harvesting 170 acres of high moisture corn.  So with all that's left to do before frost and freezing temperatures, it's no wonder that the past few days we've been trying endlessly to make some progress with our corn harvest.  It has meant several trucks getting stuck, needing to have a tractor and person in the field to pull them out and of course a lot of mud...that's where this is going...

You see we live in a land of plenty, but there still seems to be many people out there who want to enjoy highly nutritious dairy and beef products, but without ever encountering mud, odor, traffic...you get my drift.  As far as I know the only way possible to get those products without those added inconveniences is to ship the cows out of the US - and I'm not sure that I want my food to be imported. 

My frustration today stems from a visit by the town road supervisor.  So we admittedly were tracking mud onto the road, but we also had a tractor with a scraper and a sweeper mounted on it to use intermittently to clear off the roads.  Apparently we were doing a good enough job since he directed us to put a person on that tractor to continuously clean off those roads and if that didn't get it clean enough, they would order the fire department out to wash down the road.  So, that was my job for the afternoon...I drove back and forth on the 1/8 mile stretch of road, scraping and sweeping, sweeping and scraping.  We eventually did finish that field.  I even continued sweeping when it started drizzling but opted to duck in the truck for about 5 minutes when it hailed.  For about 30 minutes after all our equipment pulled out, I continued in the rain and wind to make sure our town road supervisor would be satisfied (he did drive by just as the hail started so he better not ever say we didn't try).  When I finally, drove the tractor the 4 miles back to the farm (in the rain and by this time I was shivering uncontrollably) the road was clear of all debris.

It would have been so much easier to have taken a day off today and waited for things to dry out, however time is not on our side.  And while I'm sorry to have such a negative attitude in today's post, I did feel it was important to remind folks that we do the best we can, but sometime we get pressured into working in less than ideal conditions and the result may be mud on the roads.  But in the end we should all be grateful that we live in the land of plenty and are blessed with so very much.  I probably wouldn't have reacted this way if we didn't already try so hard to keep neighbors happy.  You see, we sent out 90 car washed to those who live near the fields we operate just a few weeks ago, asking them for their patience.  We also bought that tractor I used today with the blade and sweeper specifically for this purpose and take great care to put out orange warning cones in situations like this.  In the end though, one persons complaint and lack of understanding made a tough day even worse!!

Sorry no pictures, but I was too wet to dig my camera phone out of my pocket.  More to come soon...I promise!!!

This summer's wheat harvest

For the past several years, we have worked wheat into our crop rotation.  The wheat that is harvested is sold to our local coop and the straw that remains is baled off the field to fill our bedding need for the baby calves.  This year we hauled over 600 bales off 108 acres - which is a pretty solid harvest.  The following videos show us hauling those bales off the field and back to the farm.

Kelly and Bernie both have some mad skidsteer driving skills!! 

My Fair Ladies!!

Last week was the Manitowoc County Fair, which for our family means there were craft projects to paint and lots of baked goods to eat.  It also was quite busy due to the fact that Kelsey showed three of Soaring Eagle's finest calves.  Ever since I was a kid, we would typically earn red and white ribbons with the occosional blue, but since this was a hobby for us and not a competition that made or broke us, we were always okay with that.

This year, much to our surprise, all three calves not only earned blue ribbons, but won their respective class.  The following are video clips of Kelsey walking each calf out of the show ring:

Kelsey and her March calf Konnor

Kelsey and her December calf Kaitlyn

Kelsey and her September calf Marli - note there was no competition in this class.

The real highlight of the day was having Kelsey and her cousins Brooke and Austin each walk one of these winning calves back into the ring for Junior Champion.  Such a proud day for our family!!

Cutting Hay - View from the Cab - Part 3 of 3

Here is one final video of hay cutting.  We will be starting to cut our 3rd of 4 crops next week.  I will try to get some more videos of the other processes that go into making hay to feed our cows. 

A little bit more about this crop.  Alfalfa is planted in the spring of the year.  The seeds are very tiny - sort of like grass seed.  The roots of this plant go very deep - probably about 2 feet under ground.  Unless there are bad conditions in winter with ice, the plant comes back yearly and usually will produce a good yield for 3 or 4 years.  Each year the plant gets to be 18 - 24 inches tall before cutting and there are 4 cuttings taken usually every 30 days starting in the middle to end of May.  This mower will cut the plants about 2" from the ground meaning we have to do a very good job picking the rocks out of these fields.  Rocks and harvest equipment don't go well together!!  In a typical year, the four cuttings produce about 4 - 5 tons of haylage per acres.  This forage is high in protein which carries through into the milk produced by the cows.

Here's a song that we sing about hay when we host school kids.  (To the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat).

Milk, Milk, Milk the Cows

We milk them every day

Ice Cream, Cheese and Yogurt too

We make them all from HAY!!

Cutting Hay - View from the Cab - Part 2 of 3

This video shows just how accurate the GPS autosteer system we use for cutting hay is.  You will notice there is no overlap into the previously cut row and no hay that gets skipped.  This technology makes us more efficient in terms of labor and fuel.

Cutting Hay - View from the Cab - Part 1 of 3

This video was taken on July 1, 2011 as I was cutting hay.  Our farm cut 400 acres of alfalfa hay on Friday and Saturday and chopped it all on Saturday and Sunday.  The following 2 days we cut about the same number of acres for my uncles farm - we do all our harvesting with them in a partnership.  They provide half of the equipment and labor and we provide the other half, which allows us to spread our equipment costs out over a larger number of acres.

Enjoy the video!!!

Farmin Facts!! Doing More with Less!!!

Dairies Environmental Impact: 1944 vs. 2007.

Did you know that research by Capper et al. (2009) shows that modern dairies require 21 percent fewer animals, 23 percent less feedstuffs, 35 percent less water and 10 percent less land to produce the same 1 billion kg of milk. Emissions have also been reduced since 1944, as dairies today produce 43 percent less CH4 and 56 percent less  N2O per billion kg of milk.

 

Since it is estimated that we need to nearly double food production for the world by 2050, we need continued advancements in technology and science to feed the world.  This is such a progressive industry we are part of and not only are we looking forward to what's to come, but we as an industry are up to the challenge!!

Cool Cows!!!

The dog days of summer can be quite a challenge for cows.  The past few days have been in the 90's and our big girls need to use extra energy to keep cool in temps like this.  There are several things we to to help with keeping them cool and comfortable:

When the girls come back from the parlor and stop by their feed bunk for a bite to eat, they are treated to a misting sprinkler system which gently sprinkles cool water on their backs.  A similar system in located in the holding pen to cool the cows while they wait to enter the parlor.  Admittedly, on days like today, I tend to find myself walking through rather than around this area!!

Then once they return to their beds, they get the breeze produced by one of these 4 foot fans mounted over where they sleep.

Finally, in the summer months, we add extra water troughs to encourage them to drink on the way to and back from the parlor.  These water tanks along with the 3 located in each pen are cleaned and disinfected twice weekly to make sure they are drinking plenty of good quality water.

So in the end, I guess you could say we treat our cows the same as our kids.  You see yesterday, I sent my daughter Kelsey for a swim in her cousins pool.  My daughter Hailey is gone this week to summer camp and I made sure she had a fan along to keep her cool.  And tonight when I took Kelsey to softball practice, I made sure she had a drink along and reminder her and her teammates to make sure they drink a lot during practice.  Now if only I could get my kids to be as predictable and mild mannered as my cows.... 

May 16 - June 4 (The CRAZIEST 3 weeks EVER!)

The spring of 2011 will go down in Soaring Eagle history as one of the most challenging ever.  Extremely wet conditions kept us out of the fields way too long and once things did dry out, it was crunch time.  To put things in perspective in 2010 we had all our alfalfa planted and the rocks picked in those fields by May 1st.  This year, we did not turn any soil until May 16th, at which time it was critical that we get seed in the ground and as each field dried out, we were in it, often times tilling, picking rocks and planting within hours of each other.

In 20 days time, we accomplished the following:

- 825 acres of corn fields tilled, sprayed, planted and rocks picked

- 125 acres of new seeding alfalfa fields tilled twice, rocks picked and seeded down

- 150 acres of soybean fields tilled twice, sprayed, rocks picked and planted

To add to the challenge, both our corn planter and our grain drill provided problems once we did get out in the fields.  Our corn planter had some precision planting options added to it over the winter months.  One of those components it was determined needed a $30 cable which we ordered and was to be shipped overnight, to allow us to begin planting on the next day.  An error was made, and the shipment did not go out, causing us to wait one more day - very frustrating when we were already 3 weeks behind!!  The grain drill we used this year was purchased over the winter months.  That unit gave us trouble the entire season and we are still working with the dealer on a resolution.

Finally, due to the late nature of our spring work, our existing alfalfa fields were ready for harvest before we were done with spring work.  This becomes especially challenging.  Last week our guys worked 85 hours each trying to get it all done.  Also, machinery becomes awfully short when trying to get so much done all at once.  In fact, we had to borrow my great uncles 1973 Farmall tractor in order to allow us to get our calf barn cleaned out in the middle of all the planting and hay harvesting!  Now that's a oldie but goodie!!

What goes on during winter at Soaring Eagle?

My Dad suggested I post some information about what keeps up busy during the non-cropping months.  I figured before I get into what's been going on the past few weeks, I should report what has been going on all winter long. 

As for us girls, things don't change much with regard to our winter vs. summer chores.  Cows need attention, numbers need crunching and employees need managing - regardless of season.  The three of us girls do help during the summer months with field work, but in winter, we do a much better job of working more regular hours and usually keep our work week to 40 hours.

Season does have a huge impact for the shop guys however.  In the winter months, they also work about 40 hours per week, compared to the 55+ hours that the typical summer month requires.  In fact, last week they had 85+ hours each!!  This was due to the challenging spring and the need to finish planting and take first cutting all during the same week...more on that in my next post.

Any way, without field work, you may wonder what keeps those guys buys in the winter months.  Here are a few pictures showing some of their projects:

These first pictures show a project that our mechanic, Tyler Herzog is in the middle of.  We have 2 of this same tractor, which is used for scraping each pen of cows when they are up to the parlor for milking.  This tractor (or the matching spare) runs for about 15 minutes of each hour, 24 hours per day.  We have two so that if one is down for maintenance or repairs, we can still get our work done, keeping our cows clean and comfortable.  You will notice in the picture that the front half of the tractor and the back half are about 5 feet apart!  It always surprises me when the guys get this back together and it actually works!!

This next picture is our cattle trailer.  We have had this trailer for about 10 years and it definitely has some serious wear.  During the winter, our guys reinforced all the steel, allowing us to hopefully get another 5 years out of this trailer.  Kind of a easy decision when a new trailer would set us back about $15,000!!

Finally, this tractor is our Case IH STX-325.  This is the largest tractor we have and it's primarily used for pushing feed into our feed bunks and packing it tightly by driving back and forth over the pile.  This tractor is also used in fall to pull our heavy tillage tool and work the ground after crops are taken off.  In this picture they are changing fluids, filters and getting it ready for another busy season of use. 

  

 All of these pictures were taken on the same day back in March.  Our shop is a pretty busy place all year long!!!

St. Patrick's Day Parade - Fitzgerald Style!!

About 2 weeks before St. Patrick's day, Dad brought in the newspaper clipping announcing the upcoming parade in Manitowoc, along with the float entry form.  His suggestion that we put a float in the parade, materialized into a great (hopefully annual) event!!

About a week before the big day, Kelly and I took to designing signs for our float.  Here she is working in the shop.  We were quite please with how they turned out, especially after finding out to have something professionally done would cost $100 - $200!!  And yes, that is John Deehr green paint...finally founds a use for that stuff on our very "red" farm!!

  

After celebrating the Irish Mass in Manitowoc, it was off to the float.  The picture below shows our "Clan"

- from left to right - Patrick (cousin), Sandie (Mom), Clara (our green calf!), Brooke (neice), Hailey (daughter), Austin (nephew), Kelsey (daughter), Brenda (employee), Julie, Nathan (nephew), Brittany (employee), Kelly (sister) and Jim (Dad).

Even Mom got into the spirit of the day, allowing us to use the same green hairspray on her that we used on the calf!!  We passed out cheese, dairy coloring books, key chains and recipes to the parade attendees.

By far, the highlight of the night was watching the kids faces light up when they realized it was a real, live calf that they were seeing in downtown Manitowoc.  Clara was so very well behaved (shown here with Brooke) - it can be somewhat scarry to take a living animal, on the top of a hay wagon, knowing she may or may not decide to cooperate!  The event was a complete sucess, a chance for us to share our pride of our Irish heritage and our passion for farming.  We look forward to doing this again next year!

 



Welcome Liam Patrick Klotz!!

 At 9 pm on Monday, March 14th, Liam Patrick Klotz made his debut as the littlest Soaring Eagle Crew member, weighing in at 9 pounds 8 ounces and 21.5 inches long.  We are so very happy for Stacy and Jeremy!  Here's a picture of Stacy about 6 weeks before Liam's arrival.

 Liam is a beautiful little boy who seldom goes a day without a visit from an extended family member.  I have to say my girls are a bit obsessed  with seeing him.  The record is 1 hour after returning from a visit to see him, they asked "When are we going to see him next?" 

A cute little story about Liam is that Stacy and Jeremy had a hard time settling on his middle name.  They had originally told the nurses his name would be Liam Aidan Klotz.  About an hour later Jeremy's Mom suggested Patrick for a middle name since he was born 3 days before St. Patrick's Day.  The proud parents both LOVED the name and luckily there was still time to make the change.  Definitely a story for the baby book!

Congratulations to Stacy and Jeremy.  Our family is truly BLESSED with another member of the next generation!!



Happy St. Patrick's Day!

As I have become older, my fascination with my Irish Heritage has too.  (Funny, I never boast about my Bohemian ancestry??)  We've already been celebrating this year.  Mom brought Ruben's for the crew at Soaring Eagle Dairy last week - since Stacy insisted that if she wait until the 17th, she may be out on maternity leave.  We're still waiting for Baby Klotz to make his arrival!!

Additionally, today my daughter and I got in the Irish spirit of things when we built this snowman.  Proof that Old Man Winter truly is Irish!!

A few years back, all the Fitzgerald Women, spent St. Patrick's Day in Chicago.  We took in the parade, saw the river died green and had the best time ever!!

But the big deal this year will be our first every participation in Manitowoc's St. Patrick's Day parade.  We will have a float and the Fitzgerald Clan members will be handing out cheese and coloring books.  If you're from the area and you attend the parade, please be sure to watch for Clara - our green calf!!  The parade starts at 6:30 in downtown Manitowoc.  For those of you who aren't local, not to worry...there will be pictures to follow!!!

Green Bay Packer Aaron Rodgers - Super Bowl MVP and My Hero!!

My heart has skipped a few beats as of late.  Beginning with Sunday's Super Bowl where from the outstanding first quarter to the sometimes scary final minutes, I found myself pretty wound up.  Even though I'd been up since 4 am on Sunday, it took until 11 pm or later to wind down enough to finally fall asleep.  Gosh we LOVE our Packers and winning the ultimate game is pretty darn exciting!!

Then yesterday, during a farm related bus trip, the full page ad with Aaron Rodgers milk moustache was passed around and gave me goosebumps!  It's amazing that in less than 24 hours from our big win, our Super Bowl MVP is pictured promoting nature's most wholesome product - MILK!!

Click on this link to see the ad and check out his video interview:
Aaron Rodgers Got Milk Ad and Video


Congratulations to Aaron Rodgers on your Super Bowl win, being named MVP and Thank You for supporting my industry!!

Superbowl Sunday - Go Pack Go!!

So for those who haven't been paying attention, America's Team will be starring in Superbow XLV on Sunday.  All of Wisconsin will stop as all eyes become focused on bringing the Lombardi Trophy home! 

After a year of lots of injuries, and 3 playoff wins on the road, the Packer Nation is FIRED UP.  I will be wearing my lucky "Fitzgerald's Irish Pub" sweatshirt which I have wore every game since Christmas (no losses since!).  We will have a group of friends and family here to jump, yell and scream with us.  We will "tailgate" with brats, beer, cheese and chips.  The game will be all we talk about for the next week! 

I only wish I know a farmer in Pittsburg that would be willing to bet some cheese on the game.  Any takers?

GO PACK GO!!!  GO PACK GO!!!

Dear Old Man Winter - The Cows MUST Be Milked!!

So we just made it through our second HUGE snow storm at the farm.  Here's a few highlights:

- At 6 pm last night we realized things were probably going to be bad overnight.  As a precaution, we asked our 3rd shift who normally work from 6pm to 2 am if they would be willing to stay until 6 am.  They agreed so we called the folks who were to start at 2 am and told them to stay off the roads until 6 am.  As a side note, it's remarkable that Sheila (who's been milking cows for us for 24 years) and Bernie (our calf manager) had already made arrangements to spend the night at Ken's (our feed manager) house since he lives 1/4 of a mile from the farm.

- We also started our back up generator to run overnight since during windy storms when the "lights flicker", havoc can breakout with the electronic components in the parlor.  For the winter storm we had in December we didn't get things switched over quick enough and we needed to spend $1200 repairing some of those electronics!

- Of course we all sleep with one eye open since it's nights like last night where our phones are more prone to ring with something needing our attention.  Thankfully, no calls last night!!

- At 4:30 am, I was quite surprised that the neighbor we hire to plow our driveway had already been through, oherwise there is NO WAY I would have made it to the road.  My trip to the farm is 1/2 mile on a state highway and 1 mile on a county highway.  Usually, we can count on the plows to start up by 3 am and the trip is no problem.  This morning, that was not the case.  Once I turned down the county highway that the farm is located on I got hung up in my all wheel drive SUV in a pretty big drift.  The real issue was the drift I was stuck in looked pretty small compared to the ones I could see ahead!  Thankfully, I was able to use my women's driving skill to back out of the drift, get turned around and head back home.

- Once back home, I called my sisters Kelly and Stacy to see where they were at.  They both took snowmobiles to the farm and the cows were being atteded to as normal!  It was about this time that I realized the guys I had called off until 6 am were not going to be able to make it in.  My night shift would now be pulling a 16 hour double milking shift!  They were rewarded for their dedication and efforts!!

- At 7:30 this morning, I got word that the plow had been down the farm's road and I was going to head in.  Problem was that after just 3 hours our driveway was already drifted to a point where I couldn't get my SUV to the road.  Again, womenly driving skills and I got back to the garage, hopped in my hubby's 4 x 4 and made it to the farm!

- After about 12 hours of plowing, all the snow is moved at the farm.  We shut down the generator about noon today and even though we offered some time off to the guys who pulled the 16 hours shift, they insisted on coming back at 6 pm tonight for their regular shift. 

- Luckily our milk hauler was also planning ahead and we didn't end up with 2 full tanks during the times that our road was closed.  We have 2 - 6000 gallon tanks and with one filling every 14 hours, had they not stopped in late yesterday, we would have had to shut down (cows would not be happy!) or dump milk (owners would not be happy!). 

So in all, all my sleepless worries last night were for nothing!  No problems with the crowd gate, manure pump, rental house, milk not being picked up.  On top of that, Stacy didn't go into labor, but I think I even had a plan in place for that!  More about that at a future date...I'm off to bed!!

Another "Dairy Good" recipe!!

This recipe for lasagna has been in my family for as long as I can remember.  All my siblings make the same recipe - "Mom's" and it's often requested for parties.  The first couple times it seems tricky, but I think I can get it in the oven from start to finish now in 20 minutes.  We even had it at Christmas this year!  Typically on Christmas Day most of us spend time with our spouses families, and whoever doesn't have plans gets together for a VERY laid back Christmas dinner.

Here's the recipe - should you make it, please share your comments!!

Lasagna - Bakes 1 hour @ 350 degrees

Ingredients:  1 1/2 pounds ground beef

                    1 tsp. garlic

                    1 Tbls parsley

                    1 Tbls basil

                    1/2 tsp salt

                    28 oz. can crushed tomatoes

                    12 oz. can tomato paste

                    1# box lasagna noodles

                    16 oz container small curd cottage cheese

                    2 eggs, beaten

                    2 tsp. salt

                    1/2 tsp. pepper

                    1 Tbls parsley

                    1/2 c. Parmesan cheese

                    2 pounds mozzarella cheese

Brown meat and begin boiling noodles.

Once the meat is no longer pink, add the next six ingredients.  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Cook noodles for 8 minutes or until tender.  Drain noodles and cool with cold water to allow you to handle them.

Combine cottage cheese, eggs, salt, pepper, parsley and Parmesan cheese.  You now are ready to assemble the lasagna.  In a 9" x 13" cake pan, sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, layer the following:

1/4 of meat mixture
2 layers of noodles laid out 3 noodles across (you use 6 noodles in each of the noodle layers)
1/3 of cottage cheese mixture
1/3 of mozzarella cheese

Repeat 3 times, ending with a top layer of meat and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese on top.

Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.  If you make it in advance and bake from the refrigerator, increase baking time to 90 minutes.

Enjoy!!

"What did you do today?"

Often times at the dinner table, I get some strange looks from my family when I answer the question "What did you do today?".  Recently, they were quite astonished by the fact that I spent several hours cleaning cows ear tags!

You see, record keeping is very important to our dairy.  While we have over 1000 cows, each one is on a separate schedule in terms of pregnancy, vaccinations, needing a vet check or needing a hoof trim...just to name a few.

So on any given day, when one of the above tasks requires certain cows to be found, it is imperative that we do without error and of course no one wants to spend a huge amount of time searching.  The task of "cleaning ear tags" is not something we've done before and perhaps the need to do it was perpetuated by the fact that two of us are now in our 40's - perhaps are eyes are not what they used to be.  Anyway, tags get dirty and fade, making them hard to read.

This girls tags are very difficult to read.  Not only because they are somewhat dirty, but also the ink tends to fade over time.  Since this girl is 8 years old it certainly was time to freshen up the paint on her tag!

That's me using a quarter to scratch the dirt off the tag.  This day we did a couple hundred cows - I sorta felt like I was playing the lottery after a while!!

The finished product!  Now when we sort through this group of cows, looking for her we should have no problems finding No. 2741!

Another cow before...

And after...

Celebrating Cheese!!

January 20th is National Cheese Lover's Day.  For all of you out there like me who can't resist good cheese, I toast you with a serving of one of my favorites which include; Land O Lakes Sharp Cheddar, Pine River PrePack Port Wine Cheese Spread served on Roasted Garlic Triscuits, Saxon Cremery's Big Ed's or one of the many others!  Let's celebrate with Cheese!!

Basketball Season!!!

Since my last post (Thanksgiving - really??) time has flown by.  A crazy schedule, along with some problems uploading pictures have resulted in not getting anything new on here...sorry that I haven't posted in soooo long!!

For the Fitzgerald families, basketball season means that most nights one of us is running to Kiel to pick up or drop off kids for practice.  It also means that on most Tuesday's, Thursday's and Saturday's there is someone to watch playing a game.  Last Satuday and Sunday we had 10 games between the 4 kids involved in Kiel Raider's basketball - that's a lot of bleacher time!!

The 4 Fitzgerald sisters with 3 of the next generation watching the Big Game!!

My daughter Kelsey (#3 center back row) and her 5th grade team.

Kelly's daughter Brooke (#32 shooting) who starts on the Kiel Raiders Varsity team.



Go Raiders!!!