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Friday, January 8, 2016

God's Gift to Us

I am buried in taxes and bookkeeping at this point, but I wanted to take a minute to get this post in. I spend a lot of time answering one question, "How are you liking milking?" I rank that question up there with "Hey, when are you going to have another baby?" Not that there is anything wrong with any of those questions, but really how am I supposed to answer?

I typically say everything is great or good or fine and that we are really learning a lot. OR well it is good, but it is a bit stressful. I am not going to lie I just really don't know what to answer mainly because I feel like you are really only asking because you want me to say that I hate it. Well, just so you know...I don't hate it.

So here is my heart-felt broken down answer...It is going and we are surviving! Who has a head-over heels love for getting up at 4:00 every morning and having to be home by 4:00 every day or stop what they are doing in the middle of the day to milk cows no matter what they were currently doing?? Who loves twice the laundry just to keep your nice clothes nice and because you were knee deep in it this morning and now those clothes must go straight to the washer before anything else? Who loves bundling up to go out when its freezing cold??  Having a dairy farm is a major commitment that WE chose to make in our (my husband and I) lives. We know that not everyday is full of rainbows and butterflies. Some days are full of waking up at 4 am to a puking child, finally getting him to sleep just to sneak out of the house to pull a baby calf, and in the meantime enjoying freezing wind chills, all the while washing 4 loads of puke and barn clothes all before 7 a.m. Some days run as smooth as silk and everything goes great. ANY farmer will tell you the same story about how there are good days and there are absolutely terrible days.

BUT at the end of any day are we ever sorry we made the choice that we made??? Absolutely not! Not everyone in this world is blessed with the gift of being able to be a part of feeding the world! So those of you just wanting me to say no, I hate our choice of starting a dairy...you might as well just stop asking! I am in no way sorry for this decision. My outlook on this is- I AM BLESSED! GOD thought enough of Josh and I to bless us to be able to handle the ups and downs of farming. Not everyone is fit to handled those obstacles and they are not easy! Through it all there is one thing that I try to never lose site of is just that, God has a plan for us. We are here because this is right where he wants us to be. Everyday we get up and commit to our four-legged friends and we put their needs before us. We do everything it takes to make sure they have a comfortable life and we make sure that our production is done in a manner that will help safely and efficiently feed the world.

Our family has been blessed in more ways than I ever imagined, but I feel very blessed in knowing that he trusted us enough to give us the talent, knowledge, ability, resources, and heart to be dairy farmers. We are part of a small number of small family farms around the world these days and we are proud to be right where God wants us to be. So to answer your question, yes I am happy we chose to follow God's path and we are blessed to being living the life that we have dreamed of.

With this I leave you sad that today is the last week day of my month long Christmas vacation!! I am off to start chores and then spend the weekend cuddling (or more like wrestling) with my favorite two year old. May you have a very blessed weekend!

ProAg's resident Old Farmer had the opportunity to attend a discussion of agricultural job opportunities with a local youth ag group, and couldn't help to hear a little bit of his father in this Albert Schweitzer quote that was hanging in the room::

 
This is happiness and it's true on a #farm http://www.pinktractor.com  pic.twitter.com/uSpGpI8o91:

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