Accidently Illinois Bound..

So I guess it's about time I get my butt back in blogging gear since I've taken an accidental break for the last couple months. But I do some pretty exciting news to share

I guess I'll start with the fact that I finished my senior year of college which my parents are thankful for! I'm not done yet though.. one more semester (hopefully, fingers crossed) which i'm fine with, from what I've heard the grown-up life isn't all it's cracked up to be.

When I was finishing up this year I had no idea what I was going to do this summer, I had applied for an internship with Midwest Dairy Association (MDA) in Kansas City,  got the dreaded "you were so great but we offered the position to someone else" and I just figured it wasn't meant to be. The lady with Midwest did said that she had forwarded my application to her counter part in Illinois and asked if that was okay with me. I said sure not really thinking too much of it. It was literally finals week and I got a phone call one morning. It was the MDA rep from Illinois calling to see if I was interested in the internship, with a little consideration I said sure, why not.

I'm not quite sure if when I said yes to this internship that I realized that I would have to live in Illinois for the summer.. a good 8 hours from Nebraska. After a few phone calls with my future boss, I packed up my car and headed East with very little idea of what I was doing. To give you a clue on how unprepared I actually was for this I didn't have a place to live yet when I got in the car the morning that I was Illinois bound, for some reason that didn't' seem to bother me (it seemed to bother other people more than me).

My box that i was going to live in while in Illinois

Luckily it worked out really well and I found a decent apartment in Springfield with a cool roommate. I've been here for a little over a week and have already done some really cool stuff!

Proof that I did actually make it Illinois

First night in the new apartment, the whole street flooded.
We found a mattress floating down the street so
we decided to go for a ride! 

Got to attend some meetings with the Illinois Milk Producers Association and Illinois Ag in the Classroom.

FBI building my meeting was in.. SO COOL! 

My favorite was attending a meeting at the FBI headquarters here in Springfield. They have a work group consisting of different individuals with connections and influence over different Ag industries in the state. We talked about different things on the terrorist radar for the FBI and different possibilities for Agro-terrorism and different ways that could be prevented. Coolest part of the whole meeting was going through all the security (dorky I know!) and that all the agents in the building had guns they carried with them.. SWEET RIGHT?! I wanted to ask if I could see their guns but I don't really wanna end up in jail during this internship so I decided against that idea.





So lucky for you all you'll be hearing a lot more about my adventures here in Illinois and it's even more exciting because JUNE IS DAIRY MONTH! WOOHOO.. pretty exciting so look back for more blogs soon!

Ag Day

Yesterday, Tuesday, I got to do one of my favorite thing.. AGVOCATE of course. I was asked by our state Midwest Dairy rep to talk about dairy to the students that were attending the Ag Day. 

Here is a link for an article about the event!

I talked at this same event last year to nearly 400 students and was impressed with the turnout and the event in general. They said last year the event numbers were down due to school district budget cuts and not having the funding for busing. So the organizers of the event decided to make a short video about what kids experience during the event. They sent the video out to anyone in that area who had influence over school planning and budgeting. Clearly it worked! This year there were nearly 850 students who attended! That is purely amazing! Many had no idea about what the difference between a dairy and beef cow were or that there are quite an array of products in the grocery store that are made from milk, but that's what they were there to learn!

Of course my favorite part of any event like this is the questions! 

One of the MANY classes I spoke with

*When I asked what products at the grocery store were made from milk these are a few of the answers I got - "cake", "bacon" "eggs" (this was a common answer), "bread"  so needless to say the Aggie in me had to give them a quick lesson on where those things actually come from

 * how exactly cows turned water and feed into milk.. this one stumped me

*how come cows drink milk to make milk 

*a few arguments on whether we can milk bulls 

*a few class discussions on what that "thing sticking out of that cows butt is" - turns out they were talking about the udder... who knew?! 


So after nearly 40 presentations I was dairy'ed out and ready for a nap, but all-in-all it was a success, hopefully those kids learned something!

I used the video to help start discussion
and questions.

~Lastly, here is a video that I love to use when I present about modern dairy farms. The kids really enjoy this video, it does a great job keeping their attention and giving them the important general facts! 
         

Wordless Wednesday

Life lessons from a calf: don't forget your coat and
don't go out into the cold if you don't have to...

Wordless Wednesday

A Beautiful Nebraska evening

Fast Fact Friday

One of my FAVORITE videos...

A Winter What?!

If I gave you one word to describe Nebraska weather I can assure you that list woudln't include; consistent, lovely, or stable. I don't know if there even is one right word. This makes dairy farming in Nebraska quite interesting!

Last week on Wednesday afternoon it started snowing here (Thank God!). It snowed all through evening chores and I thought nothing special of it. About 10:45 pm on Wednesday we lost power at our house and farm. Now this really an uncommon occurance, usually it goes back on by morning. However Thursday morning us kids got a wake up call from dad to get our butts to the farm. I walked over eyeing a few of the big drifts in front of our house,they were only about 3.5 ft tall (we only got about a 1 ft total), and I didn't think too much of that. But that wasn't the problem, the electricity wasn't back on yet!

The heifers do like to frolic in the snow

That doesn't seem like a big deal but on a dairy farm the electricity plays a very important role. When there is no electricity our milk parlor, the bulk tank (where the milk is cooled and stored), the heat lamps that keep the cow waters from freezing,  and the tractors that are plugged into outlets so they stay warm to start in the morning, all those don't work! But of course we're prepared for that, dad had the generator started by 6 am Thursday morning.

 But unfortunately that didn't solve all of our problems. My family spent the about 6 hours that morning doing chores, thawing waters, scooping snow off the drive ways , feed bunks, and  calf hutches, also bedding down cows/calves with straw and sand. 



All the snow in front of the hutch calves had to be scooped out  

This little heifer decided to brave the snow outside her hutch
before we cleaned it out



Bedding down one of the heifer barns with a cornstalk bale



We know that when dad calls with orders to get to the farm you dress quick, giving no thought to breakfast or yourself,  COWS COME FIRST! It's just the way it is and we all agree on that.



Thawing the cow water with the Knipco.



Unfortunately this wasn't a quickly fixed problem, we were without electricity for about 48 hours. Life at the farm went on as normal but our house (not powered by the generator) was not real lovely. It was cold and and dark. We all agreed that it was nicer at the farm with the cows than it was in our house!

We spent a lot of our free time in the milk barn because it was a nice 65 degrees in there

It was a long two days but it all worked out and we were happy to know that our cows were comfortable and taken care of!





Have a Glass of Chocolate Milk Today

Seems like these days almost everything has been studied and proven to be bad for you. Studied again and turns out it might actually be good for you, then studied some more with no actual real answers to be shown. So a while ago one of my favorite drinks came under extreme scrutiny; Chocolate milk!! I think it's ridiculous, common sense tells us that chocolate milk is just plain milk with chocolate in it.. duh! Sure there are probably some chocolate milks with a higher sugar content than some but still MILK IS MILK!

So in honor of National Chocolate milk day I'm going to reblog a post I wrote for AFAN in June. So remember to enjoy a nice glass of chocolate milk today!


Recently, there has been a lot of talk from school officials and different groups trying to pull chocolate milk from schools. They say that it has too much sugar to be a healthy and good choice for school kids. This idea came from Jamie Oliver. He filled up a school bus with sand to represent the amount of sugar that schools in the Los Angeles Unified School Disctrict have in their milk per week. I had to admit that at first to me that seemed like a lot of sugar!

However, some key facts were being left out. For example, that District serves close to 700,000 students and 45,000 teachers. It’s the second largest district in the nation! But seriously 700,00 students and a bus full of sugar, that’s barely enough for a spoonful of sugar per day! But it’s not just a situation in the L.A. area. There are schools all across the nation comparing chocolate milk to pop. Is it fair to only compare the two on sugar content alone? Even though milk offers so many other health benefits?!

Flavored milk has the same nine essential nutrients as white milk- calcium, vitamin D, riboflavin, phosphorus, protein, potassium, vitamin A, vitamin B12, and niacin. For me this is incredibly important because all my life I have been drinking milk. Whole milk, chocolate milk, if there was a milk option I usually chose it. I have made it through 20 years of my life without a broken or fractured bone, which I consider a bit of a miracle. Now that may not impress many people but then I look at my siblings. Between the four of us not one broken or fractured body part! We all were very active whether it be in sports or working on the farm. Now this may not all be because of my love for milk, but I believe my family has stronger bones because we drink milk frequently.

I encourage you to drink milk and/or flavored milk, so your body is strong and healthy. So YES, drinking flavored milk is healthy!

Fast Facts about flavored milk:

-Flavored milk accounts for less than 3.5% of added sugar intake in children ages 6-12. The percentage decreases with age.

-According to a recent study in 7 school districts across the US, overall milk consumption drops 35% when flavored milk is not offered at lunch.

To learn more facts about flavored milk and its nutrional benefits, check out this Midwest Dairy article.

Pride and Passion

I am a firm believer that when oppurtunities are presented to you that you take them and run with them! You never know where you could end up, what you'll learn, or who you'll meet along the way! One of the oppurtunies I am talking about that really impacted my life is 4-H. My family has been involved in 4-h for YEARS! For the most part we have been involved in dairy showing but also some other static exhibits such as cooking, sewing, woodworking etc. 4-H is a program that really allows today's youth to find something they love and are good at and really just practice and learn! Now I am a little biased because when I think 4-H I automatically think animal exhibits, which actually is a very small part of 4-H now. But non the less I see the importance it has with today's future farmers and consumers and it gives me hope.


Trent is pretty excited to show a dairy calf next year but
he's learning that it takes some hard work !



Alex loves to help us with our 4-H heifers

 

(l -r) Nate, Andi, and Vin with their Dairy heifers. They're old pros at this.



This last week and a half was our County fair which of course my siblings exhibited dairy and beef (our first year with this crazy idea). Last summer I worked at our counties extension office helping with fair preparations and really got to see some of the really cool stuff that 4-H can offer kids; classes on almost everything, really fun camps about any and everything (I went to a few in my younger years and had an absolute blast, met some of my good friends I have today). But sitting at the fair I really noticed something; in order for 4-h to really inspire kids you really have to let them be in charge, let them learn! The reason I'm mentioning is that while sitting at the fair I noticed how many parents were out there working with their kids projects; fitting them, watering them, some did pretty much everything! While some of the kids just sat around looking bored. Some parents were so obssessed with perfection and winning that they wouldn't let their kids even touch the animal until they went into the ring, yeah I would be bored too!

Right after we brought the beefies home, they
 were just little guys

Now my parents have always been busy with the dairy and other jobs so they would always try to help out with our projects and fitting and such but were always so willing and encouraging to have us be in charge of our 4-H projects. They always were willing to teach us and then let us take the reigns, even if that meant a few screw ups. I can proudly say that me and my siblings did absolutely everything for the fair ( I did help even though I am technically not in 4-H anymore, I'm 4-h support staff at my house!). We got the calves to the fair, groomed them, and got them into the ring. My parents showed up on show day to watch and that's about it which is perfect (it's not their projects). But dairy isn't really a big deal because we've been doing it for years, numerous times a year. Don't get me wrong we love our dairy cows but there is just so little competition in this state that sometimes gets unchallenging and boring so this year we decided to do a new project; Market beef steers,it was a way to be competitive and a lot of family friends showed beef.



First time we took them out on a walk



But boy were we about as clueless as they come. But I am so proud of my brothers, they did their research, sought some advice from fellow 4-Hers and our extension agent. They did really well at the show with the older one getting a blue in showmanship while the little one finished with a purple and was one minor screw-up away from placing. But it was through this project that I noticed my brothers really did like their beef cows, they loved working with them and watching how fast they grow (how fat they get compared to our lean dairy cows). What is really cool is how many questions we got after the show was over about how we got our cows so tame or how many new people were asking about our projects because they were considering doing it next year! People noticed that my brothers really had fun showing their calves, yeah they worked really hard and although beef wasn't normal for us that it is possible to do something that you've never done before and be successful.




We bought the steers from my uncle, we literally took home
 the first two we could catch. 

 

Nate and Yancy, they finished second in their class.. not bad!

Vin and Wego (yes he was named after a beer commercial)

Both boys finished in the top 5 in Rate of Gain. Pretty cool!

Point of this post is that if we want our 4-Hers loving what they're doing we've got to give them the freedom to do it themselves and choose! 4-H is not about perfection or winning, it's about learning and exploring. Finding something that you didn't know existed and learning about it. Whether that be rockets, woodworking or livestock, allowing a kid to have a little pride in what their doing will go a long way in helpig them find a passion! I know that without 4-H I wouldn't have my found my passion for dairy and agriculture. It helped me understand the role of what my family does on my community, my country, and my world.

White Cheddar Chicken Pasta

So this week I was feeling creative so I decided to try a new recipe from Pinterest (yay!).    I am a huge pasta and chicken fan so decided to go with a White Cheddar Chicken Pasta and I really liked it. It wasn't hard to make it just has a few more indgredients than I'm used to! (Hello broke college kid here) And for that reason about 2 or 3 of the ingredients didn't make it in, I'm sure if I had used them it would've been even MORE DELICIOUS.

But the Dairy farmer in my LOVVVEEDDDD this recipe; milk, butter, and cheese, I mean that's like my version of heaven!


The only problem with my batch was that it could have been more runny, it was  tad dry but that's because I used whole milk instead of skim or 1% . Next time I plan on using some whole milk but also some 1% to fix this.

So here it is.. Hope you enjoy







White Cheddar Chicken Pasta

For the chicken:
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
1 tsp dry mustard
1 T fresh thyme
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 T olive oil

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Mix together mustard, thyme, salt and pepper and sprinkle over chicken pieces. When pan is hot, add chicken and brown about 3 minutes per side until cooked through. Remove to a plate and cover with foil.

For the pasta:
1 pound rotini or other short cut pasta
2 T butter
2 T flour
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, finely diced
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 T Dijon mustard
8 oz sharp white cheddar cheese, grated
2 cups milk (the dairy farmer in me MADE me use whole milk but any kind would work)
1 T fresh thyme
1 T fresh oregano
Crushed red pepper flakes to taste
Parmesan cheese to taste

Heat water to boil in a large stock pot for pasta, add salt and pasta and cook to al dente and drain according to directions. Meanwhile, melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add flour and whisk to combine. Add wine, garlic, onions, and mustard. Cook about 5 minutes, until onions are translucent. Reduce heat to low and slowly add milk, stirring to combine. Cook about 5-7 minutes more until mixture begins to thicken. Add cheese and stir to melt. Add chicken and pasta and toss to incorporate sauce. Add thyme and oregano and serve topped with crushed red pepper flakes and Parmesan cheese.

It Just Comes Naturally

This past weekend when I was home we did one of my favorite things; Preg checking cows! Saying that out loud doesn’t seem nearly as cool as I think it does I’m sure. But it’s so exciting waiting for the vet to confirm pregnancies, all us kids stand around and bet on which cows are bred, hoping that our personal cows are on that list! As I was standing around I thought about something I once read on Ellen DeGeneres’ website. Now I absolutely love Ellen (so does my 16 year old brother, his favorite afterschool TV show) and I loved watching her do crazy fun things with her audience and the people that were on her show. But I recently found this on part of her website. It was a page dedicated to going Vegan, which if that’s what you want to do great but don’t do it for the wrong or untrue reasons! There is one paragraph that says “Dairy cows are considered the most cruelly treated animals in factory farms. They are kept constantly pregnant, and their calves, considered byproducts, are put to death almost instantly.”

Ohh those two lines just burn me up! So I’m just going to give you  a few thoughts that I have about that!

Our cows will have their first calf a little after they are 2 years old (after a 9 month gestation period), it’s then that we can first start milking them. After about 3 to 4 months we will breed them back. If a cow isn’t fully healthy then she won’t breed back, simple as that, if there is even the slightest problem or she hasn’t fully bounced back from calving then we won’t even try to breed her until she is healthy! A unhealthy cow is going to give you unhealthy calves which is not good for anyone! Every year after that we want to make sure that our cows get bred back and have a calf in about 1 year and every year after that. To me that’s not cruel, it's natural, because if these cows were out in the ‘wild’ they would have calves every year, just like lots of other animals that live in the wild. Another great thing about cows having calves every year is that about 2 months before they calve they get dried up (stopped milked) and go on a vacation of sorts. They spend their days lying around and eating, pretty tough life.

There is a couple other reasons we want our cows to have calves every year: one reason is that if they don’t have a calf every year then their milk production will drop drastically! A cow will be milking about 70-90 lbs during her peak lactation (60 -90 days after calving) and after about 10 months will drop to about 20 lbs a day. Having a calf is a way to rest then jump start her lactation cycle! Secondly it allows the farmer to way to get replacement heifers or build his herd.

A brand new mom with her twins, trying to beat the summer heat 

As for putting  calves to death right away why would any farmer do that? That farmer spent a lot of money, time, and feed (9 months worth of feed for two, semen straws run $5 - $50 per straw, etc). And these calves are the future of their operation, the heifers will be replacement cows and the bulls will either be kept for breeding or sold for beef. So to say that a calf is an unwanted byproduct is untrue, they are the most important part of dairy farming. These calves will receive the best care to ensure that they are healthy successful cows and mothers.

Alex LOVES helping me take care of the babies

So needless to say I'm not a big fan of Ellen anymore, and I have shown her webpage to numerous friends,  farmers or not, and they are not impressed. I just tell them that it's time to tell their story!

Long, Hot Summer

This last weekend was a trying time here in Nebraska for Farmers. We experienced 100+ degree temperatures, with no rain and high humidity. The heat we can handle but humidity is hard for cattle to handle. I just read somewhere the other day that a Human can handle high temperatures but not combined with humidity, I would imagine it’s the same for cattle. Luckily humidity is something that we’re pretty used to out here and are ready to take care of our cattle.

Some of the baby calves we moved outside

Baby calves aren’t usually something we worry about when it gets hot because they each have their own individual pen with a hutch, water, and feed readily available however this weekend those hutches acted like saunas. The calves would stay inside them because they thought that the shade was better than sitting out in the breeze (they didn’t know any better). The Holsteins (black and white ones) seemed to get over heated quicker than the Guernseys; they would be breathing hard and panting like dogs. So this weekend we decided to pull all the calves out of their hutches and put them in group pens in the shade. But to ensure that they were ok we went over numerous times a day to give them cold fresh water and pour water over them!

My little cousin Alex helping me check the baby calves.
He LOVES the farm!

The cows standing in the free stall barn cooling down

The group we really had to worry about though is the milk cows. Cows will spend on average about 5 hours a day eating at the feed bunk, I mean if I had to eat 90 lbs in a day I’m sure it would take me a lot longer! But because that’s where they a good amount of time we decided to invest in sprinklers above the feed bunk. They actually enjoy these quite a bit, they will stand under them even if they’re not eating. And I’ll be the first to admit they are a pretty big hit with anyone who needs a quick cool down or quick shower (I’ve walked under it more than my fair share of times). We also added a second big watering tank to their pen a couple of years ago. Having hot days means having cows drink 50+ gallons of water a day EACH (that’s A LOT of water!). We realized the need for another water when the cows were standing around waiting to drink, bored and impatient. Impatient and bored cows are good for no one, they tend to cause trouble and break things, so we decided a second water was a good way to keep our farm in one piece. Lastly our milk cows will spend about 12 – 14 hours a day resting. So to ensure that they stay cool where they will spend a majority of their time we have 5 big fans in our barn. We have a free stall barn with sand bedding that they like to lay in. There are studies (and common sense) that say if the rest area is comfortable to a cow then they will lay there. Well these stalls must be like satin sheets because sometimes getting these cows back up is a problem, they really enjoy laying in there all day!

Alex was helping me check the big cows too 

So for the most part we had very few problems with our cows and the high heat this weekend, which is great! But that doesn’t mean that we stopped checking them or doing everything we could to make sure they handled the heat the best they could! However since it was the 4th of July we did get some excellent fence put up and other random projects done around the farm. Dad was glad to see that my indoor air conditioned office job wasn’t making me soft to hot weather!

This is how my genius brothers cool down

Omaha Adventure

This past weekend we had yet another dairy event here in Nebraska, Moo at the Zoo! It is an event held in Omaha at the Henry Doorly Zoo in partnership with the Nebraska Midwest Dairy Association. It is a fairly new event and I was pretty impressed seeing it for the first time.



Moo at the Zoo



Henry Doorly is one of the top zoo’s in the U.S. (depending on the person you talk to of course). But it really is impressive how progressive and realistic the zoo is. They are always pushing to do new things that no one else has done. But this last weekend was a sort of Ag weekend at the zoo. They brought in tractors and ag promotion groups (pork producers etc) to set up booths and interact with people. And they also set up a huge tent to bring some dairy animals in. They decided they wanted to bring six of the dairy breeds in for people to see and pet. So they had contacted my family about a month ago to get a Guernsey heifer, so we gave them one of my brother’s yearlings “Mini”. Mini was a twin, so she was a little thing, but the other twin was stillborn. My brother would let her out during chores and she would follow him around all afternoon so she became kind of a pet so we hoped she would be social enough to let people pet her.



Nebraska Dairy Princess with 'Mini' talking to
people about dairy



So as a member of the Dairy Ambassador program and a pretty active dairy advocate in Nebraska they asked me to work a few hours. So I convinced my sister, Andi, and brother Vin (Vince) to come to Omaha with me for the afternoon. So Andi and I spent Saturday afternoon just walking around handing out ‘I met a Dairy Farmer’ stickers to little kids, Vin kind of just walked around and stared at people (typical high school boy). We would use this opportunity to answer any questions about the cows or just share some fun facts with them! We got some pretty interesting questions like “Why are these cows anorexic?” or “This cow here (a Brown Swiss) has got to be an ox?” It was actually a really cool event to get so many inner city Omaha people out to see these cows and feel free to ask questions. It was also great that there were over 10 Nebraska dairy families that worked over the weekend talking to people, 60 people total. And it was also a great weekend to have it because the Olympic Swim trials were just a little ways down the road so there were some visitors at the zoo from that event.



Andi handing out stickers and talking to some little kids



Kids trying not to scare away the Holstein



The 'cheesy' sign outside the tent






Moo at the Zoo crew (from left): Vin, Andi,
Anastasia, Me, Emma, Emma's sister



Speaking of Swim trials, two of my favorite aunts (and an uncle) took me to the trial on Saturday night and holy smokes it was awesome!! Firstly these swimmers are sooooo freaking fast, it just blows my mind. Secondly some of the guys are incredibly good looking, I always appreciate a sport where the guys don’t wear shirts and don’t really need to haha. But I do have a favorite (I think he’s probably most girl’s favorites)  Ryan Lochte. But I was impressed with him for a couple of different reasons. One was that after he won one of his events he gave away his flowers, bear, and medal to random kids in the crowd. How awesome is that? Another reason is that on national TV he promoted dairy (it’s not hard to win over my heart haha). So that was a pretty cool experience, can’t wait until London!!

A couple fun facts for you!

- Henry Doorly Zoo draws 1.6 million people per year

-The swim trials had 167,000 people at 15 sessions in 8 days. A new record for the trials (yay Omaha)!

Dairy Dream Day



When Melissa and I are together it's
usually something else!


Did you know Nebraska has 230 dairy farms in the state, making it the 5th largest agribusiness?

That’s not a very big number so that usually means that dairy is kind of overlooked, especially because we are the Cornhusker state and a beef connoisseur (which I love of course!). That was not the case this past Saturday, Melissa Keyes and myself attended one of the biggest event ag promotion events in the state; Prairieland Dairy Day. And what a great day it was.

Prairieland is located about 20 minutes south of Lincoln, and has been a leader for sustainability and new dairy practices for some time now. The dairy itself is owned by 4 different families who decided to coop together. They have grown their farm to about 1,500 cows and have started marketing their own dairy products locally and have found success! You can find 2%, 1%, skim, and chocolate milk in stores across of most Lincoln and Eastern Nebraska. They also have season milk flavors including strawberry, cotton candy, and root beer for the summer months! But that is not the only cool thing that they are doing. They recycle almost everything; the sand for bedding, the lagoon water is treated so that it can be used again, and they also make compost from the manure solid and sell it to whoever wants it. Now if that isn’t innovation I don’t know what is!

So it’s not only great that this dairy is doing all those thing for the industry and the environment but they also completely open themselves up to the public for visits, they want to be completely transparent for consumers! So every year in June they have Prairieland Dairy Day, a day people can bring their families and just enjoy a day out at the farm. The really awesome thing about it is that it’s completely free! The food, milk, ice cream and activities are all free, that is so awesome! This is the 9th year that they have hosted the event, each year better than the last! They were expected to have 6,000 people attend this year but I think they were a little under that number, but not much! This year’s activities included:

People enjoying their free lunch farmer style (dirt and straw included)

The straw castle which was a hit!

The Nebraska Dairy Princess's were even present to
take pictures with kids and cows!

Annabelle is one tricky bovine to milk, but an extra set of hands never hurt!

The corn pit was a huge success, corn was flying EVERYWHERE!

The petting zoo was popular. Kids and parents were able to pet
a calf and milking cow.

The Prairieland Gold (compost) tent. I don't know
if people realized what they were playing with but
they didn't seem to care. You could even take a
bag homewith you!

Just a few of the people that were visting Dairy Day 2012!

Prairieland is a leader in Nebraska Dairy industry for sure and are a great model for a successful business! Midwest Dairy has done a great job though with really promoting Nebraska Dairy’s. There were 2 other farms; Temme Dairy near Wayne and Wolfden Dairy near Kearney that both had open houses in the month of June! And to wrap up Dairy Month there will be a huge event at the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo this Saturday called Moo at the Zoo. I’ll be attending so sure enough there will be a blog to follow!