The Family Farm

So this was going to be a post about my job but instead I think it turned out to be a history of my family and our farm. Do enjoy...

This is an early picture of our farm in 1998.
Things look much different today.

Every Saturday (in the morning and at night) and also Monday night, from 7 to 11, I work for my parents on their 160 cow dairy farm. I'm a milkmaid. =) It can be pretty relaxing to milk cows. I'd say 85% of the time I love my job. The other 15% it's just totally a pain in the butt. Usually that's when I accidentally forget to rinse a unit after milking a treated cow, or maybe when it's -20 degrees, the cows move like snails and everything is either freezing up or breaking down.

Every time I think about complaining though I just remember that for 15 years my dad did every thing that ever needed to be done on the farm by himself (or mostly by himself... but I'm sure the little amount of work us kids did is barely worth mentioning when you compare it all). He was the milker, the hired man, the mechanic, the business man, he did all of the feeding, he did most of the farm finances and taxes and countless other things, and between him and my mom they made it all work even through some pretty terrible years.

I guess I should tell you a bit about how and why they started farming... They've owned the farm for 20 years now, I believe, but for the first six years my dad worked for a lumber company and raised beef cattle.
Well, I don't know where he got the crazy notion to start a risky business like farming but ever since he was 5 years old he'd wanted to farm.

I guess it all started when my dad (Douglas) and mom (Melissa) met in Idaho at a Labor Day festival.

Unfortunately two weeks later my dad went back to Ohio to help with farm work (which is where he's from).
Shortly thereafter in November, after a few sappy love letters (trust me... I read them), my mom "chased" him across the country to Ohio.
(let me insert here that unfortunately, my parents have discouraged my siblings and I, from following their example... no fun for us. lol)

Anyways... two days after my mom arrived in Ohio my dad and my mom went to pick up ice cream and on the way home he asked her to marry him. Not surprisingly, the ice cream melted.

Don't they look so young?!!!

Sooooo.... three weeks later I believe, they married on December 18th with all of my dad's extended family present (and none of my mom's). Then back to Idaho they went.

There my dad worked on a ranch called the "K bar K" in Picabo, Idaho with 5,000 head of cattle (Picabo is where the 2002 Olympic skier Picabo Street was born).

This is one of the hired man's houses on the 'K bar K' ranch in which my parents lived in Idaho.

This is the famous 'Bald Mountain' in Idaho (near Sun Valley)

My biggest brother Jedidiah Douglas was born on September 25th, 1983 in the small town of Sun Valley, Idaho (A beautiful ski resort).

The best part about this picture is that mischievous little look in my dad's eyes...

He still get's that twinkle when he cracks a joke or, more likely, when he's huggin' and kissin' my mom. =)

Jed's always had that 'innocent, but all-to-devious' look. ;)

That's when Jed was cute... so they were very happy. ;)
Nonetheless... my dad still wanted to own his own farm. So with his dream and my mom's motivation and encouragement that he could succeed (when most everyone else told him he would never be able to do it), they moved from Idaho to Encinitas, California.

These two pictures hung on my parent's refrigerator for many years.

In CA my dad worked 3 jobs to save up money. He worked for the Olivenhein Municipal Water District where he started out reading meters and quickly moved up to the head of maintenance. While there he was voted to be a mediator-liason between the district and employees because he was such an agreeable guy that everyone could get along with him. He also had a large paper route and worked at a toy store.
During that time my brother Daniel Jacob was born on February 10th, 1986 in La Jolla, CA.

This is Daniel Jacob... such a cute little dreamer. =)

(Vernal Falls, Yosemite National Park, CA)

This is Jed when he was about 2 years old.

California... was, well California and therefore not where my parents wanted to be, so they actively looked into farm land in NY, OH and WI. New York was too expensive, Ohio was too hot for dad and had run down farms for the price they could afford and so they decided to try the big woods of Wisconsin (I think they must not have known how cold it can get here).



My sister Emily Ruth was born in San Diego on October 21st, 1988 and not too long after, my parents moved to WI.


They stayed at the Westgate motel in Eau Claire and then in an apartment in Osseo, WI while they looked into the farms for sale in the area. When my mom went to enroll Jed in school, she told the a lady who worked at the school, Barb Rowe (what a coincidence, right?!), how they came to live in WI. Mrs. Rowe told my mom of the 80 acre farm East of Osseo that she and her husband, Eugene Rowe (who has the same name as my grandpa and supposedly looks a lot like him, though I've never seen him), had for sale.

This is a beautiful, winter morning picture of our good ole' farm house taken in 2009.

This was the place.... It had a nice ole' drafty bungalow style farm house, a big white barn and the most simple, beautiful view a person could ever wish to have... or at least I think so. Of course the first winter my parents lived here on the farm, it was a record cold winter and all they had for heat was a little wood stove in the basement (that kept the basement warm) and green logs!! I don't even wish to try and imagine what it must have been like. The house was poorly insulated and had the original ancient windows from when the house was built in about 1915.

In 1989 my dad purchased himself 20 head of beef cattle... and that's when he worked for a lumber company called Tiffany's. I believe that was also the year my parents started homeschooling my brother Jed.

This is Emily in our big white barn in 1990.

An old picture of my mom and dad at Lake Johanna in MN.

I don't know what all happened for the next two years but I do know that I came along on January 22nd, 1992. I still have a few shady memories of my dad coming home from work... but I was pretty little then.

Mary Ellen Elizabeth, 6lbs. 14 oz. and 19 inches long

This is me in '92... I was 7 months old.


This is me in 1994

Daniel was quite a little stud in Jacqueline and Bill VandenBerg's wedding in 1992.

Isaac Edward was born on February 1st, 1994. In 1995 my parents had a contractor build them a building to hold a New Zealand style Swing Parlor that my dad designed and helped build. Then they bought 75 milking cows. They tell me the first two weeks as the cows were arriving in groups from all over the country, were a disaster. Dad milked the cows and mom pushed them into the parlor. Mom says it was amazing if anyone at all was watching us little kids.Trying to learn farming overnight isn't so easy, but my parents worked really hard to learn to run things and they did it.
Apparently during this time I must have been suffering from a little bit of neglect because I took a permanent, blue magic marker and drew on one of our upstairs walls and window frames, and on my bedroom window sills and bedsheets. It's no wonder then that to this day I still draw on my bedroom wall. =)

~Me in 1996... probably drawing on walls~

In 1997 my brother Channing Eugene was born on February 12th. That's when my memory really starts to work for me. I remember when my parents brought him home from the hospital and I thought he look too red. =) But... no doubt things weren't so bad after a week or two and "Chan the Man" turned out the be pretty cute after all.

Every year since she'd moved to the farm my mom had a huge, huge garden (120' x 50'), and us kids had to work out in the hot sun, laboring away.

This is Emily with my mom in June of 1990 using an old fashioned tiller.

Oh yes... the green beans! I remember picking the green beans... thinking to myself, "this must have been what it was like to be a slave." Much to my relief, 1999 was the last year my mom really had a garden until 2008 when Channing started a very little garden... which greatly increased in size by 2009 and the whole family was involved in the process of pulling tons of sod and grass roots from it!! A most tedious job.

This is our '09 garden. It turned out very nicely though...
and it's the best garden we've ever had.

I'm rather afraid that next spring she'll have plans for another 120' x 50' garden!!
Big gardens = lots of canning.

In 2000, on July 24th Patrick Carl was born (named after two of his uncles).
That was also the year when Y2K was supposed to occur. You know... when all the computers around the world were to shut down. No doubt it was a big government scheme to make money. But nothing happened and the world continued to run like it always had... although now we own a generator to run our farm (which has come in handy numerous times). lol

In 2003 my youngest sibling, Janelle Nicole, was born on August 26th.

This is a random family picture, taken soon after Nellie was born.

This was taken when my Grandpa Row and his very nice (8th) wife Rose came up to visit
for Jed's college graduation party.

I can't recall any crazy dramatic things that happened on the farm... that is besides the usual cow that got sick with milk fever, or most of the herd escaping onto the road because somebody left a gate open. Or the couple times lightning struck our farm.
You know... nothing that's too big of a deal.
O.K.... I am being a bit sarcastic. Lightning striking our farm and the whole herd escaping has been the cause of many a midnight escapade... running frantically all over the farm.

The first time we had a really big lightning strike was on a nice summer day when my parents were gone shopping. It was actually only drizzling out and the sun was shining still!! Daniel had a microphone hanging out his bedroom window to record the nice sound of the rain and the birds chirping in the background. The only lightning that could be heard were miles and miles away. Then all of a sudden there was this huge boom!!! Jed had been down in the milk house at the time (which is attached to the milking parlor) and was blown across the room... it hit our light pole, and also the biggest white pine in our woods and a little elm tree which were both right by the house. I was the closest to the trees and I felt a shock. Poor Daniel though... he had his headphones on while he was recording!!!
The other time it was in the middle of the night during a big thunder storm. The strike made a hole in our barn roof and blew out our electrical service!
Needless to say we've considered looking into lightning rods.

2003 was also the year that Daniel started milking for my dad 3 milkings a week and he also worked for another farmer, Lewis Sieg, as well.

Channing, Patrick and Isaac playing army in 2003.

Jed's graduation from CVTC with an Associates degree in Heating and Cooling in 2004.

Daniel playing guitar with his friends at his high school graduation party in 2004.


My dad milking cows in 2004



My dad test driving our neighbors newly refurbished Farmall 'M' in 2004.

In 2005 my dad decided to hire Rochelle Coffey to milk the cows part time. I believe she worked for my dad off and on for a couple years. He also hired two high school boys for a short time. That was the beginning of the end of my dads 80-100 hour work weeks. We now joke that he barely does farm work anymore... which isn't true, except when it comes to milking cows.

We hire Henry Filla, a local crop farmer to do our field work.
2005 was one of the best years for corn... look at how tall it is compared to the huge tractor!

This is me and my siblings with my grandpa Perkins and his friend David Thompson (far right) in 2006 when they came to help remodel our house.

In 2007 on December 15th, my brother Daniel married a nice girl named Jacqueline from Surprise, Arizona.


They now have a cute, chubby little baby boy named Bradford Benjamin (I like to call him "my baby Buddha") who just turned 1 on December 19th... therefore making my parents grandparents!!!

Emily also started out milking for my dad 3 milkings a week. It wasn't long before she was milking 6 mornings a week.

I asked my dad what the worst years for milk prices have been and "2002-2004, 2006, 2009" was his answer. The milk price is what we live on... if it's low then so is the pay check.
2009 has been by far one of the worst milk prices yet, though. A lot of farmers lost their farms... and for that matter the whole economy was down the drain and a lot of other people lost their businesses as well.

My parents had luckily expanded halfway during '07. That means we purchased a lot more milking cows and increased our heard dramatically, but we didn't expanded the actual farm facilities. So with more cows we maxed our housing facilities and increased the load of milk we shipped every other day. We made it through the year... but '09 definitely took it's toll.

In 2008 my brother Jed married a nice girl from Wausau, WI named Kendra, on July 19th.


They now have the cutest little girl named Meadow Elizabeth who was born on April 25th.
They are currently expecting another baby again which I think is pretty exciting because another little kissable baby is always a good thing!!!

Also in 2008 Trenton Magunson (who's family we've know for quite some time and is related to our neighbors and good friend's the Sieg's) showed up for a party in August.

Oats and Honey in a bowl.... but where are we going to get the milk?

This is Daniel btw .....Got Milk?

He ended up sticking around for two weeks along with my sister-in-law Kendra's brother Kalenwho was visiting as well (these ended up being the most fun two weeks of the summer).

He ended up moving here to WI, and worked for my dad from sometime in October 'till May of 2009. This is a pole shed in the construction stage that the guys worked on for a good part of the fall.

He was a good employee and was good at farm work.
He milked cows 6 nights a week most of that time and Emily milked the morning shift.
Trenton was good at motivating my younger siblings to work... although Channing (who I think is the most motivated to do work, of all of us children) especially enjoyed working with him and having him around.
His spontaneity and lightheartedness always made a boring, dreadful task more exciting.

Here's fun clip of Daniel, Trenton, Isaac and Channing from Fall of '08

On July 25th 2009 my sister Emily married a really nice fellow named Jacob Crandall. They live up in Eau Claire, WI and we see them regularly.

This is the most recent family photo.

Oh by the way, that ole' drafty farm house is a thing of the past...
My dad and mom(with the help of my mom's dad and his friend) remodeled it quite nicely in 2006 and if you'd ever seen it before the work was done, you'd never recognize it now.

David Thompson and my dad working in the kitchen.

The old barn (which is now over 100 years old) is, I'm sad to say, nearing the end of it's life.

This is the South end of the barn.

This is the beautiful view from the North end of the barn.
And no this hole was not built into the barn, but is rather caused by the law of gravity.

It's getting pretty worn down and leans a bit to the East. I wouldn't be surprised if it just fell over one day.

This is Channing about to swing on the old ship rope in the fall of 2008.

Although, as you can tell by the picture it's floor is covered with sundry items such as boards, holes, and broken glass and most older, wiser folks would say that it's not a safe to play, and us kids still enjoy going out there from time to time and swinging and climbing the beams and walls! =) I have fond memories of making hay forts and swinging on that thick ship rope that we still have hanging from it's rafters today. I'll be sad when it goes.

This is me in '08. The beams make nice spots to read and reminisce.

Janelle being cute in May of 2009.

Paddy and Nellie enjoying the view together in August 2009.

Anyway these days my brothers, my sister Emily and I all help with the farm work. Jed feeds cows regularly, Daniel milks cows every weekday night (and also both milkings on Sunday) and Emily comes down from Eau Claire and milks every weekday morning.
I helped raise calves for probably the past four or five years but now my three younger brothers, Isaac, Channing and Patrick do the job.
When given the option of learning to milk cows last year or continuing to feed calves I quickly took the opportunity of a new occupation. I like it much better. =)

Right now were are regularly bundling up to go out into the freezing temperatures and waiting eagerly for warmer weather.

My oldest brothers have been interested in becoming part of the farm for a few years now, although I've heard a rumor or two of Daniel and Jacqui moving to Arizona where her parents live.

We'll see what happens... life is way too crazy.
I love my family... there's never a lack of jokes or laughter. =)
I think between God and the fun, they're what keeps things rolling for us all, and it sure is a wonderful life.

P.S. As for my dad... he spends most of his time chasing my mom around the house. ♥

The End.