Reflections of a Farmer: The Beginning...

Well it seems like there have been so many beginnings for me. Noel and I got married when we were 23 and 24 years old. He trimmed horses and worked other jobs to help pay the bills. I was in school for business and was starting a new job at a group home for mentally handicapped adults. We thought we could breed, raise, and train horses for an income. We had no idea that everyone else in our area was doing the same thing. So, we thought we could raise beef. We bought some Angus calf's. we quickly learned that we didn't have enough land, and sold all of the beef. Noel has always liked the look of the Texas Longhorn. We got in contact with the Wisconsin Longhorn Association (GNTLA), and bought a few cows and one bull from one of the members. In the winters, horse trimming would slow way down and Noel would go and work for a local dairy farmer for $8/hour. One day he asked me what i thought about joining the crowd, and becoming a dairy farmer. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." After all we do live in the dairy state. He said, to the city girl that has never been on a farm, "it's going to be a lot of work." I simply said "OK". I had no idea what he was REALLY talking about.

We planned for about two years. Talking to all the government Ag people we could. FSA, USDA, UW extension and research, other farmers, and many other people. Neither one of us grew up on a farm. We had no one "giving" us a farm. We knew we wanted to get most of the cows feed from grass by rotationally grazing them. We needed LOTS of help. We went to other farms pasture walks, to learn how they did things.

Finally we started construction on the existing poll shed we had bought with the house. We poured concrete, we took apart 2 other barns milking systems to make our one, we bought a tractor and some cows. On November 3, 2008 we started milking our cows.

(I noticed that the date on the pictures has the wrong year. Opps)