December 2013 Blog Posts (11)

Let's back track into 2012 actually to begin this story.  It was World Dairy Expo time 2012, and I joined PTD to get a free hat at WDE.  Call me crazy but I will do just about anything as simple as that to get a free hat.  After all when you have three boys you can never have enough hats.  Fast forward a couple months to December 2012, and I decided it was tim e to get a…

Oklahomans are survivors.  It's not easy, but we work at it. The great seal of the state of Oklahoma features our state motto “Labor Omnia Vincit” which means, “Labor conquers all things.”  Oklahomans are really hard workers.  We work and establish and build and grow and expand.  When disaster strikes, we…

Minnesota Farm Guide features Lely customer, H & JJ Johnson Dairy Farm, located near South Haven, MN, in article on robotic milking. In the article, titled Robotic Milkers Let Cows Choose Times for Milking, Joe Johnson explains several aspects of the Lely Astronaut robotic milking system, including how…

Learn more about how robotic milking and Lely Innovation can improve your dairy operation!

Town Hall Meeting: Penner Farm Services Alberta will host three days throughout the province to talk about Lely robotics, the Lely Vector automatic feeding system and Lely Farm Management Support (FMS), followed by a farm tour. Please feel free to join at any of the three locations:

9:00 a.m - 3:00…

I’ve been in the middle of an internal debate.

Perhaps you would like to join in.

Here’s the background:

Back in November, I attended the United Dairyman of Idaho convention. When I got the registration packet, there was the usual list of business meetings and seminars. And then there was “Ladies Craft Activity” and “Ladies Tour of the Statehouse.”

I have to admit, my first reaction when I see the “ladies activities” on the registration sheets every year is a slap…

Dairyman Brett Leyendekker of Tulare, California, is combining his love of dairy and his love for film to tell agricultural stories to help consumers see the industry more clearly.



Leyendekker grew up on a family dairy farm in Tulare, California, learning about the dairy industry through the time-honored tradition of chores.



Since finishing school at Dordt…

Every year my family goes to the mountains to cut down a Christmas tree! It happens to be all three of my boys favorite Christmas tradition. We break out the Christmas music for the first time and head for the hills.  We always end up with a Charlie Brown Christmas tree but we have fun together and that is what matters the most!…

1. This adorably festive Christmas calf.













































Via Jessica Slaymaker



2. This Jersey calf and her eyelashes.…

Written by Tom Witkowski



Grandmothers pinch their grandchildren on the cheeks, sometimes sneak them chocolates and, every once in a while, inspire them to write a Christmas song involving cows, cowboys and lots of candy canes.



Such was the case for amateur songwriter Greg Adkins, who lives in New York City. Adkins based his tune, “Cows Love Christmas,” on a tale his grandmother, Teresa Witkowski, first told him in the early ’70s when she began visiting he and…

Written by Jean Kummer

We always liked to have a real Christmas tree so my mom would bundle up my brother and me, and we'd head down over the hill with my dad who was armed with a saw and some baler twine.



Keep in mind, we didn't really have a forest dense with beautifully shaped evergreens, but more like a few super tall, spindly pine trees. Nonetheless, we would assess each tree and decide on the "perfect" one, which more often than not required my…

December

Topic: What's the best Christmas gift you ever received? What made it so special? 

I guess you could call it an early Christmas present.  When I was nine, my Godmother and her brother gave me an Ayrshire calf.  I bottle fed it and took care of it and worked with it and trained it.  I watched it closely.  I vaccinated it.  I treated it for scours. …