April 4th. Forecast: 3-5 inches of snow, after the wettest March on record, after the wettest February on record. Challenging keeping animals clean and out of the mud yet not destroying good pasture, as anywhere they are is a mess.

But spring is here, the warmth, the green, the lift of mood, the hope of a new season of growth: they must come even with these fits of weather-rage clawing at the edge. It's time to be ready for grass!

Most farms run a dairy and that's it. And that is quite enough, most especially when you follow the standard practices of the day. Milk twice per day, farmer takes care of the calves, feed stored hays, grains: that's pretty much a day. We've got lots of things going on here, we celebrate diversity- in income, in customers, in feeds, in demeanor, but they all have a way of fitting together.

With many things going on, a person has to have a time budget, too. It's easy to assume things take less time than they do; and especially where you wish you could have 5 people for one day, not one person for 5 days. So you have to keep a time budget and not go to the point of burnout or exhaustion. Often.

So our dairy practices are holistic -- whole-istic -- we the farmers are part of that, too, and it's important for us to stay engaged, enjoy what we do, and make money doing it.

What we do for ourselves: we milk once per day. The usual is 2 or 3 times each day, or with  the natural system, a calf, 5-8 times per day! We do indeed get less milk. 1/2 the milk? Well -- no -- but towards that, at least so far, with our skills as dairymen. Getting there.

October 10, 2009:

The above has sat in the 'draft' folder SINCE end of April. A lot has changed. And I'm not ready to say much of any of it without anger.

I'm arranging to have the dairy herd slaughtered. I guess that's that. Everything but everything worked, but no one cared.