Trautman Family Farm

I am in a state of wonderment. I wonder, I appreciate, I am grateful. This great plan for me -- for us -- all of us -- that I am part of, I wonder why it has to be like this, but accept and know it IS for a reason, and it is not that I am to be miserable, but that I am to search for the meaning, while finally accepting that I may not find it, but search I must. It is the journey, not the destination.

This has been quite a journey, here. And it is really only now that I feel I am coming to some peace and truth; but that every step of this journey has been absolutely necessary; every moment of my life has brought me here. As I write -- it is not my ego, me - that writes, but in humility God moves my hand when it is given over to love.

My neighbors Dale & Sandy don't like me much at all. And that's truly sad, because we're not so very different. We would share some core values -- if only we could get to them. And I say: I am to blame that we aren't there, talking.

I remember meeting Dale, before we ever moved into this house. I hired him -- he is an ex-farmer--now a plumber -- to put in a water line for our refrigerator. I can see now -- here's this guy from somewhere else, coming in here, to our neighborhood, boy is he going to set the world on fire, boy is he full of himself. And he'd be right about that. Past tense, I'd like to think, but right. Dale didn't say a whole lot then, and he hasn't said a whole lot this whole time. It's not his way.

I have had some pretty unkind thoughts about him along the way. But those reflect more on me, than him. In my frustration with ME - I lash out in anger at HIM, but it is ME that now accepts responsibility for how the conversations have gone.

I have tried to be conciliatory. I have tried to talk, to get to know them, to express what we're trying to do in a respectful way. Yes, I do believe we have some really good ideas here that are working. No, I do not think I'm perfect nor do I have all the answers. But I sure am doing my best and I have not nor ever will give up on the idea of the family farm, where they have as so many others.

There have been moments where I did feel we were really talking. Sandy is, herself, and has a certain way about her that isn't as inviting. I have accepted that it isn't me, it's the way she is, get beyond it. There were these two times -- after a couple beers -- where those defenses were down, and we talked, and she asked questions about -- what to her -- seemed to not make a lot of sense. We had a dialog going. But then it ended. And maybe me joking that a couple beers is what it took ended it. Whatever it takes -- I've wanted to talk and find our common ground.

As time has gone on, I have come to very much balance anything I ever say with a complete picture. I know in my heart Sandy and Dale are good people: Look at their wonderful children. Look and see their son works with the father, you cannot be an ogre and do that. I know they love their land, farmers, I know they are good people and loyal friends, and I know if we really sat down and talked, that Dale would know I too am a decent person.

But I feel like the situation is such that he and Sandy have to hold onto this nugget of darkness, really hard, cannot let it go, and that it is beyond just these interactions we've had; it's about more, it's about the past -- and a proud family that wanted a different future -- wanted to farm -- and saw it torn from them back in the early 80's. And I can only imagine how they -- and others like them -- ex-farmers, how hard that is to say -- can really feel.

To see us come in -- never having farmed before -- tra-la-la, boy do we have all the answers -- throw a bunch of money at it, do this, do that they don't understand, completely out of the mainstream of what they knew, how irritating. Most of all -- the pinnacle of that irritation -- that we really seem happy, we seem to have that thing that we're all going for -- happiness -- we are truly and profoundly happy in our work, and what we're doing IS working, that somehow an ex-farmer cannot accept their own past failure in farming with someone in the present succeeding, especially when it is as different from what they did as what we do.

Howard & Carmen - getting up there in years, I've tried to get to know you, too, and there have been times where we too -- I thought we were really talking, then to know, nope, we're not. Nothing has changed. To talk to others, well, that IS just them, that's the way they are -- and to understand that a big part of them died with the death of their son -- the dream of a legacy -- a feeding of a despair, a wound that keeps getting picked open.

Here is this brash upstart -- not from the farm, not from here -- telling me what? Just in the way you say it -- resist, reject. So yes, it is me that has failed. What I would say to you Howard and Carmen, is listen - I know what pain you have in your heart, that there is a healing -- maybe some here, in knowing you are an important part of a legacy -- it couldn't be your own son, but it can be in my sons -- and daughter -- that we truly love farming -- we can do this -- we can reignite the flame there once was, here -- in this neighborhood -- it was good - it can be good -- and can you please open your heart and listen, and be a part of this beautiful hopeful future, that this isn't some Scott Trautman hero thing, look at him see how great he thinks he is -- but that this is about all of us -- you - me - us - finding it in our hearts to think differently -- think in the now -- and know that these are things we can do, there is a legacy --- family farms are not dead -- just changed, different. All that has happened to this point happened for a reason -- as terrible as some of those things have been -- good is possible.

I have a dream. And that is that this neighborhood becomes the starting place -- for a new golden age of dairy farming in Wisconsin. My friend Cheyenne Christiansen -- I want him here on your old farm -- he is a better dairyman than I will ever be -- and then it will not just be one farm but two -- and then three -- and then -- what? A culture change. We make very special milk -- 100% grass -- our cows are so very healthy -- come see them, please, see with your eyes, feel with your heart -- know I'm not sure this will all work out but it is possible, and has never been more possible than now with the people that have come together: all because of everything that has happened to this point. To you. To me. To us. There is no judgment, no I'm right you're wrong -- there just is what we can do that works in the now that will carry us successfully into a brighter future.

Dale & Sandy: I am sorry I have conducted myself in a way that has repelled you. We need you, we can't do this without you. Please talk to us.

Howard & Carmen: Please forgive me for my foolishness, please open up your hearts to what truly can be. Let us share our joy in life with you-- please -- we have so much to share, but you have to let us in.

If we are to fail, it will be my failure, and my failure to communicate in love. If all of us -- all of us - are to succeed, it will be the love that we find in each other, in our children, in their future, replacing what a cynical world would have us be. The future starts today - let us go to work -- the very hard work that it is -- and do it with joyful hearts. What a wonderful journey it will be.

In love,

Scott Trautman: Proud Dairyman of Wisconsin -- all of Wisconsin

I have this battle going on inside me.

These "roles" or "entities" that I assume as I work my way through life. Roles I come to believe -- manifest -- put "who I am" into into messy buckets of understanding. These roles function to influence how I see what I look at. How I see what I look at? Yep. I mean how I look at things -- what's going on inside as I look at them -- has tremendous influence on what I see in them.

This is an idea from Dr. Wayne Dyer; it is surely not new, but taken into my heart as said by him.

These roles -- we all have them, whether we acknowledge them, think about them, or not. We are one thing in our working life; another in our family life, and perhaps another still inside ourselves. Many roles that, as we step away from ourselves, are more or less what we believe is our true self.

Well here we are today Farmer Scott, as  I do like to say, navel contemplating. What the heck already, what do you have to say?

I have been an entrepreneur. I am an entrepreneur. It is one of these roles, these understandings of myself that make for a neater more streamlined thinking; to solve problems; to determine action. It has been a very useful role for me to slip into. Curiosity -- challenge -- risk taking -- trail blazing -- going where others fear to tread. Pretty macho stuff, especially when it works. Hey, that's part of the thrill; if there were no risk there wouldn't be much of any reward, either.

So in my role as entrepreneur - I evaluate this whole situation I am in. Even before this raw milk thing came up -- significant doubts as to how we could make this work, here. Not work, period -- as I know with every fiber of my being what we are doing is working - the farm, the direct marketing, the family unit, our appeal to people that are ready for our vision. But what about here, in Stoughton, on this farm, with our neighbors, with their circumstance, and what is going  on in this state, our environment. Things out of my control -- yet so integral to our success or failure.

Farming is a unique circumstance -- organic farming even more; as there is no way around time; all good builds in time, there is no renting of a piece of good, there is only the long term nurturing -- "purchase" -- of this thing.

But with that comes incredible vulnerability, too. Our roots grow deeper with each day; when those around us, their strength is their mobility, and with that mobility our vulnerability grows.

Our situation now is one of profound vulnerability. Every step forward -- is a step towards trusting others and their wisdom -- and a step closer to the possibility of our losing everything. We are at that point - over and there is no going back; there is either success or failure.

In that role as entrepreneur - and the role as father - provider for my family - I truly have to wonder whether this is worth it. Who will rally to our side to win the day? What is there, here, to win? Am I a world-class fool believing in some ego way that I have a role to play in creating a better future for all -- or do I -- in safety -- resign to a cynical yet predominate attitude of better look out for yourself because no one else will.

Yet -- as a father -- in my role, in that messy spill-prone role, it isn't easy to just say safety-for the now. How often I have seen where my children are really looking at me -- what I do, what I say, how I conduct myself -- and what they are learning from that. What shall I teach my children? Courage? Cowardice? Hope? Cynicism? What is today's lesson for them -- and I can tell them what I believe the message to be -- but they will take from it what they will, not what I tell them to. Do as I say not what I do -- good luck with that one -- that I have seen and isn't hard to believe -- that comes back to bite you hard one day -- the punishment being the suffering of our children -- wrong lessons learned -- and that our punishment is to have to see their suffering, and every parent knows there is no greater sorrow than that; none we could ever feel of ourselves. Those most evil in this world do that -- force the parent to watch some horror of the child, knowing how much worse that is. Yet, I worry what I will inflict through my actions, today, in what lessons my children learn from how I conduct myself.

It is a distinct possibility in all possible scenarios of this playing out that the destruction of our way of life -- our farm -- our dairy -- will happen. Will I have grace? Will I be destroyed? With my destruction - will I destroy my family's future? Is how this is to be -- the lesson that cannot be taught in words -- only in experience -- that this farm must die, a part of me must die -- for some better future? If I knew that it would benefit my children -- would I be willing to make that sacrifice today for them?

Does all this mean I am depressed, dwelling on failure -- no -- not at all -- but I cannot ignore all the possible outcomes; the honest evaluation of them. And as much as I need to be honest with myself and evaluate this dispassionately -- I also cannot help but feel the love of hope -- nor stop myself from dreaming of this future I do see so clearly -- happy farmers -- here in Wisconsin -- happy people of Wisconsin -- I simply cannot keep my mind or heart in that cynical place, it just isn't me, nor can I make myself believe I have no role in this; it would be easy to be a bystander, to watch it all go by - but then what pain of this future world I removed myself from responsibility for - that I will see over and again - for eternity?

So then here I am -- no more sure than when I started. Confused; sometimes frightened, despondent, cynical -- but then -- I look out over our beautiful farm, I look at my beautiful children, I see hope -- I seek out hope -- and I get back to work, and I feel strong.