We have reached Grandma status!

My Grandma McCollum is who started our family dairy.  This year marks the 52nd year that we have been milking.  Dad has always told us that they had to start the dairy because six kids was too many.  Either way my grandmother was awesome at taking care of her milk cows.  She continued milking until I was a toddler I think, then it just became too much for her physically.  Up to this point she had 150 head of milk cows and milked them everyday twice a day.  The milk man was picking up 10,000 pounds of milk every pick up which was every other day.  We get paid by pounds, but 10,000 pounds is a little over 1,100 gallons of milk.  This much milk meant we were very productive and ever since my grandmother passed away 6 years ago it has been my dad's goal to get back to that point. 

Last week we got back to that point! It is the most milk that I've ever had picked up since I came back to the farm two years ago.  I had three 10,000 pound pick up's last week and my last one was just barely under because we had a few thunderstorms come through the area.  Storms can mess with milk production since it can stress out the cows. 

The reason this is so awesome is because we are hitting that benchmark with less cows.  I am currently milking 109 cows :) I've got an excellent mix of older cows and younger cows at this point and as you can see my milk production shows that. 

So far 2014 has been a rough year.  On top of everything that I went through Josh lost his Grandpa a few weeks ago and then over this past weekend we found out that someone stole 8 of my dairy heifers that I fattened up last summer.  In some ways it's been one bad thing after another and in other aspects, like the milk production, we are kicking ass. 

May is always the busiest month of the year for us.  With my two younger sisters still in school we have graduation's.  Brenda will be graduating from high school this month and she also went to China the first week of May to compete for Junior Team USA.  Amid all the stuff going on the farm is still chugging along and at this point we are pro's at working our schedule's around milking, planting, and everything else that's going on. 

Hopefully our milk production will continue to stay as high as it is and we will get done with planting soon, assuming the weather cooperates.  When we had our first 10,000 pound pick up I texted my sisters telling them that we reached Grandma status!  Hopefully here's to many more of those pick ups!

 

These are my twin babies that are now about 10 days old and they are both still happy and healthy :) In all the bad times there are always still silver linings and happy moments.  You just have to remember to look out for them.

Saying Goodbye

Growing up I went to three different schools from the time I entered kindergarten to the time I graduated high school.  This makes it hard to make life long friends and even harder to keep them since this was all before the age of cell phones.  When I started seventh grade I was in my third school.  Junior high is hard enough since you're in that awkward stage, but it's even harder when you show up on the first day and you don't know a single soul.  Luckily for me it was this year of my life that I met two of the greatest friends anyone could ever have.  One was Amy and the other was Sara.  They were already best friends and had been for a few years so for me they were like a package deal.  You got both which was great for me since I needed friends.  For some reason they decided to be my friends and something between the three of us just clicked from the beginning.  We were always honest and able to discuss anything with each other. 

To this day they are still my two best friends.  We put our friendship through a lot over the years.  Lots of boyfriends, school assignments, drama, arguments, and hundreds and hundreds of miles.  Sara lived in Denver, Colorado for a couple years, I lived in Manhattan, Kansas and Racine, Wisconsin, and Amy lived in many various places around El Dorado.  No matter what happened or the distance between us we were always there for each other and always a phone call away.  Once we all discovered cell phones and texting it was even easier to stay in touch and to raise our parents cell phone bills.  Long before Amy and I met our husbands we had agreed for the three of us to grow old together since none of us could imagine life without the other two. 

On March 15 Amy and I lost our Sara.  She was involved in a car accident that killed her on impact.  This shocked me to my very core.  I am a Christian and I do believe that God has a plan and everything happens for a reason, but damn that is hard to trust in when bad shit happens.  Two days before Sara was killed the three of us were together at the hospital to say goodbye to Sara's dad.  He had been battling throat cancer and had sadly lost the battle.  Looking back I am so thankful that Amy and I were with her that day.  My last words to Sara were I love you.  I never expected that two days after we said goodbye to her father we would have to say goodbye to Sara.  Sara's father was the first parent that any of us had lost and that was a hard enough concept to wrap my mind around.  We're in our early twenties and no one expects to bury their parents at this age, let alone a best friend.

The first week I cried almost constantly and I hated to go anywhere where I might run into someone who would ask me how I was doing.  It turns out that when you're grieving those words become torture to hear.  I got to the point where I just wanted to tell people to fuck off.  Not nice obviously, but I went through a lot of anger with Sara's death and I am still dealing with it. 

It is officially spring time on the farm except for the cold spell we've had over the past few days.  As we say goodbye to winter I feel like I should finally be able to say goodbye to Sara.  I don't think I'll ever be able to do that though.  She is part of me and part of what made me the person I am.  I will forever carry her with me.  Part of me still expects to get a text from Sara and the other part of myself has to slap me back into reality.  I have days where I do better with it than other days, but that is to be expected.  Amy and I have both become slightly obsessive with each other.  We text almost constantly to make sure that we're both still alive and kicking.  Without her and my husband I really don't know how I would make it through all of the emotions. 

I know that Sara would want us to continue through life and to be happy.  I know that she is watching from above.  I really didn't know what to do with this blog until now.  I thought about just shutting it down because it reminded me of her.  Sara loved to blog and she loved that I had started blogging about the farm.  She would call me farmer Kodie and always asked me the weirdest questions regarding farming and animals.  I decided to continue this blog because I know she would want me to and maybe writing will help with the emotions. 

So as this spring brings new plants and new babies into the world I will remember to be thankful for the time I did have with Sara and thankful for Amy and Sara who took a chance on the new kid.