it takes a village (of the dairy variety)

 

I've written about silage season here and here before, discussing that unique time of year that is a pretty big deal to dairy farmers and remains unheard of by . . . virtually everyone else. And while I usually end up spending a lot of time thinking about cows and all their bellies and how these couple of weeks are so critical to keeping them fed for the whole year, this year I've spent a lot of time pondering the people behind the season. 

The milkers and herders who keep milking while everyone else is out in the field. 

The guys in the shop who keep the choppers and trucks running. 

The herd health guys who keep the cows cared for and on top of their game.

The people who make parts runs. 

The people who cook and bake to keep everyone fed. 

The guys in the pushing and packing tractors who put in 15-hour days driving back and forth all day long.

My mom, who helped me make Chris a million sandwiches to eat while chopping. 

My sister and her children, who came for several days. She helped me make 20 meals for 20 silage truck and tractor drivers while her older two boys swept the shop and picked up trash and tracked silage truck loads.

The girls who drive big ole tractors like it's no big deal.

 

My sister-in-laws, who brought protein balls and caramel corn for hungry farmers to snack on while trying to stay awake and delivered snacks and Red Bulls.

My mother-in-law, who makes the world's chewiest oatmeal cookies, which keep ALL the team's spirits up, and who lets a whole lot of family camp out at her house while all of the rest of this is going on.

Little boys, who ride in silage choppers with their dads and uncles and think talking to each other on the radio and being around big machinery constitutes living their best life.  

My brothers-in-law, who drive silage choppers like they're stolen and whip trucks through muddy fields like they're in a demo derby, and live on iced coffees for several days in a row, and have fun doing it. 

My husband and father-in-law, who manage it all from chopper seats and pick-up trucks and can somehow talk on a radio and a phone at the same time without confusing who is talking to whom. 

If you're not a farm family or if you don't know a farmer, just know that for two weeks, everything on the dairy centers around getting corn chopped for cows to eat for the following year so that they can make milk so that you can eat cheese and yogurt and have something in which to dunk your cookies. 

And for those same two weeks, farm families come together to care for one another and for team members, and employees step in and step up to help those who are chopping and hauling silage. 

Everyone is tired, and the work - no matter what it looks like -- is hard. 

It takes a lot of people. 

And it's all so very good. 

A set of mule deer in aisle 3, please.

Does anyone have a pair of tigers? Maybe a set of lemurs? Because if it doesn't stop raining, I am full-on prepared for the Lord to start encouraging us to build arks and start rounding up animals.

It rains a day. It's dry a day. It rains. It's dry. It's a farmer's nightmare. Too wet to get the rye silage out. Can't get crops planted.

WHERE ARE THE MATCHING BABOONS, LORD, BECAUSE WE ARE READY!

Last year it was a drought. This year it's a flood.

It's just that at least with droughts you get some sunshine now and then. And dust. Usually a lot of dust. But whatever. SUNSHINE.

My farmer -- the optimist -- and I -- the pessimist realist -- saw each other for a few moments in passing last week. "I got a guy mowing and one is merging and I'm chopping and he's tilling and that guy's planting and another's spraying, and there's stuff going on at church, and there's stuff with employees, and the vet's coming tomorrow and the forecast says rain again tomorrow but if we can miss a shower this afternoon, we can at least keep working into the night," he said while chugging down an iced coffee.

Or as I say, "IT'S ALL THE THINGS."

And then he ran back out the door and jumped in his pick-up and the kids and I waved white hankies in his direction like ladies standing at the dock when ocean liners would take off for the other side of the world with their husbands and sons aboard.

Actually, it was a napkin and that's just because someone spilled yogurt on the floor, but the idea was there.

I could tell he was . . . well, we don't use the word "stressed" in our house. We just say we're busy . . . or our plates are full . . . or we're juggling a lot of balls. Because if one thing stresses us out, then it's easy to say something else does, and pretty soon making dinner is stressful or deciding what book to read next is stressful and then basically just doing life is stressful and that's lame.

So let's just say I could tell all the plates available were spinning.

Now, a nicer me would have texted him and said, "You can do this! You didn't get to where you are by letting 87,000 inches of rain and a forecast sent from the underworld itself get you down! I believe in you!"

And there are days for that.

But today he needed his BFF Jocko Willink. Jocko says that there's a two-step process to dealing with stress: (1) detach and (2) don't worry about things you can't control.

You detach yourself from the situation. Is it raining like you're in the midst of a hurricane? Yes. But are you freezing at the Battle of the Bulge? Are you walking with your feet tied in rags like men in the Revolutionary War? No. So stop whining. You don't have it so bad.

And stop fretting about things you can't change. Can you stop the rain? No. So use it to your good. Turn it on itself. Make it your ally.

So like any kind, thoughtful wife, I MPed my farmer and said, "You think you have it bad? You don't. You're not getting your legs blown off. You're not in a foxhole. You're not starving in a concentration camp. Rain has nothing on you!"

I'm helpful like that.

And you know what? By the end of the day, he was happy to report that he had turned the rain into an ally, made some decisions about the future that would make spring time easier in seasons of endless cruddy weather, and had a beer to celebrate his success.

Now, the point of all of this is not to gripe about the rain (ok, but seriously, it can stop any day now) or to claim that Jocko and I made any difference on my farmer's day, but it is to say that the Lord really can use difficult situations for good. I mean, so what if the kids can't play outside again until they're 45? We can still learn from this! And grow! And become more resilient!

There are times for empathy and understanding. And there are times for pushing and prodding and tough encouragement. I'm thankful for a farmer who doesn't let me wallow and who shows me that -- even when all the balls are in the air and someone tosses ten more in -- we don't freeze up or melt down. We embrace the suck. We just lean in and push even harder.

Which is good for him especially, considering he'll need all those muscles to build a house boat for our family to live on until the ground dries out again . . . in roughly 2025.

So here's to soldiering on, chins up, shoulders straight through the tough stuff. It can't last. The sun does come out again. It has to. In fact, it always does.*



*Or so I'm told. 

rye silage

Amy Grant may think that Christmas it the most wonderful time of the year, but at the dairy, we think silage chopping time is actually the best!

Or maybe just the most high energy. 

Ok, fine, Amy. You were right all along. But silage is still a pretty sweet time of year, no matter how many CDs you sold!

Where was I? Oh! What is silage? you're wondering. 

It's ok. I was too the first year. Turns out I have this handsome farmer who is happy to explain. Have a read!

Me: What is silage?

Chris: Silage is harvesting and ensiling a forage. 

Me: Wait. What's a forage? Isn't that what dogs do behind dumpsters?

silage 2k18

 

I love and loathe silage time on the farm. I love it because there's a lot of activity and people are (generally) excited for something new and different. Adrenaline runs high, and everybody bands together during the long (long!) days to get hundreds of acres of corn chopped for cow chow. 

I mean, they don't actually call silage "cow chow" but I kind of feel like there's a PR company out there somewhere who wishes they'd have thought of that instead of me. 

Unless someone else actually DID think of it before me, in which case let's forget we ever had this conversation. 

But it also means long days for everybody, including my farmer, and that part I don't love so much. I'm all, "Well, see you in two weeks when silage is over. Be a good boy. Don't forget to write. Remember I love you" when I hand him his lunchbox every morning. 

Maybe not quite like that.

 

Some years, my sister and her kids come for a week. Her boys get to ride in the silage chopper and stay out too late and wear pliers pouches, which makes them happy, and I get to hang out with one of my sisters and have some company during my farmer's 18-hour days, which makes me happy. 

This year, my sister-in-law and her little boy came for a week.

 

 We spent the first few days of silage drinking mimosas, dipping our toes in the kiddie pool, watching our children play quietly together and getting caught up on each other's lives. 

Hahahahaha.

Aaaaaaactually, we both had sick kids who found it fun to haul off and deck one another while we tried to sip just a slurp of coffee to help counteract the getting-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-with-said-kiddos-who-couldn't-sleep-or-breathe-due-to-junky-noses tiredness.

And you know what? WE STILL HAD SO MUCH FUN. 

If being a mom -- and silage -- have taught me anything, it's to be flexible. Kids get sick. Silage choppers break. Toddlers melt down. Trucks fall apart. They're just going to happen. And getting worked up about it doesn't help. You just roll with it.

Basically, silage season is like parenting. That's what I'm getting from this. 

In unrelated news, I struggle every year to know what to fix Chris to eat while he's driving the chopper. He told me once the only thing he has to look forward to during the day is what he's going to eat. Otherwise, it's corn. All day. Every day. Back and forth. Corn. Just corn. 

He also needs food he can eat with one hand because the other hand is busy driving and adjusting the chopper spout and hitting the radio button to tell truck drivers to back up or move over. He also tells me the food has to fit in a cup holder or be something he can wolf down while driving.

NO PRESSURE. Just make fun food that brightens his day that he can eat in about two bites.  

(Mommy!)

So this year, in an effort not to feed him sandwiches and chips for two weeks straight, I bought out Aldi's snack aisle. Nuts, pretzels, dried fruit, chocolate -- all the things. 

And my sister-in-law used her creative wizardry to whip up five different kinds of trail mix . . . without using a recipe, I might add. 

I'd be all, "Let's see if Pinterest has any idea what I can do with this massive pile of dried goods. Otherwise, here you go, honey: a giant bag of banana chips. See you in two weeks!"

I also packaged up mini cucumbers and sweet peppers the first week and popped a couple of those in his lunch box each day. 

My sister-in-law -- again with the awesomeness -- made up some protein bites with craisins and walnuts and chia seeeds, and those have been the hit of silage season thus far. 

(Sarah, you might be sorry you made these because you're probably going to be on tap for doing it next year too. Please don't hate me.)

 

And because this is the year of silage revelations, I also learned from my friend Megan than you can make meat and cheese sandwiches and freeze them.

FREEZE THEM.

This means no more making a gabillion sandwiches every night after the kids are in bed.

My world: revolutionized.

Instead, we put the sandwiches in the freezer, pulled them out the night before, added some veggies and pickles and lettuce, and voila!

But wasn't the bread soggy, you're wondering? No. No, it was not.

Now go and do likewise.

(Also, runzas for the one-handed-eating-in-the-chopper win! Again, my SIL. I'm not even sure I'm needed for meals at silage at the rate she's going.)

Add some tea, some Red Bull, and some peanut butter with celery and carrots in the bottom of a cup to polish it off (See? Cupholders!), and the guys had meals fit for kings!

Scratch that. But at least good enough for hardworking, worn out, hungry farmers.

 

Silage is all about timing. The corn's moisture has to be just right. The corn has to be a certain maturity. All the machinery has to be ready to go. The weather has to cooperate. There have to be enough truck drivers. And caffeine.

Lots of caffeine.

And when all those line up, silage runs like a well-oiled machine.

Like a chopper, for instance.

Or the Eagle, which is that sweet semi pictured below with carpeted doors that leaves everybody wanting to sing C.W. McCall's Convoy and wear 1970s aviators and grow big mustaches.

We had a lovely week with my sister-in-law and her little boy, and now we've plowed through another week of the kiddos and me at home, listening to Dad on the radio and anxiously awaiting his return to normal life, packing lunches, watching the weather app and praying everybody makes it through safely. 

And while we do, we remember that on the days silage doesn't quite run the way it's supposed to, when it seems far from a well-oiled machine, when kids are sneezing or axles break or rain halts everything in its tracks, we still get it done.

The cow chow still gets packed in a pile to feed the cows until next year's silage season.

The children get well again and beg for Mule rides.

The Red Bulls and iced coffees do their job.

The sun still shines.

And it's all good. 

What do cows eat?

   

If you ask our toddler, she claims cows eat Goldfish. If you ask people who haven't been around livestock, they think cows just eat "grass." If you ask a cow what she'd like to eat, she probably ask why you gave a mouse a cookie and a moose a muffin and didn't give her any baked goods. 

#carbsforlife

Two things: 

(1) Each day, one of the guys at the dairy has the job of mixing rations for different groups of cows. The ration is routinely tweaked by the dairy's nutritionist, who increases or decreases ingredients based on the cows' health, nutritional needs, and production. 

(2) The ration is mixed in a giant mixer that holds tons of feed. Literally. Tons. Think of it like a Kitchen Aid mixer the size of your kitchen, and instead of teaspoons, you're measuring in pounds. Hundreds of pounds, to be exact.

Don't worry. We're not finished debunking all your bovine myths. There's still more!

So, what do cows eat?

ALL THE THINGS. 

When the guys get ready to mix the ration for the day, they are combining several ingredients, none of which, sadly, include Goldfish.

The smallest bowl pictured above contains ground corn. Think high energy, high calorie food, and then take it times ten. Plus, unlike me when I eat sweet corn, it's already ground up, so cows don't have to spend an hour with giant toothpicks picking husks out of their teeth. We're thoughtful like that.

Next up: dried distillers grain. If you want to sound like you know what you're talking about next time you visit a dairy, call it DDG. When grain is used to make ethanol, the leftovers get repurposed into, you guessed it, food for cows!

Then there's mineral mix.  That's pretty self explanatory. Minerals. Vitamins. In a mix. A local feed mill creates that mix since we don't carry enough of each on the farm to make our own.

And in the biggest bowl? Soybean meal. Because everybody has to eat their vegetables and proteins, even 1500 pound cows.

 

Pop quiz to see if you remember what's what!

Ready?

 What's featured in the picture above? 

That's right. DDG!

 

Lest you think that's all that goes into a cow's own personal Chex Mix, there's more!

Soybean hull pellets are in the smallest bowl. Fat and fiber. You name it; they've got it.

The white fluffy stuff in the bottom right? Whole cotton seed. (Pro tip: If you're under the age of 10, a giant pile of cotton seed is great for jumping in. It's also great if you're over 10; people just might look at you funny.) Cotton seed is yet another source of -- you guessed it -- protein, fat, and fiber.

In the third largest bowl, you'll see gluten feed pellets. These are made of corn byproduct (seriously . . . nothing goes to waste!), and while they're not as high in protein, they're still chalk full of fiber.

And in the biggest bowl? Alfalfa. In addition to other nutrients, alfalfa adds calcium and is easily digestible, so cow stomachs don't have to work quite as hard. And when you have four stomachs, you can use a little break now and then. 

Additionally, corn and rye silage get added to the ration. (You can learn more about silage here.) Silage is like a giant energy bar for cows. It provides them with huge amounts of fiber and energy, and those, in turn, boost their milk production.

 

Lactating cows get a special feed called -- aptly -- lactation mix. It's made of ground corn, cotton seed, DDG, vitamin and mineral mix, soybean hulls, and soybean meal.

When I sit down to meal plan each week, I try to include fruits, veggies, proteins and dairy in each meal. Likewise,  the guys mixing the ration for the cows each day combine different amounts of each of the above commodities to make sure that the cows are not only well fed but also healthily! 

I mean, no girl wants to sit around just eating HoHos and Oatmeal Cream Pies all day. 

Just kidding. 

Me. 

I do!

But there you have it. No Goldfish, unfortunately, but lots of fiber, protein, fat and energy uniquely mixed and suited for specific groups of cows' needs. 

And now you know . . . the rest of the . . . . um, ration?

Agriculture Grows Families

A couple of months ago, Chris had the opportunity to speak at the Missouri Governor's Conference as a representative of the dairy industry. In honor of National Ag Week, I'm sharing his comments here, as one dairy farmer just telling his story. 

 Hi, I’m Chris. I'm a dairy farmer in Missouri.  My wife and I farm together with my parents.  We milk Holstein cows, farm acres of row crops, in addition to raising about  replacement heifers on local pastures.   Now, my wife, she grew up on a hog farm in northwest Iowa.  So, naturally we never, ever argue about which animal is better…about which animal smells better, looks better, tastes better…

As I was thinking about what I wanted to say here today, my thoughts were drawn to my little 11 month old daughter crawling around and to my wife who is carrying our next child due in March.  And I thought about my great grandfather who lost everything in the Great Depression and about my grandpa who started all over again with nothing.  I thought about the five generations before me who have dairy-ed in Missouri; about the challenges they faced, the opportunities they made, the families they built.  

By nature, agriculture draws families; or better put, agriculture grows families.  As a result, many of us in agriculture have been here in Missouri for generations; perhaps one generation, or three generations or six or more.  And each of those generations have seen their fair share of challenges.  They’ve seen droughts and floods; humid, oppressive summers and icy, bone-chilling winters; blights and insects; weeds and failed crops; and a financial or farm crisis or too.  And yet somehow, here we are today.  

Imagine the challenges that those early settlers of Missouri saw as they came up the river or through the forests.  And yet, they saw the potential, the rough forms, the uncut gems that could be someday.  And in the fields, in the forests, in the pastures, in the barns, they sweated and they bled and they dreamed and they seized the opportunities they were given.  Heck, sometimes they made their own opportunities where there were none and built a rich heritage of agriculture in the process.

 

Those are the stories I think about when I think the challenges and opportunities that face my farm and my family and my dairy.  Are there challenges in the dairy industry?  You bet.  Missouri summers are tough, prices have been low, few members of the workforce have dairy experience, and we don’t have the extent of infrastructure that we used to.   

 But we are not without opportunities.  We have plentiful, high quality feed that’s readily available and affordable:  corn silage, soybean-meal, soybean hulls, distiller’s grains, brewer’s grains, corn gluten, cottonseed, alfalfa, and plentiful pasture land.  We have micro-creameries popping up across the state, reintroducing people to specialty dairy products.   We have a good water supply supported by plentiful rainfall.  In the end, though, it’s not about those physical challenges and opportunities; it’s about how we react to them.  

 

The opportunities afforded us go beyond the physical necessities of dairying.  I find that we have a tremendous opportunity to connect with consumers and to help build consumer confidence.  We have the opportunity to strengthen our social license to operate.  People love dairy cows; they love seeing a calf running through a pasture; they love seeing the care and concern that we have for our animals.  People love the story we have to tell, and they love the way our families are interwoven with our farms.  I strongly believe that this is one opportunity that will have a  positive impact upon our industry for decades to come.

Similarly, we have the opportunity to impact our communities through those employees who work on our farms.  Not only does capital flow back into the local community, but so does character.  I strongly believe dairy farming is character-building work…trust me, I grew up scraping manure and chasing calves.  The character that our employees develop…well, they carry that character and work ethic back into their communities, into their churches, into their families.  As I said before, at its core, agriculture grows families.

 

So both opportunities and real challenges are present.  But if our forebears who settled this state could overcome the mammoth challenges, we can too.  I believe the future can be very bright for Missouri dairy, for those who have the eyes to see the opportunities and the fortitude to capitalize on them.  To quote President-Elect Trump: “If you’re going to think, you might as well start thinking big.”

Each of us up here represents a different industry with different opportunities and different challenges. It’s a pleasure to be a part of that agricultural community here in Missouri, and a pleasure to be with all of you here today. 

day 3 of farmacology: naps

One of the things you may not know about farm folks is that

we take naps, and we take them in really strange places. 

Farmers are notorious for working from sun up to sun down. But that doesn't mean they don't take a break here or there to recharge. 

My dad took a nap almost every day after lunch. Somehow, no matter how hard he was sleeping, he only napped for 15 minutes. Then he'd pop up, refill his coffee thermos and head out the door again.

Heck, I lay down for five minutes and I can be out for the rest of the afternoon. So that capacity clearly skipped a generation. 

But if you're chopping silage, you can take a 10-minute nap in the chopper while you wait for the next truck.  

If you're waiting for a cow to dilate so you can help pull her calf, you can lean your head back in the Gator and catch 40 winks. 

If you pull your truck up to your house after an 16-hour day and you're too tired to even walk inside, you can sleep in the pickup for an hour or two before getting up the energy to go in the house and shower . . . and then go to real bed. 

If you're planting or tilling, you can stop your tractor, turn off your phone and stay right there in the seat while you catch a nap. 

If you're milking cows in the parlor and you're waiting on the girls to finish, you can pull up a bucket, hold your head in your hands and get a good five minutes in before having to wake up. 

If you're stopping home for lunch, you can fall asleep on a . . . pile of dogs. 

The napping options are virtually limitless for farmers! You get up early, you go to bed late, you nap when you can. 

And where you can. 

If you can. 

Sometimes, even with the dogs.

** This post has been paid for my farmer . . . who has napped in all the places mentioned above. Except he didn't actually pay for this post. He just likes naps. **

Want to read more of my 31 day farmacology writing challenge? Click here. 

silage 2015

Silage season is wrapping up, which translates to happy farmers, happy cows and happy wives. 

The farmers are happy because the corn is chopped. The cows are happy because they love eating. And the wives are happy that they get to see their husbands again!

And that they don't have to come up with another variation on a sandwich for a hungry farmer to wolf down.

Hey, making ham and turkey taste exciting and new requires some serious innovation after a while. 

The last step, when the silage is all chopped and packed, requires everybody to pitch in to cover the bunker silo with plastic. 

Then they spend an entire morning (and sometimes the better part of a day) tossing hundreds of tires on top of the plastic to seal the whole kit and caboodle right on up. 

If the silage isn't properly covered and sealed, air and rain can seep into the silage and spoil the whole pile. The feed gets moldy, nutrients are lost, the cows don't milk as well and it's a bad deal all around. 

So while it's hot and sweaty work, it's important. 

Plus, there's usually a lot of laughter involved. 

Some people are celebrating the onset of fall or football or apple cider or bonfires.

Here on the farm, we're celebrating those too . . . but we just might be even more excited about well-harvested silage that's packed tightly, covered properly and sealed soundly. 

Hey, no one ever said it took much to make us happy! 

this week {August 24, 2015}

This week, we are:

• Focusing on all things silage. Silage time is kind of like Christmas on the farm, but you have to replace the presents, snow, special breakfasts and trees with a silage chopper, corn, trucks, tractors, two-way radios, a sturdy work ethic and long hours. 

The guys worked all week to tear the choppers apart and repair them, then to put them back together without any leftover pieces, which would be unthinkable if this were left up to me.

"Um, guys, does anyone know where this extra tire goes?" - me

or

"Do you really NEED these brakes or can you just kind of roll to a stop?" - me 

As you can tell, critical thinking and logical deduction are not my forte. I just make the coffee, which leads to the next thing that's defining this week.

• Living on caffeine. When everything is running the way it's supposed to, the chopper go-go-goes and the trucks run ride along side it. It means getting up at 5:00 a.m., and running until 12:30 a.m. the next morning and not falling asleep until 1:00 a.m. So if there's a watchword for the week, it's: gimme-all-the-caffeinated-things. Correction: watchwordS.

• Thankful for a forecast filled with sunshine. Silage is all about timing. The corn's moisture has to be just right, and the corn itself has to be a certain maturity. All the machinery has to be ready to go. The weather has to cooperate, and it can't be rainy. And when all those factors collide, silage can run like a well-oiled machine. A chopper, as it were. 

• Taking credit that isn't ours. It had been a long week. Silage hadn't started yet. There was one lingering issue to fix on the chopper, and the guys had spent hours working to figure it out. I'm not saying that when my mother-in-law and I showed up, the problem was fixed within minutes but . . . well, yes, that actually is what I'm saying. We'll just go ahead and take credit for it, even though we had absolutely nothing to do with it. Because we're fun like that. 

• Slightly amazed. Did you know that silage choppers have kernel processors that basically crack corn kernels so that cows can digest the corn more easily? Those four stomaches need all the help they can get! And come to think of it, that's almost as impressive as the pre-digested goat milk my mom fed me when I was a colicky baby. (Do I want to know who digested it first? I don't think I do.) 

• Good senses of humor. Silage season requires a lot of patience. Combine that with hard work and reeeeeeally long work days, and it would be easy to get testy or out of sorts. And yet every time I pop in at the dairy, someone is joking, teasing someone else, pulling a prank, spouting a good one-liner or smiling. It must be something in the silage dust, but whatever it is, we're grateful for it . . . and for good humor in general. 

• Digging two-way radios. Can you imagine what life was like before those puppies? How would you know when your truck was full of silage? Or when you're driving too close to the chopper and need to give it some room? Or that there are fresh-baked cookies in the shop to nab the next time you drop off a load of silage at the bunker? You wouldn't, that's what! 

• Grateful to be living in the country. Silage season requires a lot of time spent in trucks and choppers and tractors, but it also provides a lot of time to watch sunsets and see the stars to come out, to enjoy the autumn weather and get in healthy doses of sunshine. Add to that the animals that dash out of the ends of corn fields, and you've got yourself a full-fledge nature lallapalooza. Heck, if I didn't think everyone would assume I was crazy, I set up a lawn chair at the dairy, pop a chocolate milk and watch the magic happen . . . for hours. 

• Trying to keep Blackjack off his gimpy paw. Blackjack hurt his foot, but this hasn't kept him from hobbling around on three paws, regardless of how much we try to keep him calm. Then again, this affords him lots of benefits: like getting to eat the frosting off of people's cupcakes, sitting at the feet of kind people who order him his own hamburgers from McDonalds, and lots of time laying around in the air conditioned office. Wait a minute. Why walk regularly? He's got it pretty good!  

It may not be silage season where you are but . . . what's this week look like for you?