Knolltop Farm Wife (Melissa Hart)

Welcome to my blog! I'm a wife, mother of four and a self-employed freelance writer. In addition to writing, I am involved in producing several dairy magazines and am the editor of Dairy Agenda Today where I have a blog there as well! This is a place where I can get what's in my head, down on paper (the internet). I hope you find encouragement and maybe a giggle or two!
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Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Holstein seen at Montana Dairy

It's a cool, sunny day here on the Knolltop. The winds of Fall are beginning to blow, it was only 44 this morning! I wore shorts under my overalls but I didn't take my sweatshirt off at all, which means it was cool..very cool.

Okay, yesterday Pryorvu told us something that doesn't seem to have the rest of the cow world stirred up as much as our news over the weekend. My sister, the horse breeder, music teacher, homeschool mom, choir director, mother of five.....boys..... wife of a cabinet maker and over all wonder woman is now a milkmaid! Well, that makes her sound like she runs around in a skirt with an apron milking cows, which is highly inaccurate.

I told you about her wonderful little retail business where she milks her cows, puts in in jars and sells it to her food co-op customers for $7.00 a gallon. This business began with her middle son and one 4-H cow, like so many dairies around the country, and has now grown to a small herd of Ayrshires, a real live milk house, two commercial size refrigerators and I don't know something like 200 glass gallon jugs! Not really that many, but there are a lot of jugs!

My parents went out a few weeks ago for a visit and my mother, who loves and appreciates a well designed, clean, efficient milk house, has talked about nothing else since she's been back. (Another slight exaggeration)

But now the real news is....THEY BOUGHT A HOLSTEIN! I'm so glad they've finally seen the light and gotten a real milk cow! (I know, I know, I'm asking for it now!)

The amazing thing is not that they have a Holstein and we have two Jerseys but it's that we both grew up on the same farm where we had Holsteins, Jerseys, Brown Swiss and Ayrshires. My sister, Ginny choose music as her major in college and went off to be a teacher. I went to college to be an animal science and ag com major and was going to be... well, a wife and stay at home mom. And here we are years later both stay at home moms, with husbands that are both self-employed and we are milking cows! Now that's a hoot!

I've got salsa to make...and I'd better get on it!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My dear Liss, Yep, you asked for it so here goes--out of that very colorful herd you were raised withyou were not the one with black and white cattle. Seems to me that you picked a very nice red and white AYRSHIRE and from her you had a very classy herd of cattle who did very well in the show ring and very well in the barn also. We had a great time showing them although we didn't know much about what we were doing at first. Out of all the breeds that we had, they were my favorites and still are. I,m so glad that each of you kids had your own opinions about what breed you wanted for 4-H cause then we got to experience nearly all of them and it was great. A little color in a herd is great! Love ya, mom

Anonymous said...

Mom's are always mothers, proud of their children no matter what. Thanks for sharing. Even Uncle's are pretty good back up Dad's, always there for support.