We enjoyed a beautiful weekend for Mother’s Day. The weather was perfect, if not a little on the hot side. Round bale grass silage came in without an issue, just in time for the rain to arrive. The seamless rhythm of it all just working out right was such as pleasant surprise.
How often does that happen in dairy farm life?! Ask me later this week, I’m sure the problems will find a way to catch up! As I appreciated that moment, I pondered all the things the seemingly unrelated Mother’s Day and dairy farming had in common.
We literally owe everything in the dairy industry to mothers.
Here’s a couple of the things that jumped to my mind.
Reproduction is always on dairy farmers’ minds as it applies to keeping farms going. The ins and outs of fertility can literally be a breaking point, and it all comes down to the simple fact that bovines must have offspring to produce milk. The dairy industry literally hangs in the balance of the nature of motherhood. Such a simple and yet profound foundation for this industry we love.
While we owe it all to the bovine mothers that make it possible. We can’t discuss motherhood without acknowledging the amazing farm women who truly keep everything going. Making contributions not only to the farm, but in raising the next generation, keeping everyone fed, often balancing the books and just somehow managing to juggle it all. The farm mothers out there truly deserve some amazing recognition!
The dictionary describes Motherhood as “having or relating to an inherent worthiness, justness, or goodness that is obvious or unarguable.” All things that define the dairy industry.
So remember to honor the mothers of the dairy industry not just on Mother’s Day, but every day of year.
The author is a third-generation dairy farmer from Oregon where she farms in partnership with her husband and parents. As a mother of two young boys who round out the family-run operation as micro managers, Darleen blogs about the three generations of her family working together at Guernsey Dairy Mama. Abi-qua Acres Mann's Guernsey Dairy is currently home to 90 registered Guernseys and transitioned to a robotic milking system in 2017.
