“Well, that escalated quickly.” It seems to be the appropriate phrase to describe the last two weeks. What looked like would only be a slight interruption, has brought the global community...

Looking at our farm here in East Moline, Ill., it is business as usual. Cows still have to be milked three times a day

As farmers, we’re uniquely fortunate when it comes to being quarantined for long periods of time. I don’t know about you, but before it was encouraged or legally enforced, I used to spend weeks...

The world has changed a lot in the last week and a half, and maybe one of the only silver linings in this situation is that we’re realizing the difference between what we need in order to survive...

Unless you live under a rock, you know that times are a little hectic and scary right now. How much affect has one virus caused? A pandemic, death, and a lot of sick people

If there’s one thing I don’t think anyone was expecting this year, it’s the crisis that COVID-19 has brought. I feel like we are just in the beginning of the storm here in the U.S

Concerns surrounding coronavirus are impacting people across the United States and around the world. As I write this blog, events are being canceled and travel is highly discouraged — all in an attempt...

As the Martina McBride song goes, “This one's for all you girls about 13. High school can be so rough, can be so mean.” I’ll add that farm girls are far and few in-between. Or at least...

Tell your story. Tell your story. Tell your story. This is the mantra that probably every farmer and agriculturalist has heard seemingly non-stop over the last few years as social media continues to explode

I will be 30 years old in just a few months. Throughout the years, I have seen high school workers on our farm come and go

Muhammad Ali said, “Often it isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you out, it’s the little pebble in your shoe.”

A few years ago, I purchased a cattle shed for my kids. We call it "Grandpa Bob's shed," as I used some of my inheritance money to purchase it

Urbanization is a tricky subject. It affects each state, region, county, and town differently, and there are certainly benefits to expanding our communities

I absolutely love my school and wouldn’t trade it for the world, but I want to bring up a topic that sometimes gets swept under the rug. Personally, I have many friends and peers at home, in my family,...

We have been milking with robots for three months now. The months of construction as well as the retraining of cows were both stressful and labor intensive

There are lots of times that it has been hard to think of the future of the dairy industry with optimism. Especially after the challenges of the last few years

I get it; I really do. My husband and I are super frugal, and some actually might call us cheap, so the idea of spending extra money on flowers or candy just because the calendar tells us to is something...

Last Sunday, Joaquin Phoenix used his fame to denounce dairy farming to millions of people. If I’m being completely honest, I’m a little impressed that he was able to slip the phrase “artificial...

Ten years ago, or even just five, it’s likely safe to guess that not many people thought about food on the cellular level. If they did, it was probably not about using cells to create entirely new...

This past week in one of my English classes, the concept of thank-you notes was brought up in reference to what some choose to do after an interview as they aim to leave a positive, lasting impression