Christmas Tidings

I hope you all had a fantastic holiday with the ones you love. We were able to enjoy some family time, and still manage to get all the mandatory work done. In addition to all the Christmas festivities, we also celebrated my dad's birthday (Dec 23rd) Happy Birthday Pop. However, we can't stay idle for very long. Operating a Dairy is a commitment that is hard to understand until you're in it. The cows must be milked and taken care of every day, and nothing can get in the way of that. Special occasions like birthdays, holidays, graduations, weddings, or any other occasion can't interrupt the operation of the dairy. Neither can one hundred-degree weather, zero-degree weather, pouring rain, hurricane winds, or even an 18-inch snowfall in 1993. One of my favorite professors at Berry College was a veterinarian from South Africa, Dr. Martin Goldberg. He had worked on Diaries in South Africa and was also the staff vet in charge of the Berry College Dairy. He told me one time a hilarious line about dairy farming. He said, "The problem with a milk cow is that she doesn't stay milked." It was probably funnier in his South African accent, but the message rang very true to me. The profession is relentless. Looking back I mainly stand amazed that my family has been able to consistently operate a dairy since 1946. That's a lot of early mornings, and working through bad weather to do the things that just have to be done. It's also a lot of sneaking away family holidays and birthdays to go take care of the dairy, perhaps that is one of the biggest sacrifices. And even with all those demands, we still love this business. My dad always said, "It gets in your blood and you can't get it out." That's as good of an explanation as I can come up with. How else could a family continue with such a demanding farm operation non-stop for 77 years and counting? One day I will tell the whole story here, but I can one hundred percent say that we would be out of business had we not found customers like all of you who are reading this back in 2006. Obviously, we like this hard work, and the support you all have shown us throughout the years has allowed us to continue. Thank You, and Merry Christmas!