#17 Cows!

The boat refit is coming along great, we’re making progress like NASA did when putting a man on the moon: unlimited hours of work and an (almost) unlimited budget. I go to sleep at night thinking about how to troubleshoot and fix the balky refrigerator and wake up planning on how to figure out all the belt sizes on the generator so I can get spares. Cheryl is busy picking out countertops and wall coverings and paint colors. I’m loving it. I like to be busy, whether it’s writing something, (like these blogs) or bike riding or reading or dancing or painting the deck. Solving problems is hugely gratifying, especially small ones that you can knock down one after the other. This boat thing definitely takes care of that. However, it’s easy to get wrapped up too far. It’s important to remember to do other things too; go to a movie, dinner with friends, or, go to a farm! So, for your reading enjoyment…

Cows!

There is a big milk processing plant (Mayfield Dairy Farms) near here that does tours, so Cheryl and I went the other day. It was interesting, but not quite fascinating. While there we learned that the milk comes from a big dairy that also does tours, and has a restaurant, so we went to that this week. This one was both interesting and fascinating. (Sweetwater Valley Farm.)

I haven’t been on a dairy farm in 40 years. I figured it would be more or less like what I remembered, guys milking cows twice a day by attaching suction cups to them and letting the machine pull it out, then sending the cow back out to the pasture. Not even. The cows live in cow paradise, first of all. A true cow resort, a climate-controlled 500 foot long building with skylights, sand beds, (sand is better as it cushions the cow better and is less prone to bacterial infection, and can be rinsed and reused) with places to go for food, water, and a pedicure when their nails get too long. The cows have been trained, using cow psychology, to pretty much take care of themselves. They rarely moo, since mooing means they are unhappy or uncomfortable. We didn’t hear one moo all afternoon. They know where to go to get food, water, a rinse, a scratch, (with automatic scratching machines) a cooling mist when it’s hot, or to be milked. They don’t go outside, because cows are simple creatures. They like consistency and that would introduce too many variables, and because if they ate grass or weeds outside that would affect the taste of the milk, while they would be exposed to flies and other biting insects, which are controlled in the barn. So they never go outside.

They milk themselves. When they start to feel full, which is about three times a day, they walk over to the robot milking machine, which looks like a cross between a robotic surgery machine and a rocket ship control panel, get milked, then get a cookie reward. If they go into the robot too soon the gate opens and no cookie. The cows wear location GPS collars so that the computer knows where they are at all times, and they wear smart watches! Well, more like a FitBit I guess. A device on their collar that measures blood pressure, breathing, chewing, temperature, and reports all that back to the computer, which monitors them and flags anything out of the ordinary. When they don’t eat enough in one day or run a fever, for instance, the computer tells the vet and they go check the cow to see if she’s sick. When she’s in heat, she is flagged for breeding. They have around 2000 cows there and birth about three a day.

The barn is fully automated too, even the floors are cleaned with automatic scrapers and the manure is cleaned, dried and used for fertilizer. This farm prides themselves on “seed to sandwich”, because they raise the crops, feed it to the cows, harvest the milk, and make cheese sandwiches in the restaurant. All ingredients from right off the farm. A cow gives about 13 gallons of milk a day, which is sent to that first milk processing plant I mentioned, and in less than a week is sitting on a grocery store shelf. The cows eat about 100 pounds of blended grain and hay a day, and drink 50 gallons of water.

The robot milking machine measures the quality of the milk as it comes out and knows what to do with it. If the cow is stressed, (which these aren’t), hormones can get into the milk and make it go bad quickly or taste funny. The robot will sense all that and flag it. Lasers guide the milkers to the teats after a brush roller cleans them, and the robot can tell when she’s empty and drops off the milkers, then gives her a spray of disinfectant. Watching this it looks just like a car going through a car wash; the cows lined up outside waiting just like cars in a row. Gates open and close automatically as the line progresses.

Basically, it’s an self-run automatic factory, with cows as one component, and the guys who work there just maintain the equipment. The robot milkers are made in Europe and there are techs who travel the country and do the maintenance and repairs.

The farm itself is beautiful, spread out on many acres of open space. The rooftops of all the buildings are covered with solar, they make almost all the electricity they need themselves. There is a cool restaurant serving only varieties of cheese sandwiches, and a shop with cheese for sale. You can also watch them making cheese in the shop. I am never buying grocery store cheese again! This stuff is delicious, and so sharp it crumbles. I like cheese, so from now on when I need to stock up I’m driving over to this place to get my supply.

The restaurant:

Robot milker at work. You can just see the cow:

Cow resort, otherwise known as the milking barn:

Not a real cow:

The spread:

So if you get a chance, stop by and check out Sweetwater Valley Farm. And have a cheese sandwich!

“If one lives with amazement and a deep realization at the marvel of being alive in this time, then he is paying attention. If he is unmoved or disappointed then there remains for him on Earth only a longer or shorter period of waiting for death.”