High Grove Farm Journal – January 2026

Feb 03, 2026 (Westby, WI)

If you’re feeling anything like I am after surviving that brutal cold spell, you’re just starting to let yourself believe that spring might actually be a few months away. On the dairy farm, looking ahead to spring helps get us through the last of winter, but there’s still our yearly “wintertime tasks” to check off the list.

Welcome to the High Grove Farm monthly journal! I’m Jessica and my husband Drew and I, along with our children, are Westby Creamery farmer-owners and we enjoy sharing our farm life with you. Here’s what we’ve been up to lately.

Not much other than chores!

It’s the same old story every winter, when it gets super cold – things break and chores go extra long. As usual, the brunt of the work falls on Drew, but he never complains, he truly loves farming, and even when the barn cleaner breaks from the extreme cold. Or when last week our son slid off the road in his truck into the ditch, breaking things pretty badly on his truck, Drew just orders the parts and fixes what needs to be fixed right away and keeps on going. Farmers are tough that way!

January is a long-dark month, and I’m glad it’s over! Farming in the cold midwestern winter is truly survival mode for dairy farmers but that doesn’t mean it has to get our spirits low! We’ve been keeping up with it all more easily by eating healthy, taking lots of vitamin D and getting off the farm as much as we can in between all the work.

Now that it’s February, it’s tax preparation time and finalizing crop plans and pasture rotations and all those types of things. There’s a lot of planning to do and extra for us compared to other years, as we are in our final year of transitioning our farm to organic. It hasn’t been all that different so far as we were already implementing many of the practices of organic farming before. I am sure we will have many challenges as dairy farming tends to bring, but I am so thankful we get to work together as a family with our cows on this beautiful farm we love so much!

We hope you are enjoying the sunshine when it’s out and the beautiful snowy views this winter as much as we are! Thanks for visiting the farm!

-Jessica

Jessica Rogers is a Westby Creamery farmer-owner who is sharing glimpses of farm life with us.