High Grove Farm Journal – July 2022

Aug 02, 2022 (Westby, WI)

By Jessica Rogers

The summer months keep going by so quickly and I can’t believe July has come to an end. July started out with high temperatures, and we continued our summer growing season with harvesting second crop right at the beginning of the month. We had it all finished just in time to enjoy the Fourth of July with family. The morning of the fourth a sweet heifer calf was born, who we named Liberty.

Liberty! Isn’t she so cute?

The next week we had several projects we wanted to get done. We used a mini excavator to dig in some waterlines out to different pastures and to also fix the drain in the milk house, which has been getting slower.

Drew was moving some earth behind the barn to help rain run off and go where we want it to, which is not in our buildings.

We also worked on improving our cows’ comfort by adding two more fans to the barn with help from Drew’s brother, Dustin. We will all benefit from this improvement.

Drew working hard to get some new fans put up.

The month has also proved to be fulfilling in terms of garden produce and wild black caps! We made several batches of black cap jam and syrup.

We had purple hands and happy bellies to prove it as the bowls of fruit made their way back from the woods’ edge to my kitchen.

We also had a scary farm accident this month. Our son Caleb was goofing off with his brother Carter while they were bringing the cows home and he fell into a barbed wire fence. He cut his leg so deep and badly that he had to get 35 stitches! He’s doing very well and, amazingly, it is almost completely healed within two weeks now… But, boy, was that was a rough day!

You can see the bandage on Caleb’s leg here. We’re thankful he’s okay!

The cows are doing great, and we’ve been blessed with rain and full pastures for the girls to graze each day. The special pastures we planted with a “warm weather” seed mix for grazing is awesome for this time of the year. The cows are loving being let out after evening chores to fresh pasture to graze in the cool of the night until morning milking time comes again.

July’s luscious hay harvest.

Slow down summer, you sure are beautiful! Thanks for stopping by to catch up here.

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