High Grove Farm Journal – October 2024
Nov 13, 2024 (Westby, WI)
Come along and take a look through my eyes, a Westby Creamery farmer-owner wife and mother, and see what it’s like living and working on our dairy farm in Wisconsin! Hello, I am Jessica and Welcome to High Grove Farm!
Lately as we walk to the barn to close it down after supper and before we go to bed, the stars seem even brighter with the chilly bite of frost in the air. Cold dark mornings turn into warm sunny October days, filled with rich colors and the noise of busy squirrels and birds as they prepare for winter’s long visit. The brisk winds whip the fallen leaves around the farm, the gusts hit the old Aerometer windmill that graces our farmstead, dislodging the break and freeing the whole wheel and tail to spin 180 degrees as the wind changes directions again. As summer comes to a close, there’s lots to do on the farm!
October has been hectic because of the big cow lane and waterline project, but thankfully it is coming to an end. We are glad next year will be more normal without all the added work and stress of this project. The cows and us are enjoying the setup, and it’s beautiful to see the cows using the lanes everyday walking in a line down the middle of the separated paddocks, making it all worth it in the end. If they’re happy, we’re happy!
The cows have been soaking up the sun and eating their fresh green forage out on pasture as many days as they can before the long snowy break comes soon!
These crisp mornings had me digging through the attic totes to find our winter barn vests! We’ve started to leave only one of the barn fans on at night instead of all of them now, the wood-stove in the basement of our farmhouse has started its yearly service of heating the house once again.
Drew finished up all the fencing around the “new” pastures and hooked up the new waterer out there. We’ve brought our heifers back to the farm from their summer pasture and have enjoyed calving in many of them already. We’ve been calving in a lot and it’s so good to see the barn filling up again. We ran lean this whole summer with many of the cows dried up and on break at the same time, which was nice for having fast chores, but it’ll be good to have more cows to milk everyday too.
Daily farm chores are going well, but we have been reminded of a few things that we are supposed to do before winter hits. Dairy farm life is always a constant juggling act of life, and work, and making progress towards better efficiency to ease our labors so we can continue to do what we love!
We are looking forward to upcoming holidays with the family, deer hunting and a few months of free concrete! So, here’s to dairy farm life on the frozen tundra of Wisconsin whether we’re ready for it or not!
– Jessica Rogers is a Westby Creamery farmer-owner who is sharing glimpses of farm life with us.
