Hope and Change

The dairy industry is changing rapidly these days, and in fact many days I feel as if it is changing right out from under us. I put a post up here on the Dairy Economic Loss Assistance Payment Program or DELAP a couple weeks ago, with a link to what was known at that time about this bail out for desperate farmers.

I soon started getting a few hits a day as people looked for news on the much needed assistance program. And since that day no more information has emerged...or not that anyone can find...and each day I get more and more hits from all over the country as farmers try to find out what is going on with it.

With all this change there seems to be little room for hope. Even if the government gets its payment into the hands of farmers really soon nobody is making enough to pay the bills....milk costs around seventeen bucks to produce and we have been getting ten all year. The price is up to thirteen now, but that isn't going very far to make up all the losses. We are all discouraged and grateful for any shred of good news that might come our way.

Yesterday we had another lousy day with a visit from our milk inspector to deal with some equipment malfunction that was damaging our milk quality. We pride ourselves on receiving quality premiums every month so that was a blow.

After a long day of coping with that and all the usual other stuff I stood outside the milkhouse door with Alan during the last few minutes of chores. I can't remember just why we were standing there, but we were right beside my shorthorn, Broadway's, stall.

I glanced over and noticed a curious bulge waxing and waning along her right flank. She is a bit of a skittish young lady so I had to be very slow and careful to lay my hand there (she milks off the other side and doesn't worry about what I do over there). I stroked the wiggly bulge. It thumped at me and slid around under her thick, red skin. Every touch of my hand elicited a more than equal and opposite push or shove in the other direction.

Then I had Alan put his hand there and pet her side a bit. You should have seen him grin as the bulge danced against his hand. At that point, big old BW started swatting at us with her tail so we stopped bothering her, but it is nice to know that there is a lively calf in there waiting to be born next February.

Hope. It is still there I guess, in the future, and in the next generation of cattle with which we will mingle our lives and dreams. I hope B-Dub, as I call her, has the calf all right....don't care if it is a bull or heifer; we will keep it either way as we need a service sire for heifers. Hope we are still doing this when she has it and haven't had to sell them to pay the folks to whom we owe money....