Bale wrapping a plus for NY couple
By
Fran Alt
The ride from Long Island to upstate New York is pleasant - once you get past the city traffic with its weaving taxis and aggressive drivers with blaring horns. In less than an hour, mountain vistas take over and the landscape becomes restful. There's not a prettier view than a mountainside dotted with dairy farms - a common sight in upstate NY.
My itinerary included a trip to the town of Fulton, where Jeff and Kathy Richards have their dairy. I was now, six hundred miles from my Carolina home, and looking forward to siting and talking about dairy over an ice-cold glass of milk.
The air in the Richards' house was filled with the pleasant aroma of Italian tomato sauce - the tempting promise of the night's dinner. Kathy Richard's and her daughter Sarah were getting ready to ride down to the barn - it was time for the afternoon milking. My husband and I followed Kathy's car down the road to the barn. In a nearby field Jeff, his dad Warren and the Richard's son Brian, 14, were busy wrapping bales. I watch for awhile and then wondered into the barn to see how the milking was coming along.
Inside the barn, ten-year-old Sarah fills some buckets with water and milk and totes the heavy looking pails off to feed the calves. Everyone at the Richard's household helps with the farming. Sarah is in charge of calf feeding, and she also helps with the bale wrapping. Sarah feeds the buckets of milk and water to some of the calves then hand feeds grain to others, she pets and talks to each calf as she works.
The Richard's milk 68 Holsteins in a tie stall barn with a pipeline. Treating each cow with affection, Kathy moves quickly from to cow bending over and hooking each teat to the machine. I wince thinking that my back would growl at me if I treated it with such disrespect.
Later the entire family is in the barn working and I notice Brian and his sixteen-year-old brother Kevin also stop to pet the cows as they walk through the barn. The boys can operate any tractor and implement on the farm, but their main jobs are to help with the heifer feeding and bale wrapping.
Later that evening as we sit around the table enjoying a great spaghetti dinner, I learn more about the Richards family and their operation. The boys are intent on the conversation, but Sarah is bored and asks if she can play Simms Farm on the computer.
After Sarah leaves I learn the Richards have 275 acres on which they grow corn grain, alfalfa, canary grass, timothy, clover canary grass and timothy - all for baleage. Jeff's dad, Warren is the main mechanic, baler and handyman. The Richard's also get help from 'Skip,' the former farm owner, who also helps with the barn cleaning and any extra tractor work such as plowing, planting or mowing.
The couple bought the farm from Skip a little over three years ago.
Kathy's main farming jobs include the afternoon milking and keeping the books. Cooking, cleaning, laundry and being a mom fall in place along with the farm chores. Jeff handles the morning milking, the cow feeding and all the management duties.
The Richards feel good about their baling operation. When asked what he thought he did best he responded that it was putting up balage. Jeff is also an excellent hoof trimmer - when he has the time.
Jeff hopes to try some nighttime pasturing this year. The Richards forage is all balage, which according to Jeff, 'cuts down on equipment needs and the need for more up-right silos.'
Using AI the Richards breed their cows to bulls with plus's in milk components, as well as in all major type traits.
Jeff's summer management tactics include keeping the cows inside during the day. "This keeps them out of the heat and away from the flies. One round bale and two feedings of home ground grain, then out side at night on the exercise lot with three round bales. I hope to be pasturing the cows at night this year," he said.
During the winter the Richards' cows are kept indoors to keep them out of the mud, and safe from the ice and snowstorms. They are fed three to four round bales a day as well as two feedings of home ground grain.
Both Kathy and Jeff are computer Buffs and are active participants in e-mail dairy lists and a dairy-chat group. Jeff recommends, "All dairy farmers need to get a computer and join a dairy discussion group. There's so much to learn in cyber-space."
"What's the best farming advice you ever heard?" I ask.
Jeff is quick to reply, "I am still getting good and better advice every day! You never stop learning."
Next I want to know about the "lifestyle," and Kathy says, "It is great for teaching kids respect and responsibility for what is around you! It is definitely not the easiest life, but it is quite rewarding!"
Jeff glances at the boys and adds, "It means hard work - always having something to do. You tend to stay out of trouble that way!"
Both Kevin and Brian grin and roll their eyes.
When it comes to activities outside the farm, Kathy says she enjoys knitting, crocheting and baking. Jeff is a voting representative for their coop - Agri-Mark . He is also on the Town Planning Board and is a member of the Cornell Cooperative Extension Ag Committee. If he can find the time he enjoys doing 'a little fishing'. Both Kathy and Jeff are heavy into computing! While their children find healthier outlets such as baseball, soccer, music, fishing and some snowmobiling.
I want to know why Jeff or Kathy bought the farm and about their future plans.
"It's what Jeff wanted to do!" Kathy says emphatically. "A wife has to support her spouse down life's different paths. Jeff was a hired hand at this farm for 12 years. Hoof trimmed for three years and decided he wanted to go back into dairying. So we started up with 12 cows, and shipped the milk with Agri-mark, (Cabot) in November of 1995. We purchased the Farm from the Sheldon family in August of 1997 and in that short amount of time we have 68 milkers and more than 60 young stock!"
Kathy echoes my next question. "Did we do it for the kids to take over in later years? NO! That was never part of the plan. If they should so decide we would welcome them, but that was not our aim in life!
"A major goal for us is too have our farm be as environmentally sound as possible. We live in a watershed that is important to many people in the neighboring city just two miles from us. So to coexist with all neighbors is what we are striving for here. We love the educational part of farming! Sharing the dairy experience's with school age kids. Teaching them that Ag is so important even in their lives! We expect to have 200 kids tour this spring. We do an environmental day for 5th graders also where we take a calf and share "A Day in the Farmers Life."