Andrew, Sylvia, and I had a fun time visiting a farm today! We met up with some of the families from my mom’s group at the Hinchley Dairy Farm, just west of Madison.
It was so fun to spend a couple hours on a real, working dairy farm! I had several friends who were dairy farmers back in high school, but it’s been years and years since I spent an afternoon hanging around a dairy operation. Tina Hinchley, farmer extraordinaire, drove a group of us on a tractor hay ride out to the pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins. Andrew and Sylvia found good ones right away!
Tina then took us on a tractor ride through their dairy barn where they keep the cows that aren’t currently being milked. I learned that it takes a couple years for a heifer to be old enough to be bred, and she produces milk for the first part of her pregnancy and then for 7-9 months after the calf is born. Then it’s back to getting pregnant. [Aside: sooooo glad I’m not a cow.]
Andrew and Sylvia were both so interested in the sights and sounds of the dairy. Our group wasn’t too big, and being at the farm tour felt low-key…unlike some of the major circus productions that some pumpkin patch/corn maze/haunted house/apple patches are this time of year!
The kids had fun following some free-ranging chickens around, and they both enjoyed pulling kernels off dried corn cobs and feeding the corn to goats, turkeys, geese, chickens, and even (unsuccessfully) offering it to some super-soft bunnies.
Andrew never got too worried about loud noises (I wasn’t sure how he’d feel about the tractor, but it wasn’t too noisy and he was quite engrossed in the whole tour.
Can you believe I got a picture of a smiling boy? He even walked up to me knowing that I was taking pictures!
I didn’t get any pictures of or friends…we overlapped with them for about half of the tour. But it sure was great to see some of those kiddos again!
It was neat to see how much the Hinchley family cares about their animals. Running a farm is a complicated undertaking, and spending a couple hours there reminded me how very many aspects there are to being a farmer.
When we went to the milking barn, we got to pet the new calves. Sylvia loved to let them lick her with their scratchy tongues.
This little fellow here was only a couple days old. There was even one born yesterday!
We had the opportunity to hand milk a cow, but my kids declined. The group had grown significantly by then. I’d love to take Andrew back for a smaller tour, because I think he might have been more adventurous if there wasn’t as much activity in the milking barn. He and I closed our eyes and imagined what it would be like there at night…cows chewing cud, some moo-ing, some pooping, the smell of the feed…
Going out to the horse barn at night was one of my favorite things about having horses. I love the stillness and the sounds of barns.
I’ll leave you with an image of an amazing turkey. He was huge. Tina said he’d be 30-40 pounds! Look at those colors on his head! He was really showing off for our group.
Awesome photos! I sure do like seeing a smiley Andrew!
Hi Althea: I loved the pictures of the kids in the barn with the cows. So darling! But they are cute anywhere. Keep up the picture taking. It’s a lifetime of memories! Topsy