Third Day…
Getting better at being on the road with two dogs in a car!
We are in Fargo, North Dakota tonight.
We had a lovely visit with Sara Amble and Family and her 3 English Shepherds in Black Earth, Wisconsin.
Sara, her Dad, Mom, and Niece own and work their family dairy farm. It is a beautiful place, nestled down in a rich valley surrounded by mountains. It was green and lush. Sara is a very very lucky hard working girl! My how I enjoyed meeting her and her wonderful family!
Sara’s Dad had us maps so we could find our way back to the main road! Very helpful and thoughtful!
Sara showed me the Milking Parlor…Little has changed since I was a child on my Grandparents dairy!
The milking machine is much improved! Grandma would have liked the improvements. Mainly the machine reads milk temperatures, volume of milk per cow and how fast the cow gives the milk up. Then sends it thru a pipe directly into the milk cooler! While we were there the Milk truck was making the daily milk collection! The cows still come into the parlor and stand in a stall type area, eat and get milked.
The Parlor was so much like Grandpa’s I felt a sting of a tear. Quickly I turned away so no one would think me silly ! It was nice and cool in the Parlor! The back wall was made out of local rock! (Now that is something Grandpa’s did not have!) The floor was cement and had the trough for the waste and the water after clean up to run off in. It was located just behind where the cows stand for milking. The piping for the milk collection was overhead.
Sara and her family milk 100 cows twice a day and produce on a good average 5500 pounds of milk a day.
Sara has horses, goats, Guenna’s, 1 lamb, cats, and many cows! (3 English Shepherds and 3 Aussies)
We had a wonderful visit! I am so glad we stopped in!
Today we have traveled across Wisconsin and Minnesota!
The sunset was beautiful as we drove west on I-94!
Tomorrow we are still headed WESTWARD!!!
Drover and Timber we very good today and seem to travel well.
