We just returned from Ethan's pre-school field trip to a Bartelheimer Brothers dairy farm in Snohomish. It just so happens to be run by a lady (well, her husbands family) from my MOPS group. I didn't get to see her while we were there, but we saw lots of other stuff and our noses were filled with that "special" odor of cow.
Inside the milking parlor. This was both fascinating and little disgusting. The cows practically run in to be milked. It didn't look uncomfortable for them at all.
They milk 700 cows twice a day. Its basically an around the clock operation.
This is the covered holding pens for the cows. It reeked so bad I can't even tell you!
The cows were not human tame. They weren't afraid of you, but they weren't all that interested in being touched either. This was as close as Ethan would get.
Its a small operation, so this truck holds one day of milk.
When I first saw these, I thought perhaps these were corn starters (they grow their own corn for the cows). Imagine my surprise...
when we found they held calves! There were maybe 75 of these. It was strange, like little greenhouses growing calves.
Gwen, in the labor and delivery barn, being silly. Sadly there were no baby calves that day, but there were about 20 that were due to deliver in the next two weeks.
At the end, they gave us some ice cream that was made by Darigold... the local company that they sell their milk to.
Digging in...
Group photo. This is the entire pre-school class, plus two siblings :)
1 comment:
Aw Kristi, I would have loved to have had you here too! But, the good news is that you didn't miss anything. I actually left on Wednesday for Atlanta to see my sister and bring Anders to show them (Murphy came too). We just got back today.
Please do let me know next time you want to come though - we'd love to have you!
Safe travels for your family.
~Laurie
Post a Comment