A Pigcation

Enough about the pigs already ! Lets talk milk. After all this farm of ours would not even exist if it has not been for our first cow and strong milker, Kiki.

Alas Kiki has long ago gone the way of the dead animal truck, or was it the compost pile?  The family BBQ  of 2008 ? Or was she the one Keith buried but it was really hot and maybe she could have been buried a bit deeper but REALLY it was very hot and digging that hole by hand (and a shovel) before we bought a decent tractor was very hard even though it was late at night after the HOT sun went down and Keith was shoveling in his skivies and so maybe she could've been buried deeper and the next morning that one leg shot up out of the earth and we woke to find the our 3 boys playing Tether ball with a post in the yard we don't remember ever installing ? Was that her ?

Anyway, Kiki is gone but her memory and her sports abilities live on. Without her there would have been  no milk, no future calves and no dairy. No Grade A licensure, no sales to conventional Mega companies. No frustration with poor milk prices, no conversion to organic dairy, no selling of raw milk to customers who wanted it very badly. No loss of contract with Foremost, no loss of Grade A license because even though it is legal to sell milk in Illinois it is frowned upon by the government masses who feign education. No increase in milk sales, in our farms bottom line, in customer satisfaction . Without Kiki we'd probably be selling chemical supplements by the case to schools teaching children about nutrition.

Without Kiki we'd be less tired,

and less satisfied. And we are very satisfied most days. Especially on those days when customers like Bill Wilson of Midwest Permaculture http://www.midwestpermaculture.com/PDC-UWRF-March2011.php take a moment to not only thank us but then ask us to speak to his class at the University of Wisconsin. A great 45 minutes of being able to tell our story and then answer questions from young hopefuls who want to do something akin to whatwe are doing here on South Pork Ranch. That is what Keith and I did this morning.

It was an honor Bill and THANK YOU for your support of this small family farm.