Wednesday, June 5, 2013

B Is For Blog

I'm taking you on a journey from A to Z through the land of dairy! 
There's no need to pack your bags, just come along!
B is for Blog 
"My Barnyard View" is my biggest tool to communicate about what we do and why we do it here on our farm. Why do I blog? Twenty years ago, while hosting a school group tour of our farm, after explaining to the students what we do every day to care for our animals and our land, and describing a typical day on the farm that begins at 6:00AM and ends about 14 hours later, a 3rd grader asked me,"What is your husbands REAL job"? That really got me thinking about how important it is for us, as farmers to share our story. Not only do we need to share the farm to food story to school age children, but to adults as well. I began by speaking to organizations, classrooms, and serving on County and State Dairy boards to promote the product and lifestyle we love. When Midwest Dairy invited me to their social media workshop it seemed like a perfect next step. It was the gentle nudge I needed to enter the world of blogging.

My new T-shirt. I'll share our dairy story any way I can.

What is the goal of my blog? Perhaps it's because I am an elementary school educator, but my first priority of my blog is to teach. I want consumers to know the importance of eating 3 dairy foods each and every day. I also want my followers to learn how we care for our land and animals to produce the safest, most nutritious products available. I gladly share many photos of our farm in action.

My second goal is to inform. I bring attention to issues that affect farmers and can also affect you. The worlds population will triple between 1970 and 2050, yet the amount of farmland will stay about the same. Can farmers meet the needs of consumers? I feel one of our responsibilities as farmers is to encourage consumers to find out where their food comes from. I like to give my readers something to think about.

I also want to entertain. I want you to get to know me and my family. Family owned dairy farms represent 98% of the dairy industry. We are a lot like you, although a little quirkier perhaps, but who says life is all work and no play? 

I am proud to be a dairy farmer, and I'll weave in my dairy story wherever
and however I can. This blog gives me the opportunity to reach a greater audience to educate, inform and entertain about how I see the world, on and off the farm.


I am making a commitment to share as much as I can with you each day this month, about the life of our dairy farm family including what we do, how we share our passion for dairy, and dairy foods we enjoy.
 See you here tomorrow...C is for Cookies.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks Susan! Wishing you a happy June Dairy Month. Have you been celebrating?

    ReplyDelete