Flat Aggie From California

Perhaps you have heard the story of Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. Stanley is a young man who wakes up one morning to discover he has been flattened while he was sleeping. Yes flat...as a pancake (only thinner, like paper.) Imagine the adventures you could have if you were small enough to stow away in an envelope to see the world. Stanley did just that! Now think about what a great way this would be to learn about agriculture around the United States. Sarah's blog, House Ag Built along with her first grade students, constructed Flat Aggie (Agriculture, cute, huh?) to visit farms to learn every thing they can through the eyes of Aggie. I invited Flat Aggie to visit our dairy farm in Minnesota. Here is the first of our adventures that I am sharing with Sarah and her first graders.

Flat Aggie went to the Midwest Dairy Expo with John and I. This is one place farmers can go to learn more about being a great farmer and about the newest farm machinery and supplies. Flat Aggie really liked this big plastic cow at the Dairy Farmers of America booth. Aggie learned that the milk from our farm is sold to Kemps, which makes it into yummy ice cream. 

After a tasty ice cream snack, we visited the Midwest Dairy booth. Barb, Jodi, and Sami explained to Flat Aggie that dairy farmers get paid to sell their cows milk and a little money each month goes to Midwest Dairy to advertise how important it is to have dairy foods every day to keep our teeth and bones strong and healthy. Midwest Dairy also teaches people how dairy farmers, like us, care for our animals and our land.

After a busy day, Flat Aggie was getting pretty worn out. His tired little feet couldn't hardly walk another step, but wow, you should have seen him perk up when he saw the sparkly crown on Princess Kay of the Milky Way, Christine Reitsma. She spends many days traveling around Minnesota, representing Minnesota Dairy farmers, to help share our story about how much we love what we do to make delicious milk for everyone to enjoy! (I think Flat Aggie would have liked a little kiss from Princess Kay, but he was too shy to ask.)

Flat Aggie was so sleepy from our long day, he slept all the way home. But he is so excited to help with calf feeding and cow milking tomorrow! Stay tuned!

You're Never Too Old To Learn

 
Earlier this week John and I attended the Midwest Dairy Expo in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The expo is a great atmosphere for farmers to learn of the latest in their industry. Each of the three days there were exhibits to explore; to drool over the newest dairy equipment, to sit in a shiny, new combine, or to discuss finance and marketing strategies with the experts. 

There were also many seminar topics to choose from; managing employees, feeding strategies, cow management, and telling the dairy story through social media. Social media? Like blogging and Facebook and Twitter? That's right!  I was a panelist for the social media session on how we as farmers can share our farming story. I was joined by Seena, another Minnesota dairy mom, and Sami from Midwest Dairy who served as the moderator. We shared what we have done to tell our story; to educate and inform with a little entertainment along the way. Hopefully we inspired our audience to someday share their experiences of "life on the farm."

Seena, Sami and I after our Social Media presentation

And we can't go to a farm event without visiting with other farm folks who took some time away from the farm to make farming even better!

Ashley and Nikki are on Facebook (2farmgirlz)