J Is For Milk's Journey

Did you know it only takes about 48 hours for milk to go from the farm to your grocery store? What's standardization? Did you know a series of quality tests is run on all milk?  Do you know how pasteurization is done? And why is milk pasteurized? 

How does milk get from here...

to here?

Today I am sharing a short video that answers these questions, and many more, about the journey milk takes from dairy farms like ours, to grocery stores like yours. I hope you'll take four minutes to see the important steps milk takes, and the care everyone along that path takes to ensure milk is safe and good tasting for you and your family.

Also, I'm happy to announce the winner of The Dairy Good Cookbook is-

Congratulations Kiersten! The cookbook will be coming your way this week!

See you tomorrow!

R Is For Recipe And Reward

I'm taking you on a journey from A to Z throughout June Dairy Month.

So come on in...the barn doors are open!

  R Is For Recipe and Reward

Happy First Day of Summer! Have you ever seen a purple cow? Every day our family gets the pleasure of seeing black and white Holstein cows, but when we take a snack break, especially on a hot Summer day, we often see purple! Sara and Michael brought this recipe home from kindergarten 20+ years ago. Our children had Ms. Wintermeyer as their teacher and she introduced them to purple cows. 

Purple Cow
1 cup milk

1 scoop vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt
1/2 cup grape juice
Mix together until smooth.

A Purple Cow is a yummy and healthy treat. It provides some of your daily dairy which gives you 9 essential nutrients. Hey, what does "essential nutrients" mean, anyway? Essential nutrients mean dietary substances required for healthy body functioning. They must come from our diet because the human body can't manufacture them in sufficient quantities to meet our daily needs. Dairy provides calcium, potassium, phosphorus, protein, vitamins D and A and B12, Riboflavin, and Niacin. Whew! And I bet you just thought dairy was all about calcium. To learn of the importance of these "9 essential nutrients" and for more dairy delicious recipes go to Dairy Makes Sense.

Happy purple Summer! 

You may also want to read my previous years posts for June Dairy Month...

R Is For Refueling 

and 

R Is For Reading

And now for the reward...

Congratulations to Erika C.

winner of The Dairy Good Cookbook!

Thanks to Midwest Dairy Association for providing this beautiful cookbook for me to give to Erika.

Sum-It-Up Saturday

"That about sums it up." 

Have you heard this phrase, or is it a Minnesota thing? 

"Crazy busy!" That sums up our week.

We finished combining corn this week. You can  learn about the process here. It is a huge job to cross off our to-do list. Now Farmer John is baling corn stalks to use for bedding.  Learn about stalk bales here.

Daughter Sara's community TV show premiered this week too. Aprons Optional is all about preparing 3 recipes; one easy, one medium difficulty, and one more time consuming. By the look on Sara's face, this is not the easy one!

Speaking of TV, my other local television star, son Michael (aka. Take A Hike, Mike!) and I handed out candy to over 550 kiddos at a local Halloween Community Event. So fun, and lots of Frozen costumes! You can see Michael's show Take A Hike, Mike visits Bremer Farms  here.

Our week began with my mom having colon cancer surgery. Through God's guiding hand, mom's surgery went well. Thank you Lord for giving me a mom who is stubborn, and always willing to fight whatever battle is set before her. Love you, Mom!

Our week ended with an addition to our family. A big welcome to the family to Porter, my mom's first Great-Grandchild, and my first Great-Nephew, and Mommy and Daddy (Dena and Aaren's) first child. I'm hoping to hold him, and spoil him real soon!

Lastly, congratulations to Cindy Q. You are the winner of my latest giveaway, and this addition to your herd, cow bank, will be in the mail next week.

So that about sums it up. See you soon!

What the? Another Giveaway Winner?

My Minnesota State Fair giveaway posted on Dooby Dooby Moo and A Giveway Too ended at midnight and the winner is...

HEATHER

This is the message I emailed to Heather.

 

"Congratulations!

You are the winner of the Minnesota State Fair Package.

I will be sending you 4 admission tickets to the Minnesota State Fair and 4 coupons for malts to enjoy while visiting the fair.

Please email me your address as soon as you can so that I can send them to you. Hurry, the fair begins on Thursday, August 21!

I hope that you will continue to view my blog, and I would love it if you would be willing to send me a few pictures of you at the fair. If you are comfortable with this, I would like to put a couple on my blog.

Thanks for entering and have fun at the fair!"

But wait, hold everything!

This is the response I received from Heather.

 

Hi Janet,

I am so bummed out!  I must have entered this giveaway by mistake and just my luck I win it!  I live in Oregon so I can not use these tickets so I guess I am going to make someone's day!

Heather 

 

 So I went back to Rafflecopter, the host site for my giveaway, and a NEW winner was randomly selected, and the winner is...

 

LIN W.

 

Congratulations Lin W. Have fun at the fair!

 

 

Follow-Up Friday 1

My Minnesota State Fair giveaway posted on Dooby Dooby Moo and A Giveway Too ended at midnight and the winner is...

HEATHER

 

Heather will be receiving 4 admission tickets and 4 malt coupons to be used at the Minnesota State fair. Have fun Heather, and don't forget to visit the All-You-Can-Drink Milk Stand.

Thanks to everyone who entered and welcome to my new Twitter followers!

In other news...

Remember back in June... K Is For Kitten Meet some of the newest additions to Bremer Farms. Sara and I both noticed an offer we couldn't refuse in our school email. "10 kittens. Free to a good home." 

Here they are two months later.

All ten...

are still...

going and...

growing strong,

even Rebel (on the right) is behaving!

More news...

This past week we also completed combining oats. The oats are now safely tucked in the grain bin.

They are stored here until they are mixed with corn and minerals and then fed to our cattle.

And finally the last bit of news for this week... 

Sara and I had fun off the farm as we were invited to compete on a new game show on Hastings Community TV Go For The Dough.

Watch Go For The Dough here.

Only 6 more days until the Great Minnesota Get-together!

See you there!

This And That Thursday- 1

A new baby is born! Yes, my blog is hatching a new feature. "This And That Thursday" will become a weekly feature where I will update you on what's happening on the farm, in our lives, with our dairy promotion, you know, life in general. This gives me an opportunity to share what we have been doing, but sometimes our tidbits don't require an entire blog post to fill you in. Thus, "This And That Thursday" is born!

Remember back in August when I launched My Very First Giveaway? I later announced Randy K. W. as the winner. Randy was nice enough to snap this photo at the Dairy Goodness Bar, at the Minnesota State Fair, where he presented his coupons for the 4 free malts he won. I bet he didn't mind receiving the 4 admission tickets to the Fair either. 

It is obvious how far the irrigation water reached at the corner of this field.

This week I was again contacted by WCCO Radio, our local CBS affiliate, about the effect the drought is having on farm crops, as we near harvest. I explained that we are in the moderate drought (some crop damage) area, but farmers just 50 miles north of us are seeing severe drought (crop loss likely) conditions. We at Bremer Farms are blessed to have mostly irrigated land, but Mother Nature's FREE water is even more of a blessing. I also shared how soybean farmers are affected by the drought since dry weather restricts the soybean pod from filling to the fullest. Our dry fall may also affect how much fall tillage (preparing the soil for spring planting) we are able to do.

We are baling our third crop hay. Farmer John has been baling round bales to feed our dairy cows and steers. You can read more about baling at Hey Hay, Looky Here!

And two baby girls joined the herd! Meet Annabelle. She stole my heart. Shhh...don't tell the others.

Learn more about dairy at Dairy Makes Sense