A barn full of memories

Within this feature the Dairy Star  catches up to retired farmers and talk about the highlights and struggles they had when dairy farming.

The feature includes how each individual farm changed throughout the farmer’s career and what each has been doing since they hung the milkers up.

Victor and Florence Middendorf
Melrose, Minnesota

What year did you start farming and what year did you retire? We started milking cows in 1961. We sold the cows in 1996 but continued to farm our land for a couple more years. In 2012 we ended up moving into town. We had an auction selling a majority of our stuff and the farm site.

Tell us about your farm when you started and describe what it looked like when you retired, including the number of cows you milked when you retired. We had to build every building on the farm. We built a new barn in 1968, which was a 36-stall tiestall barn and added onto it in 1979. We had 19 cows when we moved to St. Rosa. We had about 44 cows when we sold all the cows. They were all Red & White Holsteins except six of them. By the time we got done farming, we had 200 acres of land.

What were some of the big advancements you made during your career? After we got into the new barn, we got a bulk tank in 1969. A little bit later we got a pipeline in the barn.

What did you love about milking cows? It’s peaceful. Milking cows was a rest from all the work we did during the day. When we went into the barn it was nice. Florence would milk one side of the barn and I would milk the other side.

What was the highlight of your dairy career? We made a lot of improvements on that place.

What is the biggest challenge you faced in your career and how did you overcome it? The drought of ’88 was tough. Our second crop was bad and we got about 2.5 doors in the silo off of 40 acres of corn. Luckily, we had another silo and that was pretty much full of silage so we had enough silage to feed our cows.

If there is one thing you wish you could have done differently during your farming career, what would it be? Why? We had to do it the way we did it. It would have been nice to get a skid loader earlier than we did. The feed cart was also nice and was a labor saver.

What piece of equipment or technology has been introduced that you wish you had for your dairy career? A milking parlor would have helped a lot. Milking in the tie stalls affected our bodies and we can really feel it now that we are older.

What advice would you give to a young farmer today? They can’t start small like we did. We didn’t even have drinking cups in the barn the first winter. We had to let them out to the water trough to drink.

What do you miss most about dairy farming? The day the cows were sold was hard. They were mooing on the trailer and it was tough to see them go.

What is your tie to the dairy industry today? We just like ice cream and butter. We use a lot of cheese and milk.

Was retiring an easy or hard decision/transition? Selling the cows was tough. We liked it on the farm better than living in town. It was a lot of work, but it was nice. Faming is in your blood and that never leaves.

What have you been doing since you retired? Since we sold the cows, we continued to farm our land. I also helped the neighbors with their farm work — making hay, chopping corn or driving the combine. When we moved into town in 2012, I kept going out to their farms to help up until about two years ago. I still go to St. Rosa to play cards with some friends.