Bringing the family farm full circle

ALBANY, Minn. — Mark Rodenwald grew up on a dairy farm, milking cows in a round barn. Decades after the farm was sold out of the family, Rodenwald was able to buy back the farm, restore the barn and milk cows inside the century-old structure.

“I was just a kid when Dad sold the farm, but by the time I was in high school, I knew I wanted to buy the farm back,” Rodenwald said. “I never wanted to let the barn fall apart, and I like animals.”

Rodenwald has spent the better part of two years restoring and upgrading the barn to once again house and milk cows in. Today, he milks 18 cows in the tiestall, 14-sided round barn. He also maintains a herd of beef cattle.

“Centre Dairy found us a company that would bend the pipeline,” Rodenwald said. “I used all local people and they all did a great job, so I’m really happy with how it turned out.”

Rodenwald has held a career in real estate since graduating high school.

“I wanted to get back into farming eventually,” Rodenwald said. “I knew I could do both. I can take phone calls wherever. I get up to do chores and I still get to my office by 7 or 7:30 a.m. At the end of the day, I come home, do chores again and still have a little time to take care of other things.”

Rodenwald said dairy farming is a change of pace from working in real estate.

“Real estate is pretty easy compared to the manual labor of dairy farming,” Rodenwald said. “I can’t sit around in the evenings with nothing to do. That drove me crazy when I used to live in town, that’s why I moved out to the country.”

Rodenwald would like to grow his herd to about 100 and eventually put in a freestall barn or have enough pasture to house the cows so they would only come into the 25-stall round barn to get milked.

There was no pipleline or gutter cleaning system in the original barn. Also, when Rodenwald purchased the farm in 2003, a section of the wall had fallen down. Therefore, there was a lot of planning, scheduling and work needed to make the barn useable again.

“We re-mortared the rock foundation, taking out each rock individually,” Rodenwald said. “The foundation is 4 feet thick, so we did the inside two feet and then the outside two feet. We found the name of the guy who built this barn originally; he carved his name in one of the rocks, along with the date of 1915.”

The ceiling, which still has original beams, had to be lifted to complete the foundation work. The silo shoot that came down the middle of the barn was taken out, and only a 4-by-4-foot hole was left, which Rodenwald uses to drop the total mixed ration to the cows.

“I put a conveyor in from outside, and it goes up into the middle to dump the feed so I don’t have to haul wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow in,” Rodenwald said. “I just push it around with a broom and can feed the cows in a matter of minutes.”

While the original roof and foundation of the barn were restored, the inside of barn was gutted down to the dirt so new cement could be poured and a gutter system could be installed.

“It ended up being a blank canvas inside because we cleaned everything out,” Rodenwald said. “I put in a barn cleaner — we never had a barn cleaner growing up, we had to pitch it out by hand. I have to haul it out daily, but with 18 cows, it doesn’t take long.”

Rodenwald purchased his herd of milk cows and bred heifers in the middle of October. He buys all of his feed.

“Everything is working pretty much as I hoped it would,” Rodenwald said.

One of the only challenges Rodenwald did not expect was getting on a route truck to pick up his milk. However, he was able to find a creamery in time for his first day of milking. The other challenge was the timing to get the barn finished.

“I originally purchased a few dry cows this summer that were due to calve, but the barn wasn’t ready when they came fresh, so I had to dry them, up” Rodenwald said.

Rodenwald and his wife, Barb, have three children and eight grandchildren who live nearby.

“My kids and grandkids like coming here to see the farm and the cows, too,” Rodenwald said. “When they help me out, I let them pick out a calf, and they help take care of it.”

Although Rodenwald’s dad never got to see the completed barn before he died earlier this year, Rodenwald kept him updated with his progress.

“He thought I was nuts,” Rodenwald said.

While Rodenwald is milking cows in the barn, he said there is still more work that needs to be done.

“We tried to preserve everything as much as we could but had to make it comfortable and function for the cows and us,” Rodenwald said. “This barn has a lot of history.”