The hardest step

Recently, I’ve been holding back about life on our farm. My kids will be shocked. They swear everyone lived their childhoods along with them. This story has been in the works every day since the beginning, 50 years ago. This spring, Mark acknowledged it was time for him to close the barn door. It has been his hardest decision, taking this first step in writing the final chapter of Ralma Holsteins.

Five years ago, Mark made a similar call to the auctioneer to sell the milking herd when Al was ready to be done milking. Mark wasn’t ready at that time. He saw potential walking around the young stock lots. So, we kept back the bred heifers and started up the milker pump the next spring with an exciting outlook to the future of the herd and our family’s continued involvement in the business.

Mark’s vision was spot on. After a 3-month hiatus during the coronavirus pandemic and winter, we started calving in the 2 year olds. By the end of the year, we had a barn full of young cows. By the next lactation, our production was at its highest level, and our type scores finally broke 110% BAA. It was exciting to continue to develop these cow families from an animal Mark purchased almost 50 years earlier.

Mark’s passion is breeding solid, profitable dairy cattle that look great, too. He’s always teased that life is too short to milk ugly cows that early in the morning. It always brought a smile to his face to walk in the barn for morning milking to be greeted by a row of blooming, full udders.

Besides raising good cattle, we raised great kids. For Mark and me, there was never any other way to raise our family except beside us on the farm. We all lived and worked together, laying the foundation for them to develop their passions and futures. We worked hard, but we also found fun and joyful moments in the simple things around the yard and in our lives. This commitment did mean we had to miss Friday night football kickoffs, wedding dinners or long extended family vacations due to chores.

By giving our kids the freedom to grow and explore through 4-H and college, they discovered their own passions and their own futures. Today, all are involved in agriculture and dairy support, but none are interested in dairy production as a career. They have lived it and know exactly what it takes to make things work, the constant struggle of balancing between farm life and family life. It’s a hard call.

This past winter, Austin expressed his future vision for the farm. He loves working with the cattle but struggles with the balance between farm and family. He announced he would not be interested in keeping the milking pump on if he was to stay on the land. Now, the ball was in Mark’s court.

Earlier this spring, Mark concluded his body couldn’t keep up with the labor demand of the dairy. He was becoming worn out and worn down. With Austin expressing his desire to farm in a different direction, it became clear that the final chapter was being written.

Through all these discussions and conversations, I have stressed the most important thing is that we will always be family and will still like each other through all the changes. We will always love each other, but I want to make sure we still like each other, too.

There are so many questions in the air. Many are simple answers, and others require thought and time to digest, like Mark’s question: Is this still a farm without the dairy? We don’t have enough land to compete against the big crop guys. So, how do you generate income? That will be one of many questions Austin will have to tackle as he writes his new chapter of life on the farm with his first steps.

My hardest step has been to write this article. It is a smack of reality across my heart with the realization we are really going to shut down the dairy. Tears blur my vision as I try to type. My breath is caught between a range of conflicting emotions. I feel like I’ve been poured into an old-fashioned butter churn; the paddles swirl through my emotions as the churn is plunged up and down, mixing, agitating. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to how this can work. Then, things start to come together. Solids separate from the whey, leaving the butter behind. Through all the turmoil and effort, it will all turn out just fine.

I confess: I’m going to miss milking. It is easy for me to say “Shut it down” or “Sell the cows” because my identity is not tied to just the cows. I do other things on and off the farm. For other dairy farmers, that is a different story. We tend to let our jobs define who we are. Without our jobs, who are we then? What identifies us? Discovering who we are is truly a difficult first step.

But what really baffles me is the way we treat the closing of a dairy career. If we worked 50 years for the same company with the same loyalty and dedication as our farm, we would be receiving a gold watch and a big celebration. Instead, we mourn the loss of another dairy. There should be more “Good job” and “Well done” expressed. Nothing lasts forever. Celebrate a long career.

Sometimes, you have to let things end before they can start again. As farmers, we know this firsthand. A plant must die before the seeds can start a new crop after a winter rest. What will spring forth from this ending? Stay tuned (I’m still a broadcaster at heart) to read about the next steps in a new beginning for our farm, our families and our lives outside of the milking barn.

“Don’t cry because it is over. Smile because it happened.” Dr. Seuss

As their four children pursue dairy careers off the family farm, Natalie and Mark Schmitt started an adventure of milking registered Holsteins just because they like good cows on their farm north of Rice, Minnesota.