He will provide...

We don't know what tomorrow brings.

When my husband and I met in 2011, most of our time was spent doing chores together. Jesse has farming in his blood, passed down through the generations. It's all he's ever wanted, and it shows.

Jesse got his first heifers when he was still in high school. He started shipping milk in 2009, meaning a milk truck would come to the farm and pump milk out of the bulk tank, into the truck, and ship it to the dairy.

For those who don't know, the dairy industry is pretty unpredictable. They try to predict what the market will do short term and long term, but you never can really know what will happen down the road.

Dairy farmers don't get to set their own price for the milk they sell to the dairy. You get what you get.

Better quality milk, will get earn a little more, and some companies will pay more for certain components of milk (protein, butterfat, etc). The breed of the cow will affect what type of milk she produces, as well as her health and nutrition. It's true what they say, happy cows produce more, cleaner, better milk!

The problem is, no matter what a farmer does, he or she cannot control every aspect of their farm. Animals are as unpredictable as the milk market, grain prices go up or down, machinery can (and will) break down, fields can dry up or flood. Nothing about farming is easy.

So back to our story:

2009- Jesse started milking cows

2011- We met 😍

2014- We were married

2015- Our daughter was born, "Peanut"

Then in Oct 2017, finances were tight, and a job offer literally fell in Jesse's lap. We made the decision to sell 2/3 of our herd so he could work and continue to milk cows.

We did this for 2 months, and it was just too much... We sold the rest of the cows in Dec 2017, and I found out I was pregnant with our son days before Christmas.

The barn didn't stay empty for long. Jesse had sheep for awhile, but that wasn't the same. So he sold them, and traded some equipment and hay to get heifers again.

Each farm is different, but on our farm, heifers freshen (have their calf) around the time they turn 2 years old. Breed, health and nutrition will also affect the age they freshen, and they will produce milk after they have their calf. Dairy cows get a break from milking just before their next calf is due (usually between 4-12 weeks depending on the farm). They call this the "dry off" period.

Unless you're living under a rock, in the last month or two, you've heard about dairy farms being forced to either dump extra milk or sell a percentage of their cows to reduce how much milk they're shipping. You've also heard of stores limiting how much milk per customer.

It's a little complicated to explain the craziness, but basically it's not a supply issue. There is PLENTY of milk for everyone. And it's not a demand issue, because there are PLENTY of people drinking milk. It's just not getting to the shelf fast enough. It's kind of a mess I try not to dwell on, but you get the gist of it.

All that to say, we have 13 Holstein heifers (the black and white ones) all ready to have babies, all ready to start producing delicious, fresh milk. Three are due this month, and the other ten will be in 6-8 weeks. And we don't know if we will be able to ship our milk anywhere.

We could sell the heifers as "springers" (heifers about to freshen), but because of the sale barn being flooded with farms selling cows, our heifers won't sell for nearly what they're worth.

Basically, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and our situation is NOTHING compared to what other farms are facing right now.

We are hoping all of this straightens out soon, not just for our farm, or even farms in general, but for the world. Because that's all you can do at this point is HOPE. We cannot lose sight of the hope that something better is coming.

Some may call us foolish for trying to get back into dairy farming again. Heck, up until very recently, I would have agreed with them.

I don't know what next month, next week, or even tomorrow will bring.

If God wants us to ship milk again, He will make it happen. If I have learned nothing else from these past 9 years, it's that God will provide for those who seek Him. So for today, I will choose to seek Him. I will choose to love serving and working alongside my husband, rediscovering what made me fall in love with him. Because that's all I can control right now.