Wisconsin Farmer - Farm Auction

FARM AUCTION

In 1971, because we were so poor, and Russ was doing

construction work, with few hours each week, we decided to

start milking cows. A small herd of Holsteins. Six years

later we purchased a bigger farm, lassoed the cows

and made the journey with us. Eventually building

up a pack of 40 milking cows. The five children helped

us milk cows, bale hay and other farm-related chores.

Then they all went to college and never more wanted

to milk cows.

Twenty two years later, the Good Lord tried telling

us to sell those cows. It was the year of the floods,

the alfalfa fields had rotted, and Russell's feet

were giving out. So down the road the cows went,

to a mega-farm, never again to have the gentle touch

of Russell.

It took about five years before we could again smell

manure. All those years the odor never touched our

noses.

Now in 2009, we again hunger for the fragrance

and aroma of cow dung.

Small dairy farmers, because of $9. @ hundred pounds

of milk are being eliminated. Some, like us sell

their cows to mega farms, and piece by piece the

machinery goes down the road.

But we still hanker to see cows. And always watch

for the auction advertisements. Thirty miles up

the road, was just such entertainment. The owner

passed away at a young age from cancer, his wife

with the help of a hired man kept the farm going

for two years.

Seventy one high grade young Holstein cows were

put on the block. Each fetching about a thousand

dollars apiece. No calves or heifers were sold,

we did not know why. Tied in the barn stanchions,

with full bags of milk, and manure smell. Being

fed in mangers a mixture of corn and hay silage.

Noticed the owner had put 6 inch tiles in the mangers

how easy to sweep and clean. We just had rotted

cement for the feed alley.

A full line of good machinery, tractors, choppers, disc,

haybine, soil finisher, chisel plow, two manure

spreaders (one a spare), drill, gravity boxes, augers,

blowers, green chopper, cultivator, pallet jack, grain

cleaner, baler with thrower, baler wagons, tedder, field

sprayer, electric feed cart, stone picker, scraper

blade, feed panels, barn cleaner chain, feed pans,

grain bin, augers, waterers, calf hutches, hayloft

elevator, wood hauler trailer, antique dump rake,

three-man chain saw, antique dinner bell, bolt

bin, bulk milk tank, Blue Harvestor silos, tractor chains,

blower pipes, hydraulic press, electric gas pumps, fans,

bedding chopper, and miscellaneous farm related junk. Well

maintained all of it.

Then, besides the cattle and machinery, feed was

to be sold, haylage, corn silage, high moisture corn,

big square bales of hay, small bales of alfalfa,

chopped straw.

No one will probably ever milk cows on this farm

again. The widow kept the land, will rent to

cash croppers who will do soybeans and

corn.

How sad to see one more small dairy farm

being eliminated in Wisconsin.

We came home with the manure smell on us and

our clothes, ready to be hung outside in the

breeze to eliminate the manure smell.

Copyright, Russell and Delores Miller, 2009

Retired Wisconsin Dairy Farmers