Well, honestly, we’ll probably stop counting the weeks pretty soon.  Today marks 3 weeks since the cows moved into their new home – 3 very INTENSE weeks!  We knew it was coming… we’d been told.  But living through it is another matter!

I’ve been told that in disaster response there is 3 days of immediate, intense relief efforts, 3 weeks of continued relief efforts, 3 months of recovery efforts, and then 3 years of rebuilding.  And I think in a lot of major changes, such as starting a new robotic dairy barn, this holds true as well. 

We’ve experienced…

3 days of ADRENALINE
3 weeks of INTENSITY

and we’re moving on to

3 months of ADJUSTMENT  and finally
3 years to NORMALCY!

On December 9th the cows literally followed Dan into the barn – if you haven’t seen the movie, check it out!  We had a great big crew of family, friends, & neighbors assembled who used their vehicles & bodies as fences to guide the cows into their new home!

And then the fun started… we got the first cow, Meramet, into the robot box.  Dan’s mom, Pam bought her great-great-great-great-great-great (you get the idea) grandma when she was in 5th grade and her cow family line has stayed in the family ever since.  Dan’s grandpa milked Meramet’s ancestors and now he would be the first to milk her in the new barn! 

But wait… it didn’t read her leg band which gives out a radio frequency telling the robot who she is (important in robotic milking!).  We’d done practice runs but now the time had come and it wasn’t working… disappointment and scrambles abounded.  We had to get it fixed because we sure weren’t taking them back down to the old barn!

Thankfully we had great tech support from AMS Galaxy on the ground who had dealt with this before.  After switching about everything imaginable on and off we found the problem… the well.  If the well pump breaker was turned on the robot couldn’t read which cow had just come in.  So now we had a new problem because water’s kind of important for drinking and cleaning and all sorts of other things. 

Eventually we figured out it only needed to be off for the cow’s first 10 seconds in the milking box to be read.  So until we got it fixed a week and a half later (yes, a week and a half of phone calls, fix-it attempts, and parts ordered) we and all of our amazing help ran back and forth turning on and off the well pump breaker switch. 

In the end Meramet didn’t get to be the first cow milked, the importance of nostalgia slipped away so we could finally just get started!

Since then 3 weeks have flown by with Dan rarely leaving the barn (he has a bed in the upstairs walk-in closet), Christmas celebrated a bit differently than we imagined, support & help from wonderful family, friends, and neighbors, and cows that are starting to adjust.  They say it takes humans 30 days to form a new habit and cows are no different.  Eventually they should almost all decide to go get milked by themselves but for now each day a few more figure out they don’t have to wait for Dan to come get them to get milked, they can just go!

There are more stories I could tell – how once we finally got everything figured out and were ready to milk a cow, Dan’s Grandpa Pete leaned in to start getting the cow ready to be milked and with the bill of his hat hit the button that kicked her out of the milking box;  how we’ve had lots friends & family stop by to check it out; how in the midst of frustration Dan erased the feed pushers route; how my mom showed up just in time for me to get violently sick for a day;  how one of our little Jersey’s was able to jump in (and then out) of the robot arm area in between the milking boxes; how we’ve had 3 heifers born in the new barn; how Secret Santas brought us treats & goodies; and how even though these last 3 weeks have been intense, we’ve had fun, been blessed, and are so thankful that after years of planning, preparing, and building we’re actually milking cows!

Happy New Year!