Here’s a walk back through the dairy year based on the titles and themes of the country music songs you might have listened to in your milking parlor, barn office, pickup truck or tractor cab in 2019.
Even though I’m leaving
(Luke Combs)
Farmers who left dairy farming in 2018-19. There were quite a few of you. You never thought there’d be a day you said goodbye.
It all comes out in the wash
(Miranda Lambert)
Manure, mud, tail chalk, teat dip, blood, tears and other stuff you brought in from the barn on your blue jeans.
Raised on country
(Chris Young)
The barn, the back 40, the tractor seat where you learned a lot about livin’.
On my way to you
(Cody Johnson)
Thoughts during the ride into town for that year-end meeting with your lender (or your new best friend at the county Farm Service Agency office).
(I can) Buy my own drinks
(Runaway June)
What you tell the guy who hands you some almond juice.
Love ain’t
(Eli Young Band)
Dairying when the heifers got out, the TMR mixer broke, the hired help didn’t show up, and the milk check didn’t cover the feed costs.
The bones
(Maren Morris)
Your dairy farm family, the foundation still standing when all else seems to be crumbling because when the bones are strong, all the other things can’t break you.
Nothing to do in town
(Dylan Scott)
Surviving and thriving with what you got – and not worrying too much about what you don’t.
Good vibes
(Chris Janson)
When the indemnity check from the Farm Service Agency and the latest issue of Progressive Dairy arrive in your mailbox on the same day.
Look what God gave her
(Thomas Rhett)
Cutting Edge T Delilah, owned by Ken Main and Kenny Jo Manion of Copake, New York, only the second Brown Swiss cow to ever claim back-to-back World Dairy Expo Supreme Champion titles.
Slow dance in a parking lot
(Jordan Davis)
Where you’d rather be after taking two weeks to train cows to enter the robotic milkers.
Living
(Dierks Bently)
Making the best of every day, even when some of them are a struggle to just keep breathing and breaking even.
Some of it
(Eric Church)
What I understand about California’s entry into the Federal Milk Marketing Order system and the Quota Implementation Plan.
Caught up in the country
(Rodney Atkins)
All the things important to you when you’re walking back to the house at the end of the evening milking in winter.
Chasin’ you
(Morgan Wallen)
The endless pursuit of profitability, 100,000 SCC, a higher preg rate and fetch cows.
Forever’s gotta start somewhere
(Chad Brownlee)
The smile on your face while looking at that new genomically identified heifer calf.
Refrigerator door
(Luke Combs)
In the barn break room: on the outside, where a cow magnet holds the instructions for the vet and second-shift milkers – and the inside, where you store vaccines, chocolate milk and leftover pizza.
I do too
(The Reklaws)
The nights you lay awake worrying about what you had to do the next day after herd health check.
Eyes on you
(Chase Rice)
That piece of technology you saw during a dairy farm tour that might help you take the next big step in managing the cows.
10,000 hours
(Dan + Shay, Justin Bieber)
Time spent (give or take a few hours) trying to make sure employees follow protocols.
Rearview town
(Jason Aldean)
The MPP-Dairy program, which left a lot of “broken hearts and a rusted plow.”
God’s Country
(Blake Shelton)
The dairy farm where you live (on both the best and worst days).
Remember you young
(Thomas Rhett)
Memories of dairy friends and family we lost in the past year. 
-
Dave Natzke
- Editor
- Progressive Dairy
- Email Dave Natzke
