Moooo-tiful Cows: Photos on Display

A few of our lovely cows and calves launched their modeling careers last month……in Iowa!

Erin, a college student that works for the Central Plains Dairy Association in Iowa, was given the task of decorating for a dairy producer dinner  preceding the Central Plains Dairy Expo. Being a fan of our farm Facebook page, Erin contacted me to request permission to use some of my cow photos for her displays. I was happy to oblige since she was sweet enough to give me photo credit AND to promise to send me some pics of the end result.

Last week I got an email from her which included several pictures of the completed table decorations using some of our beautiful Brown Swiss cows’ photos. I thought she did a wonderful job! Thanks Erin, for your work in the dairy industry!

Surprise! Barrel Trains

Last month at the Dairy Farmers of America Annual Meeting in Kansas City, MO my husband and I by chance (or more like Providence ) met a wonderful couple who have changed our farm tour business forever. Upon meeting this couple we found out that they operate a pumpkin patch and tours on their farm in Conway, MO called Gunter Farms Pumpkin Patch. I, of course, piped right up and started peppering them with questions and exchanging ideas about our dairy tour / pumpkin farm businesses.

What an amazingly sweet couple they were! They stood and talked to us for almost two hours about the in’s and out’s of their pumpkin patch operation. One thing that we were especially excited about was the Barrel Train rides that they offer – we had seen these in action before and thought they were SOOOO COOL! They told us that their son designed and built these for their farm. My husband got the son’s number and called him right away. Fast forward a month, and woah-la………we are now proud owners of 12 super fun barrel train cars!!!!

On Wednesday, we were able to surprise our first Spring Dairy Tour group of the season (140 kindergarteners) with our brand spankin’ new barrel trains!  What a hit they were! We are so excited to be able to share them this fall as well during Country Pumpkins with our guests where we will be offering Barrel Train rides (for kids) along with hayrides for the whole family. It’s an exciting year ahead!

To view the photo highlights of our first Spring Dairy Tour at Alpine Hills Dairy Farm of the season, click here.

Cleaning Tip: Microwaves

I recently discovered an awesome CHEMICAL-FREE microwave cleaning tip that I had to share! I originally saw the idea on Pinterest (pinned from thenest.com), and I tried it last week on my microwave for the first time. I must say, it worked better that I dreamed it would have! The stuck on food and grease just wiped right off, no problem!

Here’s how it works:
1. Put 2 cups of water and 1 tsp. vanilla into a microwave safe dish.
2. Microwave on high for 5 minutes.
3. Carefully remove dish of vanilla water from microwave and use a paper towel to wipe clean.

Ta-da! Now you have a sparkling clean microwave that looks and smells beautiful without using any harsh chemicals.

An Exciting Opportunity!!!

Last week I had the exciting opportunity to guest blog for the Friends of Elsie Borden Cheese Blog!

Borden Cheese is not only delicious,  it is 100% farmer owned – that means when you buy Borden Cheese 100% of the proceeds go back to American dairy farm families! Pretty cool, huh?

I would be so honored if you took a moment to read my post on the Friend of Elsie blog that was published yesterday. Click this link to check it out! http://www.friendsofelsie.com/friends-of-elsie/blog

Many thanks to DFA for recommending me, and to Kelly Goss, Director of Public Relations at Sullivan Higdon and Sink in Kansas City for helping this blog post become a reality.

“Funny Cow Photo: “Wet Willy”

Source: Uploaded by user via Shelley on Pinterest

What a success our first “Caption This” Contest was that we held on our Alpine Hills Dairy Farm Facebook page! We had many hilarious captions submitted for this cow photo that I took last week. It certainly was one of those lucky moments when I snapped the photo at JUST the right time!

Last night we announced the winner of the Caption Contest, our fan Katie Taylor, who submitted “Wet Willy” for our photo. I pinned the photo to Pinterest, and I’ve already had around 95 repins and over 20 likes! How fun! Glad to see that everyone thinks Katie did as great of a job as we thought she did!

To pin this photo to your own Pinterest account, click the photo above or click the “Pin It” button below.

Saturday Sunrise: Photo of the Day

What a lovely sunrise we had this morning! It was actually quite cloudy as I headed to the barn this morning, but I knew that COULD mean the potential for a stunning sky. Fortunately, that’s what happened. The sun was able to make its way through the clouds to create this beautiful scene out front of our dairy barn at Alpine Hills Dairy Farm.

This photo was taken on my iPhone 4 and edited in Instagram.

Riding in the Big Green Tractor

Even though I’m not really a Country Music fan, we still included Jason Aldean’s ”Big Green Tractor” song in our wedding slideshow over 2.5 years ago. Why? Because I absolutely LOVE riding in the tractor with my husband and it’s such a cute song!

 

On that note, I’m also a huge fan of my favorite comedian’s, Tim Hawkins, spoof on the Big Green Tractor song. It’s absolutely hilarious and worth a listen!

 

It’s been dry this week, so the guys have been very busy working all of our corn ground. I’ve gotten to ride with my husband several afternoons and it brought back some fun memories from the summer that we were dating / engaged (we went fast – met in January and married in October!). That particular summer I remember riding with him for 8 hours straight one day……talk about a sore backside! Ha ha! Those are wonderful memories none the less.

My view out the front of the tractor on our way to disk a field.

My view out the back of the tractor.

My husband, Matt, changing a tire on the disk.

A New Look

Our website had some updating done to it yesterday…..by me. I was able to add some of the fabulous photos of our farm which were taken by SC Motion and Stills, LLC as part of our DFA Member of Distinction award. They definitely add some pizzaz to our site!

I also have added a Media page to the site with links to various videos and articles that Alpine Hills Dairy Farm was mentioned in. Feel free to check out our new look!

www.alpinehillsdairy.com

Dairy Farm Tour Fun!

Yay! Today I’m excited to share a photo of the latest project I have completed that we will be debuting during our Spring Dairy Tours this year! Our first dairy tour this spring will be a group of approximately 225 people from a local school that is coming out later this month. We’ve been preparing for all the fun for several months already.

I enjoyed painting this wooden hopscotch set for the kids to play on during Spring Dairy Tours and Country Pumpkins this fall. It was a little more basic and not quite as detailed as the last painting projects that I did! Each rectangle measures 16 x 24 inches (except for the arch piece at the end), and was primed and then painted with two coats of exterior paint. We are looking forward to this being a colorful and fun addition to our agritourism business for years to come! Hopefully in a few weeks, I’ll be able share photos of the kids playing on it.

DFA Newsletter Article & Other Media Updates

I apologize for my lack of posts lately, my life has been SO crazy! More on that in days to come.

A couple of weeks ago I made an announcement on our Facebook page that an article that Dairy Farmers of America had interviewed me for last summer was finally going to be published. I had several friends ask to see this article which was published in the March edition of the DFA Newsletter…….so here it is! Thanks for your interest in reading it – it means a lot!

Also, some more surprises are coming down the pike. Last week I was asked to help contribute to a Borden Cheese Friends of Elsie blog. What a fun experience! I expect that blog will be published sometime this month and I will be sure to share the link once it is available.

In addition, I believe our DFA Member of Distinction story will be coming out in a special edition of the DFA Leader magazine this month as well. Many exciting things going on here at our farm!

Thanks for reading,

Shelley