-- Mississippi River --
After having crossed to the west side of the Mississippi river in Davenport, Iowa, and then back east to Moline, Illinois, last week, and then crossing back and forth across the river in the Minneapolis-St Paul area this week, I'm finally crossing the Mississippi river for the final time this trip in the St Cloud area.
Before leaving St Cloud this morning, I drove down to the Mississippi river one last time and took a few photos on the east side of the river, in Wilson Park. Then I crossed back over the river, and headed west.
-- Redhead Creamery --
I had a reservation to take an 12:30 pm tour of the dairy farm at the Redhead Creamery in Brooton, Minnesota, this afternoon. My goal for the day was to reach my niece's apartment in Fargo, North Dakota, by around 5:00 pm. I told my niece I would take her and her husband to dinner this evening.
The dairy farm was a short side trip across farmland on the way to Fargo. The Redhead Creamery is next to a pond. We met for the tour in a grey building that also serves as a restaurant, tasting room, and cheese shop.
Our tour guide explained the history of the farm, and the basics of its operation. The owners are proud that none of the milk products go to waste. They sell 90% of the milk to another cheese making company, and keep 10% on the farm. They make cheese from the curds, and separate the whey into components which are either fed back to the cows or fermented to make alcohol. The whey has protein and nutrients, so part is fed back to the cows. With the remainder, they make wine and a type of vodka called Araga.
The farm has a lot of cows. It doesn't have any bulls. All the births are through artificial insemination, and the semen is sorted so that all the calves will be female. All the cows on this farm (with a couple of exceptions) are purebred holsteins, which are big milk producers. The exceptions are a few Swiss Browns they bought because the farmer's daugher wanted to raise one for 4H, but they'll probably sell them.
The cows on this farm are managed in three groups. young calves, adolescent heifers or cows that are pregnant or in heat, and milking cows.
The farm has about 20 calf births per month. When a calf is born, it is kept in its own hutch for 8-9 weeks. The two photos below are of a calf that was one day old when we took the tour. The yellow tag on its ear has a number and other identifying information.
The 2 photos below, taken of another calf, give a better idea of the the size of a hutch and the surrounding pen.
Colostrum is a nutrient dense fluid that is released from a cow's udders shortly after it gives birth. Since the calves are separated from their mothers, it is important to feed them a gallon of colostrum within the first 12 hours of their life. It gives them antibodies and somehow makes it so they will produce more milk later in life.
Calves gain 2.5 to 5 lbs of weight per day. They are fed milk from a bottle and also get a supplement of corn and alfalfa pellets. After 6 weeks, the milk they are given is reduced to 1 bottle per day, and after 7 weeks they don't get any more milk. Then at 8-9 weeks they are moved their hutch and put with the adolescent heifers, shown below.
The adolescent heifers only have the yellow ear tag. When they are a year old, they get a red tag in addition to the yellow tag. The red tag monitors their temperature, stomach noises, and movements. Normal temperature is around 102 degees. Cows walk more when they are in heat, and the tag can tell when the cow is in heat. At one year old, breeding can begin.
A heifer won't produce milk until it has had a calf, at which time it is called a cow. The above pen is for heifers/cows that are pregnant or in heat. The milking cows are kept elsewhere. The cows are fed alfalfa hay, corn silage, and corn & alfalfa pellets.
Studies show that cows can recognize up to 100 other cows. If more cows than that are kept together then they form cliques, so the farm keeps the number of cows in each group under 100.
The milking is done by robots. The cows have to be trained to go into the chute that leads to the robots when they are ready to be milked. The robot reads an RF tag on the cow to identify the cow. It stores information about each cow, such as udder location and when it was last milked. If a cow comes to the robot but it isn't time for that cow to be milked, the robot opens another door to send the cow to feed instead of be milked.
At milking time, the robot first cleans each teat, then attaches a milking tube to each one, and monitors the milk flow. It removes the milking tubes when milking is complete, and records the amount of milk collected.
If a cow should have been milked but didn't come to the robots, the robots generate a list so the farmer can find the cow and bring it to get milked. The system works pretty well, but it isn't perfect.
The milk from the cows is fed from the robots to a large tank where it is stored, waiting to be processed. The farm has 4 robots, and a cow gives about 3 gallons of milk per milking. Milk weighs about 10 lbs per gallon.
That's about all I have in my notes. If I got some of the information wrong, oh well. They had some posters on the wall describing the 6 steps in making milk. I'm posted them below, in case you are interested.
I bought a few cans of specialty sodas from the gift shop to take to my niece, rather than taking her cheese. I also skipped the wine and Araga (vodka) tasting, since I don't drink alcohol.
As I drove towards Fargo, I passed a lot of farms, and saw many wind turbines in fields.
I also saw a combine harvesting crops in the field. It was interesting seeing the combine working its way across the field, and the truck that rode out to meet it. It reminded me of the combine I saw and got to sit in at the John Deere Pavilion in Moline, Illinois.
-- Kensington Runestone --
Just before crossing the border into North Dakota, I stopped in the city of Alexandria, Minnesota, to see the statue of Big Ole ('O-Lee'), and learn its story.
Evidently, a Swedish immigrant farmer named Olof Ohman, discovered a grey stone in 1898 with runes on it, in a field in central Minnesota. The runestone wasn't found in Alexandria, but was later brought here and is in a museum across the street from the statue. The stone is called the Kensington Runestone, since the nearest settlement at the time was Kensington.
The engravings on the stone tell of Scandinavian explorers, and the engravings include the date 1362. The authenticity of the runestone is uncertain... some consider it real, and others consider it a hoax. I didn't go into the museum, but I got a peek at the stone when an employee opened the door to let some other people into the room to see it.
-- Dinner with Laura and Cooper in Fargo, North Dakota --
Laura and Cooper got off work today around 5 pm, and that is about the time I arrived at their apartment in Fargo, North Dakota. Laura was home when I got there, and Cooper arrived shortly afterwards.
I let them choose the restaurant. We ate at a restaurant named Crave, and I had walleye with asparagus and mashed potatoes. It was good. I enjoyed talking with Laura and Cooper. Laura has a masters in a field related to speech audiology, and if I understood correctly, she works in a pediatric unit in a local hospital. Cooper went to medical school and is now doing his residency. One of the hospitals he visits is the one where Laura works. My apologies if I got the something wrong. I'll update it if I learn more.
They have a spare room in their apartment, and they invited me to spend the night. That was nice of them, and I'm enjoying their company and the change from sleeping in my car.
The wind is very strong tonight, with gusts up to 40 or 45 miles per hour. I can hear the wind howling. I guess strong winds can be expected from time to time when you have a flat prairie to the west and north. Laura and Cooper told me it isn't normally this windy. It's nice to be inside, though.
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