Dog Days of Summer

A few weeks ago, the dog days of summer hit hard.

For nearly a week, we watched the thermometer climb past 105°F in the shade, day after day, with very little relief when the sun finally went down. Even overnight, temperatures down here were hanging in the 70s and sometimes near 80.

The animals simply weren't acclimatized to it.

We hadn't gradually worked our way into that kind of sustained heat, and when it arrived, you could see the toll everywhere you looked. Honestly, you can see it in the landscape itself.

Even our invasive salt cedars are dying.

If you know salt cedar, you know that's saying something. These are incredibly tough, drought-tolerant trees the kind of plants we normally wish were a little less capable of surviving our dry country. This summer, we're watching some of them turn brown and die. When even the weeds that seem nearly impossible to kill are struggling, you know it's been a rough year.

The animals showed it too. The hens wandered around panting with their wings held away from their bodies, searching for any little patch of cool ground they could find. In a drought year, those places are hard to come by. There isn't much lush grass holding moisture against the ground, and by afternoon even the shade is hot.

The cows weren't much different. They ate less, drank constantly, stood around trying to dissipate heat and searched for anywhere that felt a few degrees cooler.

When it's 100 degrees in the shade, shade only does so much.

And when the temperature barely drops overnight, their bodies don't get much of a chance to recover before the sun comes up and they have to do it all over again.

This year has made me especially thankful that Jeremy has been working in town instead of away.

We haven't had much irrigation water to work with. Not nearly what these fields need. But because Jeremy has been here, he has spent the summer moving water and somehow stretching what little we had across enough acres to get all of our fields irrigated and give the animals at least a little grazing. It's certainly not the pasture we'd have in a good year. But it's grass.

And every time I look out and see cows or sheep with their heads down eating it, I'm thankful. Because this year, every bite matters. Every bite of grass they harvest themselves is one less bite we have to replace with hay at drought-year prices. When you're trying to feed an entire farm through a year like this, a little green grass doesn't feel like a little thing at all.

Unfortunately, even with everything we could do, the heat still took its toll.

Heat stress is more complicated than an animal simply feeling hot. They eat less because digestion generates additional heat. Their resting and feeding patterns change. Their bodies redirect energy away from things like milk and egg production and toward the much more immediate job of maintaining their body temperature.

Sustained heat stress can also suppress immune function.

We saw that firsthand with our best cream cow, Daisy. She figured out that one of the coolest places available to her was a muddy spot in the pasture, so she started lying in it trying to escape the heat. Then she developed mastitis. One day she was giving us some of the richest milk in the herd, the milk that contributes so much of the beautiful cream we use for butter, and suddenly she was completely off the milk line. If everything goes well, she'll be out for nearly a month.

And there's a chance she may not come back the way she was before.

That's a hard one. Of course I miss her milk. With production already down, losing one of our best cows hurts. But mostly I just want my cow back. Healthy first. Milk second.

At almost the same time, the calendar kept moving whether we were ready for it or not. Clair and Nattie are due to calve in September, and Candy is due in October. That means giving them the dry period their bodies need to rest and prepare for their next lactation. We could certainly use their milk right now. But they need the rest more.

So between cows being dried off, our best cream cow battling mastitis and the remaining cows producing less because of the heat, there simply hasn't been as much milk going into the tank.

The chickens have been telling essentially the same story.

After that brutal week, the weather finally cooled down and the hens looked better. They weren't spending every afternoon panting with their wings held out anymore. They started acting more like chickens again. I figured the eggs would follow.

I went out to collect from 50 hens one day.

Nothing.

Not a single egg.

Fifty hens and zero eggs.

If there were ever a good demonstration that animal production isn't an on/off switch, that was it. The thermometer can change overnight.

Biology doesn't. Eggs are developing long before we ever find them in the nest box, just as the milk going into our tank today is influenced by what a cow has been eating and experiencing over the preceding days and weeks. After prolonged stress, their bodies have to recover before they start devoting resources toward production again.

Sometimes what we collect today is really telling us the story of what happened weeks ago.

And while all of this was happening outside, life inside the milk room wasn't exactly running according to plan either. My mom is our main bottle washer.

Anyone who has seen the number of reusable glass bottles that move through this little dairy every week knows that "bottle washer" may not sound like a glamorous job, but it is a very important one. This summer, Mom finally got a better health plan and has been taking care of some things she has desperately needed for a long time.

She got new dentures. She had cataract surgery on both eyes. And we finally found a doctor willing to work with her on her nighttime breathing after a traditional CPAP hadn't been helpful. She even got to go have some fun and attend a country music concert with her grandkids and my cousins.

I'm so happy for her. These are things she's needed, and I'm glad she's finally had the opportunity to take care of herself and enjoy herself a little too. But goodness, have I missed my bottle washer.

There have definitely been moments this summer when I've looked at the cows waiting to be milked, the bottles waiting to be washed, the milk waiting to be bottled and the hundred other things that need doing around here and wondered how exactly I was going to fit another hour into the day. Somehow, we do.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, we also had to make one of the decisions I dreaded most this year.

We raised our herd-share prices.

With drought, feed costs and nearly everything else it takes to operate this little dairy becoming more expensive, we knew the old pricing simply wasn't sustainable anymore.

That doesn't make sending that message to our members any easier. We know things are expensive for everyone right now. Our customers are buying the same expensive groceries and fuel that we are. I knew when we made the change that some people would decide they simply couldn't stay.

I prepared myself for that.

Instead, we've now almost finished renewing everyone's shares at the new pricing.

And almost everyone chose to stay.

I don't know that I can adequately explain what that has meant to us during a summer like this one.

You stayed when we had to charge more.

You stayed while production was tight.

You stayed while we worked our way through drought, heat, expensive hay, cows being dried off and one of our best cows getting sick.

That support is part of what allows us to make the decisions we make, to give a cow the time she needs to heal, to give our pregnant cows the dry period they deserve and to keep trying to build this little dairy into something that can weather difficult years.

We are incredibly grateful.

And then, finally, a few days ago, it rained.

Not enough. Not even close to enough.

But there is something about the smell of rain hitting dry dirt after you've spent an entire summer watching the sky that makes "not enough" feel pretty wonderful anyway.

The ground cooled. The dust settled.

And best of all, our nighttime temperatures finally started dropping.

For the first time in a while, the animals are getting a real chance to shed the day's heat and recover overnight.

Then today, I went out to check the nest boxes. Three eggs.

Three eggs from 50 hens is objectively terrible.

I was thrilled.

After zero, those three little eggs felt like a tiny promise that maybe we're finally turning the corner.

And I think that's probably the story of this entire summer.

There have been plenty of things that didn't go according to plan.

The drought has been relentless. The heat was miserable. We lost milk production. Our best cream cow got sick. Hay is expensive. Mom has been busy taking care of herself instead of rescuing me from the mountain of dirty bottles.

But Jeremy was home to stretch a little irrigation water far enough to grow some grass. Mom can see better and smile with new teeth.

Almost every one of our members chose to stay with us.

Our pregnant cows are getting the rest they need before bringing us new calves and fresh milk.

Our cream cow is still here, and we're giving her every opportunity to heal.

It finally rained.

And today there were three eggs in the nest box.

Farming has a funny way of recalibrating what you're grateful for.

Sometimes it's not a full milk tank or a field of belly-deep grass.

Sometimes it's a little irrigation water stretched farther than you thought possible.

A customer who clicks renew.

A sick cow looking a little better.

The smell of rain on dry dirt.

Three eggs.

And right now, we'll happily take every one of those little victories.

But I won't pretend we're not ready for a change of seasons.

We are absolutely looking forward to fall.

We're ready for Clair and Nattie to calve in September and Candy to follow in October. We're ready for cool mornings and cold nights, cows standing happily in the sunshine instead of hiding from it, and hopefully hens that remember they're supposed to lay eggs.

After this summer, even pulling on a sweatshirt before morning milking sounds pretty wonderful.

Bring on fall. We're ready!