boonies

Seeing a newborn calf you... from the time it's born to all its life.

You're its caretaker.

You feed it and you raise it and watch it turn into the productive animal it is throughout its life.

And in watching it have calves...you know, watching all that go on, it's just rewarding.

Feels like you got purpose or you're doing what you're supposed to be.

Usually try to get out of bed about 4: 30.

Get out.

Get ready to make sure, get the cows in.

Get them ready for morning milking.

And we usually try to start milking round five.

Right now, that's taking until around 6:30 ish.

Do that, feed baby cows if we've got any to feed at the time.

Then usually by 6: 45, 7:00 o'clock we're working to load...we'll start mixing the feed for the dairy herd.

Some days it is as hard as it looks, but at the end of the day you go home--or, I do--and there still ain't nothing I'd rather do.

Started, my grandparents bought this place in nineteen ten, eleven...somewhere in there.

And then my dad and his brother took it over in the late fifties and they had commercial layers and beef cattle.

Well, then in 79 they helped me get into the dairy business and we've been in the dairy business ever since.

So it's been about 42 years now.

I know a lot of the farm, me and Brandon's the fourth generation on.

There's actually a piece of the farm that we're the fifth generation on.

So that would throw our --my and his kids--be in the sixth.

You watch.

them... watch how much fun they're having and you... you can't really put a price on it.

It's this it's a good life for them.

You know, just see them happy all the time.

The most upset mine is is when he can't be outside because weather's bad or he's got to go stay with a babysitter.

Right now we have the milk heating in the pasteurizer.

And while it's heating, I'm labeling these jugs so that when it gets cool, we'll run it through this bottler and bottle it and put it straight in the cooler.

And then as the orders come in, we'll take and deliver to the stores what we have bottled up.

The problem with milk sales is if you ever notice, they'll price milk cheaper than what they buy it for to lose money on it because if they can lure you in with a cheap milk price, chances are before you get back out the door, you're going to buy several more products that they're going to make money on.

Well, the problem with that is that also bankrupts us people producing it because we can't sell it for what it truly costs us to produce it.

It's a... every small farm I know, one spouse is more or less the bread winner just to keep the small farm going.

Yeah, I've said that about my wife several times, that she works--as a matter of fact, she holds down two jobs--so I can keep farming.

Small farms are getting fewer and fewer and harder and harder.

Seems like everything now is geared for larger farms and it's the little small family operations is getting tougher.

And with the regulations and the way everything's went in the dairy industry especially they like they're trying to force the small guys out.

In 1979 Allegheny County had 110 dairies and they was the number two dairy county in the state of North Carolina and now they have no dairies.

And it's that all over the state.

For me, ever since I could remember farming's all I ever had any real interest in... you sort of feel you're called... it's your calling or in your blood that you belong here.

That's just the best way I know to put it.

There's a lot of people concerned about what goes in food, whether it's safe to consume or not.

But the American farmer's busting their hind end every day to provide food that safe for everybody.

Just like the ice cream we make here I feed to my own kids, so I want to make sure it's safe for everybody.

We ain't out to kill nobody or destroy the earth, because that's how we're making our living.

After we're done with the land that's been granted to our care, we're hoping that when we're done with it, it's in just as good of shape and possibly better shape than it was when we started.

For the next generation.

Boonies is made possible by the Watauga Economic Development Commission.

Also by First Security Insurance.