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One Dad's Quest to Regain Control of his Kingdom

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Manly Monday #10 – Dairy Farming – A Manly Profession

July 20, 2008 by dadofdivas 4 Comments

Think about starting work at 5:00 AM and working everyday until approximately 7:00 PM with a baby on the way due any day (as she was already 14 days overdue). This was the case with the Manager (Kirk) of a local dairy farm that I recently met on a tour of the facility.

As a Rotarian, I was able to visit a Dairy farm about 45 minutes away from where I live. Now when I say a dairy farm, this is the mother of dairy farms with approximately 4,000 cows being milked 3 times daily. All of the milking is done electronically on a rotary conveyer that can milk 80 cows at a time, and they are able to get about 80 pounds of milk out of each cow per day.

These numbers mystified me. Kirk mentioned that all of the cows are artificially inseminated and they typically will have 12 cows birthing per day. Can you imagine – 12 births per day! They even had a coloring system which told workers which cows were pregnant or not. The babies you see to the right had just been bor within the last hour of this photo being shot.

This farm was the cleanest farm that I had ever seen. They are the only farm in Wisconsin and one of a select few in the United States that uses all waste products from the animals as well as from the local community to feed what is called a digester. This cement enclosed structure is basically a bacteria laden energy making machine. All of the waste form the cows as well as other by-products from companies throughout Northeast Wisconsin are fed into the digester and is turned into raw energy that is sent to the power grid as well as 22 days later solid waste is removed to make a product that is very light to the touch and makes great lawn fertilizer (little to no odor) as well as bedding for the cows. (See below)

This is grueling work and definitely not a profession I would ever see myself doing. I saw my great grandfather and how hard he worked on his farm and know that being a college administrator is fine for my way of life. I salute the hard work of farmers for what they do and contribute to our society.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: cows, dairy farming, Manly Monday, recycling, sustainability

Bloggers Unite – Sustaining our Earth

May 15, 2008 by dadofdivas 2 Comments

Ok, I do not know how coherent these ramblings will be but here goes.

The University Campus I work on has adopted a Green Theme for 2008-2009 to talk about sustainability issues and how our campus may be able to become more Earth friendly. I have to say hat even in the short amount of time since we have made the decision to do this, it amazes me the myriad of things that one can do to make a difference in the future of this planet we call home.

I have always been a proponent of recycling, but it continually amazes me to see the amount of waste that we go through as humans…and the amount of waste that corporations use just in the packaging of products. I get so frustrated when instead of a #1 or #2 plastic, the large majority of products use #5 plastic which cannot be recycled. Now, I really do not know why this is the case, but I do have to say that if more companies used products that could be recycled we may not have the issues we have in regards to waste.

Speaking of waste, I was recently amazed to learn that SJ Johnson in Racine, Wisconsin, runs their entire factory off of the Methane gas that comes off of the landfill across from their plant. Talk about innovative. I wish more companies could find ways to use alternative energy sources such as this.

The city I live in is just another example, they power our homes through HUGE amounts of Coal. While I definitely want my electricity (How else would I blog), but beyond this, I wish my city could find other ways to power our homes. Clean ways such as through wind farms, or other such means.

I think the final area that I will touch on is driving, the auto industry and petroleum industry. You know it amazes me at how expensive gasoline has become, but as Americans we are so dependent on this we do not do what we need to do to cut back and limit our use of this fossil fuel. Thus, the petroleum companies continue to get rich while we drive our large vehicles through our daily lives. Now, I am as much to blame as the next. I live about 5.5 miles away from work, and in the past I did bike to work, but on many days I found this to be hard because I would need to go to a meeting during the day, or, especially at the end of the day, I was tierd and just couldn’t see myself having to ride the bike home…now I know this sounds lazy, but I can tell you that I am not alone and there are myriads of others out there that are probably in the same boat. So what am I saying…you know I don’t really know. I guess I am encouraging you to find ways to limit your travel. Walk places, bike places, carpool…simply try something different.

I am definitely not an expert on this…far from it… but I would encourage all of you to check out the following websites as they will open your eyes to the small hings you can do to save mother Earth!

Treehugger.com
Planet Green
10 Ways to Go Green
The Green Life
The Frugalist
The Journal Times
Go Green Initiative
How to ‘go green’ on a budget

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: blogging, earth, sustainability, unite

Going Green!

May 9, 2008 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

More and more today we hear about the importance of thinking Green… finding ways to use less gas, electricity. Buying local/organic, etc. I have tried to do my part, but find it hard to go to the extreme as some people have. My campus is adopting a Green Theme next year to explore the topic of sustainability…see the blog below…

Go Green Blog

So I guess my question is how are you being green in your lives?

There are a number of websites that I have found that provide ideas such as:

Treehugger

Sundance Channel – The Green

Yet some of the ideas seem to the extreme as I mentioned… I just don’t know though I know that the ideas are ones that could definitely assist in the longevity of our habitation of the earth…

Quite the quandary…

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: earth, sustainability

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