A nightmare came to fruition Sunday night. One thing you don't really want to think about is loosing power for a long period of time. No one wants to be without power....we've come to enjoy cold food, hot showers, Internet and air conditioning. But, for a dairy to loose power, especially in the middle of summer, it truly can be a nightmare.
It happened to us around 9:30 Sunday night. It was pretty much an emergency and I just thought it would be kinda cool to give you the low down on how things went in the 12 hours we had no electricity. It's kinda cool now.....now that power is back, the farm is running, the Dairy Farmer has slept and my air conditioning is on. Let me tell ya....as Nelly says....it was getting hot in here. And momma don't like to be hot!
So, 9:30pm- we had finished our work day and were chillaxing on the couch with the Olympics and the lights flickered. They went off and tried to come back on....The DF said, "come on, baby" (which was not meant for me). Then, total darkness.
I get accustomed to the noise on the farm, not the smell, but the noise.
People always say "you must be used to it." Honey, I'm here to tell you, I'll never be used to it. Stink is stink no matter if you live beside it, near it or 10 miles away from it. It comes with the territory- cows poop and poop stinks. It's pretty black and white (or brown and ploppy, if you want to get technical).
The farm, she was quiet. All the humming of the fans, refrigeration pumps and vacuum pumps had shut down. You never want to hear silence on the farm. The DF threw on his boots, grabbed his phone and yelled......call West Penn....and ran out the door. I followed after to say.....huh?......and heard the girls (and by girls....I mean our employees) yelling...or maybe shrieking.....in the milking parlor. I thought to myself- oh man, this isn't good. The milkers were in a totally black parlor, full of 24 cows....in the process of being milked and we have no power. We have a barn full of 600 cows with no ventilation and our bulk milk tanks full of 11,0000 gallons of milk, with no refrigeration. Yeah....this really isn't good.
From my perspective: the punks and I grabbed a flashlight, lit some candles and played on our ipods. Eventually, we went to bed. It was rough.....seriously rough. We had a good dose of pioneer that night.
From The Dairy Farmer's perspective: first thing on his mind was opening the barns. The barns are sealed on the sides and on one end for tunnel ventilation. We have 52 inch fans (30 of them)on the end of each barn. Their job is to pull air through the barn at 6 mph. Well.....they weren't running. That meant that it was going to get hot in there too.....real quick. Cows really can't sweat- so our job is to keep them cool and comfortable. Now, the sides of the barn are covered with curtains- we are raise able to raise and lower them.....so he grabbed the punks and one of our employees, some cordless drills and they were able to raise the curtains and let the heat start to escape.
As that was going on, The Dairy Farmer started to hook the generator up. Oh yes.....we have a generator. We can NOT be without power. He uses one of our tractors to run the generator, the generator hooks up the power junction box and boom.....we're back in business. The generator isn't huge- but it can power the milking system, the milk cooling system and the Dairy Farmer's wife. She may not have had a/c, but she did have lights, water and a fridge full of unspoiled food. Lord, I love this man.
In the meantime, the milking crew was in a hold pattern. They just had to wait for the power to come on before they could start back up. The cows that were in the process of being milked were let out into the holding pen. It was getting pretty steamy in the parlor. Rather than let them stand, wait and over heat, The DF choose to skip their milking for the evening. They wouldn't get milked until 8 hours later.....so they may have been a little uncomfortable by that point.....but at the time, he felt that it was the better thing for them. It took almost an hour until he had the genny up and running.
Once the generator was up and power was supplied......The DF stayed up and made sure that it continued to run at the correct speed. It's easy to get too much or not enough voltage and that can ruin electronics/equipment very easily. Here is a run down of what is powered on our farm on a good day:
Barn Ventilation Fans
Feed bins (run by auger into our feed mixer)
Air compressors that run all the gates that let cows in and our of the parlor
Bulk tanks that store the milk
Well pumps that pump all the water to the farm
Computers that contain all our feed rations and our herd records
Dishwasher/Washing Machine
Pasteurizer
Milking System
As you can see, when this stuff isn't working.....we're up sh** creek without a paddle, as they say. Now, what would happen if we didn't have a generator? We'd have no water for the cows. We couldn't milk and the cows would become engorged with milk and start bawling. All you nursing mom's out there.....you know what I'm saying, right? You can imagine what 500 cows would sound like if they were all crying to be milked. We wouldn't be able to feed them....so now, they are hungry....and thirsty......and in a lot of pain. You do know that if you don't milk them within 24 hours, they'll explode. You know that right? Who wants to see exploded cow all over the place...that's just nasty. Nah...I kid. They won't blow up. But, they will loose productivity- which isn't good for us.
Regardless- the power was on in 12 hours. It was a stressful 12 hours (for The DF..not for me...remember, I was in bed). The generator was working and the farm continued to operate. A big thanks to our friend who works for West Penn.....always nice to call him and find out real quick what is out and where. We aren't sure what we'll do when he retires. They did a great job of getting power back up....we sure weren't the only ones without. The blessing in all of this is that it happened at night, when it was a tad cooler and we didn't have the heat of the day to contend with.
Anyway....that's what went down the day the farm went dark......always good to throw the Dairy Farmer a curve ball, never let him get too comfortable....gotta keep him on his toes. In fact, he's on his toes so much....homeboy's like a ballet dancer- bless his dairy farming heart.
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It happened to us around 9:30 Sunday night. It was pretty much an emergency and I just thought it would be kinda cool to give you the low down on how things went in the 12 hours we had no electricity. It's kinda cool now.....now that power is back, the farm is running, the Dairy Farmer has slept and my air conditioning is on. Let me tell ya....as Nelly says....it was getting hot in here. And momma don't like to be hot!
So, 9:30pm- we had finished our work day and were chillaxing on the couch with the Olympics and the lights flickered. They went off and tried to come back on....The DF said, "come on, baby" (which was not meant for me). Then, total darkness.
I get accustomed to the noise on the farm, not the smell, but the noise.
People always say "you must be used to it." Honey, I'm here to tell you, I'll never be used to it. Stink is stink no matter if you live beside it, near it or 10 miles away from it. It comes with the territory- cows poop and poop stinks. It's pretty black and white (or brown and ploppy, if you want to get technical).
The farm, she was quiet. All the humming of the fans, refrigeration pumps and vacuum pumps had shut down. You never want to hear silence on the farm. The DF threw on his boots, grabbed his phone and yelled......call West Penn....and ran out the door. I followed after to say.....huh?......and heard the girls (and by girls....I mean our employees) yelling...or maybe shrieking.....in the milking parlor. I thought to myself- oh man, this isn't good. The milkers were in a totally black parlor, full of 24 cows....in the process of being milked and we have no power. We have a barn full of 600 cows with no ventilation and our bulk milk tanks full of 11,0000 gallons of milk, with no refrigeration. Yeah....this really isn't good.
From my perspective: the punks and I grabbed a flashlight, lit some candles and played on our ipods. Eventually, we went to bed. It was rough.....seriously rough. We had a good dose of pioneer that night.
From The Dairy Farmer's perspective: first thing on his mind was opening the barns. The barns are sealed on the sides and on one end for tunnel ventilation. We have 52 inch fans (30 of them)on the end of each barn. Their job is to pull air through the barn at 6 mph. Well.....they weren't running. That meant that it was going to get hot in there too.....real quick. Cows really can't sweat- so our job is to keep them cool and comfortable. Now, the sides of the barn are covered with curtains- we are raise able to raise and lower them.....so he grabbed the punks and one of our employees, some cordless drills and they were able to raise the curtains and let the heat start to escape.
As that was going on, The Dairy Farmer started to hook the generator up. Oh yes.....we have a generator. We can NOT be without power. He uses one of our tractors to run the generator, the generator hooks up the power junction box and boom.....we're back in business. The generator isn't huge- but it can power the milking system, the milk cooling system and the Dairy Farmer's wife. She may not have had a/c, but she did have lights, water and a fridge full of unspoiled food. Lord, I love this man.
In the meantime, the milking crew was in a hold pattern. They just had to wait for the power to come on before they could start back up. The cows that were in the process of being milked were let out into the holding pen. It was getting pretty steamy in the parlor. Rather than let them stand, wait and over heat, The DF choose to skip their milking for the evening. They wouldn't get milked until 8 hours later.....so they may have been a little uncomfortable by that point.....but at the time, he felt that it was the better thing for them. It took almost an hour until he had the genny up and running.
Once the generator was up and power was supplied......The DF stayed up and made sure that it continued to run at the correct speed. It's easy to get too much or not enough voltage and that can ruin electronics/equipment very easily. Here is a run down of what is powered on our farm on a good day:
Barn Ventilation Fans
Feed bins (run by auger into our feed mixer)
Air compressors that run all the gates that let cows in and our of the parlor
Bulk tanks that store the milk
Well pumps that pump all the water to the farm
Computers that contain all our feed rations and our herd records
Dishwasher/Washing Machine
Pasteurizer
Milking System
As you can see, when this stuff isn't working.....we're up sh** creek without a paddle, as they say. Now, what would happen if we didn't have a generator? We'd have no water for the cows. We couldn't milk and the cows would become engorged with milk and start bawling. All you nursing mom's out there.....you know what I'm saying, right? You can imagine what 500 cows would sound like if they were all crying to be milked. We wouldn't be able to feed them....so now, they are hungry....and thirsty......and in a lot of pain. You do know that if you don't milk them within 24 hours, they'll explode. You know that right? Who wants to see exploded cow all over the place...that's just nasty. Nah...I kid. They won't blow up. But, they will loose productivity- which isn't good for us.
Regardless- the power was on in 12 hours. It was a stressful 12 hours (for The DF..not for me...remember, I was in bed). The generator was working and the farm continued to operate. A big thanks to our friend who works for West Penn.....always nice to call him and find out real quick what is out and where. We aren't sure what we'll do when he retires. They did a great job of getting power back up....we sure weren't the only ones without. The blessing in all of this is that it happened at night, when it was a tad cooler and we didn't have the heat of the day to contend with.
Anyway....that's what went down the day the farm went dark......always good to throw the Dairy Farmer a curve ball, never let him get too comfortable....gotta keep him on his toes. In fact, he's on his toes so much....homeboy's like a ballet dancer- bless his dairy farming heart.
