Holy COW!!!

Today for Emma's preschool, we went on a field trip to a local dairy farm. We took my niece, Kaela, with us and the kids had a blast! Emma and Kaela were really funny in the car on the way there because they were playing the "my Mommy" game. For instance, Kaela would say, "My mommy says that......(insert wisdom from a 4 year old)" and Emma would reply, "Well, MY Mommy says......(insert wisdom from a 3 year old)". It was pretty funny to listen to.

Anyway, the farm was actually really cool. It is one of the largest dairy farms in the world with close to 12,000 cows. All us moms were AMAZED by the milking machines. All the cows get milked 2-3 times a day and each one produces about 12 gallons of milk. The kids didn't quite understand what the machine was for but I thought it was pretty darn amazing.

The best part was a tractor ride for everyone! Everyone piled on a trailer with hay bales and we got the grand tour of the farm. I never realized how much work goes into a gallon of milk. I was also amazed at how clean everything was. They really work hard to keep the cows as clean as they possibly can. Did you know that the milk is tested for about 50 different things (like diseases and what not) and if ONE thing is found in it that isn't supposed to be there, they dump the whole batch? And I'm not talking about one gallon, I'm talking about 50,000 gallons!!

The kids absolutely LOVED stopping to see the new baby calves. The calves were only a day old and were so cute! Some of the kids got to grab a bottle and try to feed the babies.

I was really impressed with the whole operation! Plus it was really fun for the kids and they were pretty excited to see all the cows.