Meet MI Farmers at Curry Farms

Curry Farms with Karen Curry

"Curry Farms was established in 1868 by my husband Mark’s Great-Great Grandfather Isaiah Thomas Curry.  The dairy cows were not brought in until 1938.  At this time Mark’s grandfather, Waldo James Curry, purchased 12 dairy cows.  We now have the existing facilities at their max with 220 dairy cows and 185 young-stock. 

(Curry Farms, Tawas City, Mi.  Photo Credit: Karen Curry)

Dairy farming gets into your senses.  You see things, hear things, smell things, touch things, and taste things that most will never be able to comprehend in their lifetime.  For example, your eyes light up when you see a newborn calf stand for the first time, your eyes hurt when you come to the barn and find a cow down with a broken leg.  You get excited with the sound of spring  rain, your hearing haunts you with the  shriek of an animal in pain.  Most farmers love the smell of fresh alfalfa and corn silage, the manure pit is a smell that most do not enjoy but it is a commodity that must be dealt with.  Farmers are known to work with their hands.  They touch everything, but the sweetest touch is from their loved ones when work is done at the end of the day.  We have all tasted defeat at one time or another but tasting the sweat from our brow encourages us to battle on.  Many life lessons are learned from a farm.

(Photo Credit: Karen Curry)

Agriculture is not for everyone.  We all know someone who grew up on a farm and as quick as they could, they moved away.  And that is OK.  To be a successful farmer, you have to love it.  You have to love getting up early and seeing the sky filled with stars.  You have to love pushing yourself to physical exhaustion because you know that you have to.  And at the end of the day, you are able to finish your day with the most beautiful sunsets. 

(Curry Farm milking parlor. Photo Credit: Karen Curry)

We can talk about the daily tasks of feeding, breeding, treating, and  vaccinating animals.  We could also go on and on about planting corn, harvesting 4 cuttings of alfalfa, baling hay, harvesting oats, baling straw, harvesting corn silage, combining high moisture corn, applying manure to the fields, fieldwork to get the soil ready to be planted, maintaining buildings and milking parlors, working on broken equipment at the shop,  farm business book keeping, meetings with cow nutritionists, meetings with accountants and ordering parts and supplies from the salespeople that stop out on a regular basis, but who wants to hear about all that? With all that there is to do, how do we have time to do anything fun?  Well, farmers have to be experts in time management.  Family vacations are short and to the point, but they are getaways nonetheless.  There are unexpected things that arise and make us unable to attend functions.  Our families are well aware of this. 

(Photo Credit; Karen Curry)

Mark and his brothers are the 5^th generation to uphold the family tradition of farming here in Tawas.  Each generation has put his own stamp to the business.  This is why you see outdated buildings on a generational farm.  Every demolition, every addition, every new piece of cement poured holds a story.  Stories that aren’t always told, but should be. Here is to hoping that the American Farmer can keep the respect of this nation while diligently working to provide for it."                      

(Photo Credit: Karen Curry)

- I would like to thank Mark and Karen Curry for taking the time to share their farm story.

Meet MI Farmers at LMN Dairy

LMN Dairy with Melissa Guoan



"Our current farm is owned by my husband and I, it was established by his parents in 1978.  We milk 200 cows including dry cows, altogether on the farm we have over 400 head from calves to cows.  Agriculture is a way of life for my family.  It is my passion to take care of my animals and produce the best quality milk that is high in butterfat and proteins.  Agriculture feeds the world and I love being a part of that, and being a girl makes it that much better because I can show that not only guys are farmers.  

Sometimes I struggle with being too attached to my animals.  This is a hard part of the industry for me because people might not understand our passion for what we do and claim that we don't take care of our animals.  Our animals are treated better than we treat ourselves most of the time.  I work with my girls 24/7 and they all have their own personalities.  When it comes time to cull my herd it is very hard for me to do.  

*To cull within your herd means selling an animal.  Farmers have different reasons for culling depending on how they operate their business.

I want consumers to know how hard we work to produce the products that we do.  I want them to know the struggles that we endure and the obstacles we have to face to continue the farming traditions.  I think everyone should spend at least a couple of days on farm job shadowing, to realize just what goes on behind the scenes.  I think a lot of people would be surprised, in a good way.  I've learned that you can NEVER take anything too serious!  Try your best to laugh everything off because if you take it all to heart you will be VERY disappointed in your farming career.  Learn to laugh....a lot, because sometimes that is the only thing you can do.  

We usually show up late to wedding receptions and birthday parties (and I pray they keep the food out because a cold dinner is better than no dinner).  I usually don't go out with friends very often because I have to get up early to do chores.  And my son misses out on a lot of things too because we have to chop hay or work fields, etc.  I do feel bad sometimes, like I fail at being a good mother because I can't take him to activities and things that he wants to go see or do.  My family is affected a lot but my goals are to pay everything off and farm for the fun of it.  I want to farm because it is something I enjoy, not because of the pressure to pay this or that.  Once I have everything paid off I want to milk around 100 cows and run a little greenhouse of my own."

- I would like to thank Nathan and Melissa Guoan for taking the time to share their farm story.

Meet MI Farmers at Bigney Dairy

Bigney Dairy with Judy Bigney

"I feed approximately 30-35 heifers each evening and twice on Wednesdays and weekends, I am also the township clerk for our community.  My husband and 19 year old son milk twice per day.  We have a small family farm (with no employees other than family) and milk between 40-45 cows; counting all the calves, heifers, and one bull, we care for approximately 80 head of cattle.  Our dairy farm has been in my husband's family for 150 years started by his great-grandfather.  My 86 year old father-in-law still helps with all the field work and feeds the heifers on mornings when I am at work.  But, I think our farm days are numbered.  We are located in an area that has been experiencing residential growth and we rent most of the ground we grow crops on to feed the cows.  The ground we rent is slowly being used up for housing.  Our younger son would like to continue to farm and I would like him to buy a farm somewhere else, somewhere more rural.  

Watching my husband, father in law and son work so hard and never get paid what they deserve is the hardest part of this industry for me.  It is very hard to see my family break their bodies doing something we all need but not get paid for.  Farmers are people just like all consumers; they want good healthy food to eat and they care about the animals they raise.  

In farming, patience is the greatest lesson I have learned.  If you don't have patience on a  farm you will literally drive yourself insane.  And there's good and bad with farming.  We have more freedom at times to run about, that is if the chores are done and it's not planting, haying or harvesting season.  But there are no family vacations.  It always seems just when you plan on going to a family reunion, Christmas party, birthday party or something, a piece of farm equipment or tractor breaks down or the cows get out so you can't go.  But, there are so many good things too.  Like the day my five year old son caught a baby kill deer bird in the pasture, watching my two boys grow up with their cousins playing in the farm creek and the baby calves....they're always so cute!"

- I would like to thank Bob and Judy Bigney for sharing their farm story. 

Meet MI Farmers at Emerald Acres

Emerald Acres with Caroline Clough

“We operate a small dairy farm.  When we bought the farm in 2012 we had all the machinery that we needed we were just purchasing the land, buildings and some animals from my husband’s parents.  We started with 20 cows in a 20 stall stanchion barn with two milkers and two pails.  We milked two cows with one milker then dumped the milk into pails which we would then carry to the milk house.

Each cow is milked in a stall - Photo by: Caroline Clough

 In the milk house we would dump the milk through a strainer where then it would go into the bulk tank to cool.  In 2014 we bought two more milkers and two more pails.  We planned on adding on to the barn and the herd, which we did a year later.  We added 22 cows to the herd and we were working on an addition to the barn to house the new cows, in the meantime we had to switch groups of cows while we milked.  Three months after we added the cows the barn was finished and we were able to milk all of our cows in their own stalls without having to switch them.  In the summer of 2015 there was a little falling out between my husband and his dad leaving myself (7 months pregnant) and my husband to do all of the chores.  We were still milking with four milkers and four pails, carrying pails after every two cows.  I couldn’t keep up anymore so we cut back to only using three milkers and eventually got a step saver/milk conveyor (basically a portable receiving jar).

Milk from the cows is dumped into the step savor which filters and pumps
the milk to the bulk tank, eliminating the extra step of carrying each pail
into the milk house. - Photo by: Caroline Clough

 We also had to sell 10 cows to handle everything without it being too much for just the two of us.  Now we milk 30 cows with three milkers and a step saver, the step savor makes it so we don’t have to dump our milk into pails and carry it to the bulk tank.  We just dump our milk from the milkers to the step savor and that filters our milk and the pump then pumps our milk to the tank.  We are currently caring for 50 animals total including our dry cows, heifers and calves.

With the way the milk prices are right now we are struggling with farming and it affects our family tremendously.  I am currently working one full time job and a part time job and my husband has recently started working with an oil company where he leaves for weeks at a time.  We have two children, a boy who is two and a half and a daughter who is 11 months.  While my husband is gone it is up to me, my father in law and brother in law to do chores.  Luckily our kids are getting to ages where they can be with us on the farm and our family helps out a lot with them when we are doing work they are too young for.

Cows have room in their stalls to stand and lay down. - Photo by: Caroline Clough

My husband wanted to farm the way they did back in the 50’s and 60’s.  He wanted to milk in a stanchion barn which is why when we made the addition to our barn we added more stanchions.  He wants to teach our children that farming is more than riding in tractors and cows being milked automatically.  We want to keep it this way to show people that there are still small family farms that have one on one contact with each cow rather than in a parlor, not that milking in parlors or robotics is bad.  Our goal for our business is to milk 40 cows and have farming be our only source of income, and we also hope that our children will want to take over the farm.”

-  I would like to thank Tyler and Caroline Clough for sharing their farm story.