True love graces dairy brunch

Which does a farm boy get first, the farm or the girl? For Dave Hafemeister it was the farm. But the girl came soon after.

Dave Hafemeister purchased the family farm from his parents New Year’s Eve day, Dec. 31, 2009. That night he proposed to Kathleen Gilbert and she said yes.

Fifteen happy New Years, two children – Alayna, now 11, and Ethan, now 9 – and a carefully built herd of exceptional Holsteins later, they were hosting the Dodge County Dairy Brunch at their farm near Hustisford. Dave’s parents, Richard and Gloria Hafemeister, hosted the brunch 42 years ago in 1982.

After preaching June 2 at Saint Michael’s Lutheran Church, I ditched the suit and tie, changed into my work duds. I headed west just a few miles on Dodge County Road R toward Hustisford, to the Hafemeister Farm for the annual Dodge County Dairy Brunch. The parking field was almost full. Several-hundred people were in line waiting to eat scrambled eggs with ham and cheese, pancakes and a Dodge County Dairy Brunch specialty – deep-fried cheese curds. Brenda Conley of the Dodge County Dairy Promotion Committee – organizers of the brunch – said their 70 hardworking volunteers served more than 2,500 people.

I love the food at those events but what I like best is seeing the cows and talking to farm people. There were plenty of both.

“We milk 120 cows with two Lely Robotic milkers, which we installed in 2014,” Kathleen Hafemeister said. “The cows milk 24 hours a day, basically when they want to. Most go through three times a day. But we do check the computer twice a day, roughly at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., to find any that haven’t been in the robots within the last 12 hours. It’s usually not too many.

“We currently have 15 dry cows, 130 head of heifers and 14 calves. Dave does the robot maintenance, and cow and heifer health monitoring, while also doing all the field work and other farm maintenance. We have one full-time employee, Mike Roe, who also owns a few cows in the herd. He does the a.m. and p.m. list of ‘fetch’ cows, and finds them in the barn, while also doing barn cleaning and the cow feeding.

“We own 240 acres and rent 60. We grow our own hay, corn, wheat and soybeans for the cows. We do have to purchase the robot pellets, cottonseed, corn gluten feed and necessary minerals. Dave’s mom, Gloria, still helps with some tractor driving during busy seasons, and his dad, Richard, helps with maintenance projects. Our milk is marketed to (the National Farmers Union); it currently goes to Saputo in Waupun, (Wisconsin).

“Dave’s parents bought the farm from Bill and Mabel Pieper in 1978. They had to sell their cows in 1991, due to Richard needing back surgery. But (they) kept the farm. Dave bought his own herd of cows and started milking them in the barn here in 1997.”

Meanwhile I met a veterinarian, a nutrition consultant, equipment salesmen, butter makers, beekeepers, several master crafters, bakers, seed-sales people, agricultural suppliers, firefighters, church groups, a farm-camp organizer, a dairy princess and several wannabe farm kids who were ogling the big tractors.

Dr. Jerry Gaska, veterinarian with Dairy Health Services, said he enjoyed showing children the big rumen magnets he has cows swallow to collect metal objects in their stomachs. He also showed an oral drenching syringe and a portable ultrasound machine.

Crystal Prom, a dairy-nutrition consultant with Cargill Animal Nutrition, had a display of the ingredients that go into the Hafemeister corn silage and haylage. Those included cotton seed, a protein-vitamin-mineral mix and robot pellets that are made at the Cargill Feed Mill in Milton, Wisconsin.