Time to Catch Up :)

The end of this summer is coming much too quickly! I've been very busy lately: so busy that it's been a month since I've last posted!  In the past month, I've had a lot of good changes happen in my life, so let's back track to the end of June.

The past few weeks have been packed with lots of different things! The end of June and beginning of July began with spending time at United Dairymen of Arizona, Paloma Dairy, Kuiper Dairy, and Form-A-Feed. At UDA I will be doing office work and seeing the second half of milk production (the processing of liquid milk into different products and seeing how those are marketed. I've been doing research for FAF and have gone out to different dairies in the area a few times with one of the salesmen. At Paloma Dairy I recorded weights in of the silage and green chop trucks for a day and a half during corn silage harvest. While I was there I experienced my first real dust storm! It took about 5 minutes for it to go from a beautiful blue-sky day to what you see below. It got so dark after I stopped taking pictures that the trucks had to use their headlights and I couldn't see the truck numbers when they pulled up to the scale, and it was only around 7pm. After the dust storm we got a bunch of rain (well, a bunch for down here) and had to quit for the night.

My work space while I was in the scale house! The first day I was in there for 7 hours and the
second day I was in there for 13 hours! 

I also picked up some work at a dairy called Mt. Shadow. My time there is spent working with the calves and breeding cows and heifers. I work with 2 of the daughters of the owner. It has been so much fun! I definitely have the most fun while I am there :) I also really like working there because of the hours. I start at 4:30am (and it takes 20 minutes to get there!) and work until around 8:30am. I go home and head back to work at 1:30 and work until around 4:00. If I'm lucky I get invited over to the family's house to swim in their pool! I love being able to work with them and hang out with them after!

Breeding cows!

"Look! It's a hat!" Priceless moments with Anneke :)

While out at Mt. Shadow I've also done random things like even out roads with a grader, I learned how to change my oil, and I helped with cutting and raking alfalfa. The family was gone when the alfalfa needed to be harvested and baled so one night after work I went out to the dairy and the mechanic gave me a crash course in running a tractor and rake because he was going to run the baler behind me. 

Aside from working, my roommates and a few friends and I went to San Diego for a weekend to see the beach and have a relaxing weekend : ) It was foggy when we got there but Sunday was gorgeous and sunny!

Marbe, Dana, Heidi, (me), and Dakota!! Such great friends :)

In my book, this summer has been a huge success! This week I'm spending time at UDA and I'm not sure what I'm doing next week. I'll probably work more at Mt. Shadow, but we will see. My sister is coming to visit for the weekend! I'm so excited to see her! We are going to have a blast for the short amount of time that she is here! Hope you enjoyed the quick update!