tregocenterdairy

Over the years Trego Center Dairy has a backdrop of wheat. Over the years Trego Center Dairy has been a backdrop to a lot of our lives. 

The Mai Family Cookbook is finally here!
This cookbook began as a way to remember and share some of the recipes of Elfriede Mai. Our mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, great-grandmother, friend, and mentor.
The project has grown.
You will also find recipes by other Mai family members. Immediate and extended.
Most of the recipes are Volga German in origin. It is the area where the Mai clan originally called home before coming to the United States in 1901.
There are photos and anecdotes by those of us who have spent time in Elfriede’s kitchen and around her table.
If these recipes spark memories about Elfriede, her kitchen, her cooking or the Mai farm, please send us an email at tregocenterdairy@gmail.com
If you have any recipes or photos we can share please send them along.

The Mai family cookbook is available on Apple Books and Kindle (download from Amazon).
The E-Book is downloaded free from Apple.
It is $2 on Amazon (for Kindle readers/app).
It is also avaliable as a hardcopy from Amazon for $8.
Just search: Mai Family Cookbook on any of the above sites.

I was talking with Shadow the other day. Comparing stories about the Farm. 
14 hours in the grain-cart. 
            A raccoon who dared step into the yard. 
A fish that took five minutes to land. 
          A fish that took five minutes to eat. 
Shadow spends most of his time lying in the Sun. On hot or cold days you’ll find Shadow lying in the milk barn.
Shadow is an old dog. But then so am i. And neither one of us wants to learn any new tricks.
Check out the photos & videos. ‘Glory Days‘ in the Wheat Harvest 2021 tab.

9.28.11
Sunny, 82 degrees
Humidity 27%
Dew Point 44 degrees
Wind E @ 5-10 mph
Forecast: Sunny, high 70’s

The Time Between the Sun
Hilary Green

I believe in a place where the essence of time is crafted by the natural flow of the earth, where the sunrise and sunset are the rhythm of life.  I believe in milking cows. On our family farm, my Uncle Bruce and I gather all 52 cows in the milking herd, twice a day, every day.  Just before the Kansas sun rises and again just before it sets, we meet in the milking parlor.

At the beginning of every milking my uncle brings the cows in the parlor in two sets, four on each side.  I stand in a pit between the two lines of cows.  As soon as the cows are in the parlor I go down each line sanitizing all of the cows.  At this point Uncle Bruce is also down in the pit and as I make another round to dry the cows, he closely follows, putting on the “milkers.”  The process involved in milking is a lot like the sunrise and sunset, there is a repetitive natural flow.  But this flow is not without change.  Just as the earth moves varying the time and place of the sun’s rise and set, our system of milking can be altered if a cow kicks off her “milkers” or if someone joins us in the pit.  But, despite any inconsistencies, the cows are milked.  Once the cows have given us their milk, Bruce removes the “milkers” and I sanitize them again.  The cows then go on their way, until their return just before sunset.

On a dairy farm, time isn’t defined by a day of the week, the movement of hands on a clock, or a due date for a school paper.  Farm time is defined by the natural flow of light; sunrise and sunset.  On the farm, my life’s time flows with the sun and the cows, I don’t have to worry about anything else.  Milking cows has taught me to accept and appreciate life’s basic simplicity, instead of being overwhelmed by an artificial time that creates the stress and anxiousness of school.  Milking gives my life a change of pace; a sense of freedom and rest from my usual world.

However, the farm doesn’t ignore the modern world’s demands; there’s just enough time to get cleaned up from the morning milking to get to church.  Neither the farm nor I are caught in the past.  Cows are milked by machine and the tractors have GPS auto-steering.

When I wake up I am splashed with darkness.  Then, the sun, miles away on the horizon, streaks the earth with light.  I make my way to the milking parlor, accepting the flow of nature. The meaning of time on our dairy farm is to live with the earth in the present moment and the present moment always asks; where is the sun and where are the cows?  I believe in the essence of time as a continual process; not monotonous or static, but evolving.  I believe that time moves with a natural flow.  I believe in milking cows.

Hilary & Millie

7.20.11
Sunny, 98 degrees
Humidity 34%
Dew Point 58 degrees
Wind SW @ 10-15 mph
Forecast: Sunny, hot

Several folks have asked about cow tipping and cow floating.
I got a cow tipping tee-shirt at the Kansas City Airport (and a triple-shot venti latte for the ride back to the farm) and went out that evening to tip a few sleeping cows. The folk story is that cows are so slow-witted that when they are sleeping they can actually be pushed over (tipped) before they know something is going on.

Well it is harder than it sounds.

First off cows don’t sleep standing up, they lie down and trying to move a cow that is lying down is incredibly hard. This Summer’s heat wave was particularly hard on one of the cows and on several days Bruce (and whoever else was handy) had to get her back on her feet.  Moving a 1300-pound cow that does not want to move takes a bit of patience and effort.

Second, cows standing up may be ‘dozing’ or just thinking about life, but they really are aware that they are cows and don’t like to be pushed.  If they are dozing and wake up suddenly they tend to take up a lot of room.  I’ve known people who wake-up with arms & legs flailing.  Cows may not have arms but they can certainly get their legs and tail moving.  A funny thing about herd animals is that if one begins to move they all begin to move and they may have no idea why they are moving.
During my attempt at cow tipping I could actually see the look of surprise on the faces of the other cows.  Most of these cows actually were asleep not just dozing. Lying quietly, dreaming of the grass on the other side of the fence. All of a sudden they were up and in a hurry but didn’t know why.  Standing in the middle of a startled mass of moving cows can be very interesting and lead to another, though slightly more obscure, myth; running on the backs of cows.

Below is a diagram on the force needed to tip a non-resisting cow (i.e. frozen in place) by Dr Margo Lillie (a zoologist at the University of British Columbia) and one of her graduate students who studied the physics of cow tipping.

the physics of cow tipping

Sunny, 57 degrees
Humidity 76%
Dew Point 29 degrees
Wind NW @ 20-25 mph
Forecast: Cool, mostly cloudy, chance of rain40%

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