This is a work in progress about a dairy farmer, Barry Chase, who is about to sell his herd of milking cows. I visited with him and his wife, Rosey, a few days before their herd leaves.
Please bear with me while I edit videos (there are many) and write text. But dairy farming is so much a part of the history and the legacy of Pine Plains I want to put in the skeleton of this sequence as an indicator of what is coming.
First, meet some cows...
Selling a herd is nothing new in our county. It's been going on for years. Here are the USDA figures for Dutches County.
Milk Cows
Number on farms
1950 23,422
1959 22,017
1969 16,422
1978 13,500
1982 13,000
1987 8,700
1992 5,000
1997 3,500
1998 3,500
1999 3,000
2000 3,300
2001 2,500
2002 2,500
2003 2,900
2004 3,400
There were, until fairly recently, dozens of dairy farms in the Pine Plains area. Milk production and processing was the mainstay of the local economy. But now, as there are only a handful of farmers still milking, people who have moved in from the City or are too young to remember, the familiarity with the way of life of the dairy farmer has passed, too. I hope that this sequence of videos will preserve that way of life if not the farms.
Enough. Let's meet Barry.
So, the cows are off in the pasture doing what they do to make milk. Eat!
And the farmers go off and do what they have to do to feed the cows. Make hay!
I'm sure you've already noticed something... milk may make strong bones, but milking is really hard on the joints. Dairy farming is, literally, back-breaking work and in the next few pages you'll see just how hard that work is.