The fresh air, the animals & the hard work all appealed to me. I have no idea why.

I wanted chickens when I was 7. Nope my mom was deathly scared of birds of all kinds thanks to a rooster on her grandparents farm.

I went with my grandpa to visit some of his family on their farm and wanted to stay with them for a week, nope. They didn’t really want some little girl around underfoot.

The test I took in Jr High said I should either be a teacher or farmer.  (By the way I grew up in the city.)

After I graduated High School I attended a small Technical College and most of my classes were in the Agriculture Building. THAT is where I met my future.

My future husband with the same passion to live on a farm.

We dreamed of a quiet place away from everything and everyone. Our own little slice of heaven.

We were able to purchase a small home and an acre of land in Tennessee in 1987. And so it began………………..

The Bovine Test

Date: 30 April 2018;

Location: Not exactly Cape Canaveral

Mission: Equipment Viability

Are we really going to do this?

With the clock counting down to zero all the work we had done was about to be tested.

I suppose there was really no doubt in my mind that it would hold, but what if it didn’t? I have to admit I was a little nervous and the grand-kids were way, way nervous.

Being a true professional she (Mabel) was the only one who really didn’t seem phased by the whole experience. We had stress checked, pulled, pushed and jumped on this thing and it didn’t move in the slightest, but now it was time for the big test,  1000+ pounds of pure bovine strength and stamina.  What was the worst thing that could actually happen? (okay maybe the loss of life, property destruction, fires, riots, political unrest and at my age maybe a major coronary event) Sink or swim it was going to happen RIGHT NOW!!!

The hatch opened.  You could hear a pin drop from all around the barnyard as cows, goats and chickens watched this historic event. She moved forward and stepped onto the landing. I am sure to her it felt like Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon for the first time, we were all holding our breath. She proceeded to move slightly forward stopped and appeared to be inspecting our work. After meeting her approval she slowly moved into the middle of the channel where her food bowl was waiting.

Milk for everyone!!  Mission accomplished!!!!

My recollection might be “slightly” embellished In case you haven’t figured this out but after a couple of months working on our new raised cow stanchion everything worked as advertised and Mable was providing fresh milk. Not only to little Bobby, but for us as well.

After researching homemade cow stanchions I found the internet lacking a good set of instructions for building a raised stanchion, so I decided to build my own. In future postings I will be providing pictures of how I built the one we are using. However I will not be providing a step by step instruction set on construction like our goat stanchion plans released several years ago. This is a big project and requires much thought, space, planning and occasionally a little math (those of you under 35 may have problems in this area). I am looking forward to showing you our home built stanchion, how we use it and maybe even answering a few questions so you can build your own. As with everything in life there is no warranty on anything shown on this website or that you can successfully build one…. But we did it (we as in myself, my wife the boss, my 12 year old grandson farmer in training and my 7 year old working on 29 granddaughter)

As always, if you are one of those people who is accident prone, not comfortable working with basic hand/farm tools, have little or no common sense and or have spent any time as an elected official in our nation’s capital. Please step away from the device you are reading this on and purchase a stanchion as necessary from a retailer of your choice.

Until next time, see you down at the barn