Melissa

My future farming plans and expectations are as follows:

• I want to raise livestock animals for 4-H clubs,food, education, showing,and self sufficient way of feeding my family and community. 
• I plan to find farms that I can shadow current farmers and their specialties (crops, livestock/ranch etc.) to see firsthand how to run/operate correctly. I have 4-H knowledge but always looking to learn more! 
• Temple Grandin is a person I look up to and that's the level of care and passion I want to continue to be like. I want to expect that same level she had for myself. 

My vision for my farm is to be self reliant and support my family and community. I want to raise animals, a few crops and a garden. All with respect to the land, the animals. I want to be able to preserve this way of life because without it, life would suffer. I want to bring back respect and appreciation to farming life. 

The skills I have is mainly from being involved in 4-H, but also what I have learned from my mother and her siblings. I showed pigs, feeder calf,dairy, and horses. I know how to milk a cow manually or with a milker apparatus. I know dairy conformation standards, had an informative stint with artificial insemination of dairy cows. 

Before competing at MSU Dairy Days we went to a dairy days camp, we learned dairy husbandry-even dissected a heifer's reproductive tract to learn exactly how things work, the industry and so much more. 

I have gone to MSU to show at Dairy Days and had to research, study and learn the aspects of running a dairy operation, with a milking parlor and farms with robotic milkers. Whenever I had a chance to learn anything about farms I jumped on it. I learned about all different kinds of tractors from my neighbor who collected them. When I was in college I got to go to another student's family farm and help out with harvesting their crops. I have driven a combine and harvested with it. I have also driven a truck and trailer next to the combine to load it with the harvest and transport it back to the main farm, drop and go back for the next run. When in 4-H I would pay for my dues and riding lessons with working in the barns. Mucking stalls, hauling hay, feeding horses, helping others with their tack, learning from one another when things got difficult or confusing. Equestrian team in high school, I didn't have a horse to compete so I was the team's groom. Whatever the team needed I did my best to deliver. I learned animal first aid for horses in a crash course because two horses got into it in the pasture and one got injured. 

I always want to learn more so I can do more and educate the coming generations. Farming is a passion of mine and I wish to learn all of the things that come with it.