My bucket full of lists

I used to have a Bucket List…
- Go to Montana
- Fly an airplane
- Be a pop star
- Have 500 alpaca’s

When we moved to the United States my one and only top priority “thing to do” on my list got a check mark behind it. I am living my American Dream!

But then I got sick, and my whole bucket list got twisted around. So now I don’t really have a bucket list anymore, because the one and only thing on there now is to NOT EVER get sick AGAIN!

That doesn’t mean I don’t have a LOT of little LISTS in a BUCKET!

As you might know we have a large dairy. We run our dairy will all the family members and we have 21 employees. My job on the farm is to keep all the employees happy and taken care of them and to do the bookkeeping. A day in my life consists of little lists. Usually in the form of a “post it” with little memo’s to myself. Those lists consist of the following things almost every day…

- Employees: The boys and girls work in three shifts, 5 people in a shift. Normally when I get to the farm I check if everybody is present and if there is anything they need or want. Then I go to our herdsman (cow expert) Colby and is assistant Adan. They are like a well oiled machine and they don’t really need help from me, but as the “boss” you got to know what is going on!

- LADIES: How are our ladies doing? Because we have so many it is very hard to look at every individual cow like you would do on a smaller farm. To make sure we don’t miss anything all our gals have an ankle bracelet. This bracelet records how much she walks, how much milk she gives and what the salt content is of the milk she is giving, three times a day. The computer will save all the info for 10 days. If one cow has a “off” day, she will show up automatically on (Colby’s list) but also on mine. And with these 3 bits of info, he (Colby and me too) knows if she is doing ok or if we need to see her, and give her some extra attention.

- Checks: As the bookkeeper at our dairy I am in charge of all the money traffic. This can be incredible stressful but also a lot of fun (when things go well).
- DFA website: On the website of our milk coop I can see how much milk all our ladies produce the day before and what our quality is. At our Four Leaf Clover Dairy we strive to the best quality we can produce. Every day we get quality results from our milk cooperation, so if there would be an issue with the temperature or quality of the milk we can make sure that it gets corrected really fast.

- Bastiaan, Mom, Dad and Jan Willem: WHAT is everybody doing and HOW is everybody doing. And what do I have on some other lists that includes them???
- Yesterday: what was on my list yesterday and I didn’t get to…

Sometimes I feel like a traffic controller, making sure everybody and everything moves in the right direction at the right time. After a full day of organizing and delegating I come home to our sweet Jones and my Super Stud Classic and unwind. Sometimes my little bucket doesn’t get empty at all that day and there will be no unwinding. The good thing is, tomorrow is a new day so we’ll have new chances to reach that little buckets bottom...

Do you have a bucket list or do you have a bucket full of lists?

If you don’t have a bucket I can tell you THIS is the best place to find your very own bucket!
You might want to check out the Red Hill General Store and/or hop over to the Real Farmwives of America & Friends they have a giveaway and one lucky reader will win his or her very own Galvanized Embossed Tub!!!

I know I know, you can start right now; writing down your very own lists and than by the time you won the bucket, you can fill it up and then start emptying it out doing all the things you need to do or do the things you WANT to do!!!


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Disclaimer. While Red Hill General Store did provide me with a bucket to blog about for this post the pictures, ideas and opinions shared here are my own.