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OSAKIS, Minn. - After 100 years, the Waldvogel family is proud to continue dairy farming.
This year, the Waldvogel family was honored as a Century Farm. David and Deb Waldvogel are the third generation to milk cows on their farm in Douglas County near Osakis, Minn.
"We are keeping up a legacy David's grandparents started," said Deb Waldvogel. "We are continuing what they aspired to do."
Being honored as a Century Farm is something David is especially proud of.
"There is a lot of pride in being able to sustain the farm and have it still be a working farm," David said. "It's not always that common and we take pride in that."
The Waldvogel dairy farm dates back to 1913 when Paul Waldvogel, David's grandfather, purchased the family's farm on Oct. 29.
Thirteen years later, Paul built a barn to house his 26 dairy cows where he and his wife, Clara, milked for nearly 30 years.
Paul and Clara sold the cows in 1955, but their son Minrad and his wife, Maxine, wanted to continue farming. They started milking on the home farm with four cows.
The four cattle they started with soon started to expand, and the barn they were milking in was becoming too small for their needs.
In order to accommodate their growing herd, Minrad and Maxine tore down the original barn and built a new one to hold 66 cows in 1969.
Ten years later, they added onto the barn to house 85 cattle. By February of 1982, their son, David, and his wife, Deb, purchased the dairy farm.
"He is a farmer, 100 percent," Deb said.
"It's something I grew up with. I love milking cows because it's a solitude in the morning," David said. "They have served us well."
Since taking over the farm, David and Deb have taken out the stanchions in the old part of the barn and replaced them with tie-stalls. They also moved the barn cleaner to add more stalls and a manure pit, added a chore-time feeder that feeds grain eight times a day and built more silos, a heifer shed and a hay shed.
The family has also started to bring in some Red and White to their predominantly black and white herd.
"We needed some color," Deb said with a smile.
The Waldvogels are currently running 515 acres of farmland growing corn, soybeans, alfalfa and wheat.
David and Deb have five children, Doug (33), Darcie (32), Denise (27), Deanna (25) and Devin (20).
Their oldest son, Doug, has taken an interest in milking cows. Now he, his wife, Kara, and their children, Landon (6), Lydia (4) and Kaylynn (2), are in partnership with David and Deb, owning half of the cows on the farm.
"It's all I have ever done," Doug said. "I like what I do. It is a strength of mine."
Doug is in charge of all the breeding on the farm, cow records and bedding in the morning and milking at night.
David works a lot with the fieldwork, feeds the older heifers, milks in the morning and feeds at night.
"We started that rotation years ago," Deb said. "That way we could go to the kids' sports games and have just kept doing it this way."
Kara, who also grew up on a dairy farm in Clearbrook, Minn., even lends a hand on the farm by helping feed the cows and calves in the morning.
Deb works mainly now with the bookwork and finances on the farm.
David and Deb's youngest son, Devin, also has an interest in the farm and is home this summer helping out before heading back to college.
"We don't know what his plans are yet," Deb said. "He does like the farm, though."
"It's nice they are interested in it," David said.
Looking towards the future, Doug has talked about milking in a parlor and possibly putting up a dry cow facility.
"There are no set plans yet," David said. "The parlor might be more for the next generation."
"We love working with family," Deb said.
"We get input, but we don't have to make all the decisions," David said.
After 100 years, the Waldvogels are still proud to be dairy farming and hope the farming tradition continues for several more generations.
"We hope it keeps going," David and Deb said. "We can look back and say we did it. The perseverance paid off."
"We have a healthy farm and family," David said. "The cows have kept us going and busy along with our children and five grandchildren with the sixth due this fall. We are so blessed and thankful."
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