Dairy's Working Youth

Victoria Blonigen

Parents: Willy and Judy Blonigen

Employers:

Tell us your favorite experience of your daughter helping with chores. Our favorite experience with Victoria helping with chores was when she would toddle after her older siblings trying to help them. Also, even from a young age, when the vet had to come, she always had to be there. She loved watching the vet when they came to do things, especially a DA surgery. 

What qualities does your daughter have that benefit the farm? A quality that Victoria has that benefits the farm is that she is responsible. If we tell her something needs to be done, she gets it done. 

Youth:

What are your responsibilities on the farm? My responsibilities on the farm are feeding corn to calves and steers, feeding silage to heifers, scraping gutters and setting up units and milking cows. 

When did you begin helping on the farm? I have been helping on the farm for as long as I can remember whether it was riding in the tractor or attempting to push in hay with a little shovel. 

How do you balance school extracurricular activities and farm chores? Balancing school and farm chores isn’t easy. Most of the time I end up doing my homework after chores. I am in the Melrose FFA, and I am on the FFA officer team this year so I will do my chores before I leave to go do stuff for that. 

How has working on a farm shaped your character? Working on a farm has taught me responsibility for getting things done, and if it doesn’t get done, there are consequences for not getting it done. It has also taught me timeliness and knowing when to be out for chores and being out on time in the morning to start milking. It also taught me that the faster you do chores, the faster you get to go to the lake to cool off. 

What do you love most about farm life? One of the favorite things about farm life is working with and spending time with the animals, learning the different needs and unique qualities of each type of animal. 

What is one thing you have learned from working alongside your parents? Working alongside my parents has taught me that communication is a big part in life. If your communication is off, then cows get out and things go wrong. 

What are your future plans? My future plans are going to a two-year college. I don’t know for what yet, probably something with animals, but I’m not positive.