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Summer Hammann, 17 years old
Senior at Barron High School
Parents: Scot and Becky Hammann
Triple H Holsteins and Jerseys
Barron, Wisconsin
Barron County
35 cows

Questions for parents:
Tell us your favorite experience of your daughter helping with chores. Watching Summer grow up on the farm. The kids have all been in the barn with us since they were born. Seeing Summer take responsibility and digging in when things need to be done as she has gotten older has been very rewarding.

What qualities does your daughter have that benefit the farm? Summer is dedicated and determined. She is hard working and usually the first one up. These are positive traits that help with chores, and she knows that many things need to be done.


Questions for Summer:
What are your responsibilities on the farm? My responsibilities on the farm include feeding calves, milking and taking care of the show animals. I feed about 12 calves on milk at a time and make sure all calves are grained, watered, healthy and bedded. We milk around 6 every morning and night, and I milk along with my mom. I also look after our show heifers, making sure they are on the right diets, taking them on daily walks and giving them daily baths.

When did you begin helping on the farm? I have been helping on the family farm since I could walk. Being born onto a family farm gave me a passion for farming right away. As I have grown older, my roles have changed from playing with cows and cats to slowly being able to do all the chores that need to be done.

How do you balance school, extracurricular activities and farm chores? Balancing school, extracurricular activities and farm chores can become challenging. I am in volleyball, hockey, soccer, FFA, 4-H, Junior Holsteins, National Honor Society and student senate. Balancing all of this with chores includes being organized, having good communication, a willingness to get up earlier and stay up later, and time management to do this all.

How has working on the farm shaped your character? Working on the farm has shaped my character by making me responsible with the responsibility of doing my chores every day I can. This has now led into the classroom with my homework and into my sports. I also have learned respect, patience, honesty, kindness and resilience with working on the farm. I definitely would not act or think the way I do without having the experience of growing up on a family farm.

What do you love most about farm life? The thing I love most about farm life is all the life lessons it has taught me. This lifestyle has shown me how lucky I really am to live a life like this. Many kids do not get to experience what it is like to grow up on a farm.

What is one thing you have learned from working alongside your parents? One thing I have learned from working alongside my parents is that hard work will take you places, and you can turn nothing into something. It will take time and strength and not always be easy, but the rewards mean more in the end.

What are your future plans? My future plans after I graduate are to attend either Chippewa Valley Technical College for animal science management or University of Wisconsin-Madison to double major in dairy science and agricultural business management in hopes to become a herdsman on a dairy farm.

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