A day in the life of the Klinkners

VIROQUA, Wis. — A roaring engine starts the day on the Rob and Gail Klinkner farm Sept. 15 near Viroqua. The sound is not made by one of the International Harvester tractors in the shed, but by a yellow school bus in the yard.

Rob is the driver of the vehicle owned by the De Soto Area School District. After he drives students to school and Gail returns from taking their three youngest children to school, the day on the farm begins. The Klinkners currently milk 43 cows in a tiestall barn. Fifteen others are due to freshen within the next two months, which will fill the barn.

Rob and Gail milk their herd together in the mornings. They discuss plans for the day and the weekend as the Klinkners are active with the Vernon County Fair that was set to take place that upcoming weekend. Their daughter, Rubi, attends Viroqua High School and is a member of the volleyball team that was scheduled to take on Black River Falls that night.

The first milkers were hung at 8:30 a.m., as the Klinkners’ second-oldest son, Garrison, maneuvered around a clipping chute to wheelbarrow in a total mixed ration to the milk cows.

“We have a good flow between Gail and me,” Rob said. “It’s usually unspoken, but we both know how each other works and can anticipate what the other is going to do. Between the two of us, milking cows can usually go pretty quickly.”

Gail works slightly ahead, prepping the cows as Rob hangs the six milking units. Their herd includes both registered Holsteins and Jerseys. Scores from their most recent classification are reported in a sign above each cow’s stall.

The Klinkners take pride in the genetics of their herd and said they look forward to the opportunity to show them off at the Vernon County Fair. Their three youngest children would be showing a variety of livestock at the fair, including 12 dairy animals, five hogs and four sheep. They were also going to exhibit four head in the open dairy show.

“The fair has really been a big part of our lives,” Gail said. “I grew up going to the Vernon County Fair; our kids have all participated in the fair. This week is always one that is special to us.”

As milking finished, Gail began preparing bottles for the calves. The Klinkners currently have seven bottle calves housed in a calf shed just west of the milking barn.

As the wash cycle finished, Rob scrubbed the milkhouse with soapy water to ensure it was clean. Garrison dropped cornstalks from the haymow as he ran the barn cleaner to empty manure into the spreader.

“Today we want to bring some of our heifers back from the place we rent,” Rob said. “With the rain last night, we’ll go over there and see how muddy it is and if we can get the trailer backed up to where we need it to go.”

With Gail having an appointment for her vehicle, Rob drove his Dodge Ram truck down to the auto shop to pick her up before hooking up their gooseneck trailer and heading to the other farm. The rental that houses their heifers was formerly a rodeo practice facility, and the arena area sits between the entrance and where the heifers are housed.

Rob and Gail worked together to load 12 heifers to take to their pre-fresh facility near the main farm. The first load of eight took two attempts to load, with the second load of four hopping on the trailer on the first try.

“Over the years, you really understand how each other works,” Gail said. “We know what each other is looking for, and when the situation gets chaotic, you don’t take the shouting as personal as maybe you did when you were younger.”

After arriving at the next farm, Rob and Gail apply fly medication to each heifer as it embarks on a new pasture. They unplugged the electric fence to make some quick fixes to a new pasture.

“We have a couple of spots where some deer knocked down our fences,” Rob said. “They didn’t do much damage, but we need it fixed before we can let this group out there.’

Rob stood a post upright and fixed another area that had shorted before venturing into the cornfield north of the pasture. Plans for the day had included chopping corn to fill the silo, but an inch and a half of rain the night before rewrote the day’s schedule.

“We chopped about 40 acres yesterday and it was looking really good,” Rob said. “We’ll hit it hard this weekend if the weather holds. Today, I’ll level off the silo to make sure it’s ready for the acres we have remaining.”

As Rob walked back to the truck, the pre-fresh herd already spotted the opening in the gate and made their way through the open gate into 15 acres of green pasture.

After arriving back at the home farm, Rob recalled a heifer in heat. He handles the A.I. program and readied the equipment as Gail grabbed a halter. Together, they headed to the pens on the east side of the barn to sort the heifer.

“I always want to wait until the afternoon or evenings to breed,” Rob said. “It was something I learned when I went to short course in Madison and something that I’ll continue to do. Breeding is a lot of timing, and I want to hit that later window so the cattle don’t try to do too much throughout the rest of the day. The goal of that is to get more heifer calves, and it feels like that’s played out with our breeding decisions.”

In the afternoon, Rob took corn silage down to the heifers at their pre-fresh facility and moved the blower. He climbed the silo and leveled it off as they prepared to finish their corn silage within the week.

With the county fair beginning the next day, Rob also loaded up four calves and brought them back to the home farm as they readied their group of animals to take to the fairgrounds the next day. At 3:20 p.m., the alarm on his phone rang. That was the signal to fire up the yellow school bus parked behind the Klinkner Kountry Store, a farm-to-table store the family operates to sell frozen beef, pork, lamb and Westby Cooperative Creamery products.

After the evening bus route, Rob and Gail cleaned up as it was time to head to town for Rubi’s volleyball match. Rubi is a freshman on the volleyball team, playing junior varsity-2. The night would belong to Viroqua as Rubi and her team completed a 3-0 sweep of the visiting opponent. Rubi concluded the match by serving up seven consecutive points in the final game.

Following the match, the Klinkners headed back home, where evening milking and a batch of feed needed to be made. Final preparations were in order for the fair as the next morning would mark the first day of the annual event, bringing the family together with their neighbors as they celebrate their farms and their county.