Barn full of memories: Dan Bemboom

What year did you start farming and what year did you retire? I started farming in 1982 and I retired in 2007. I was forced to retire when I fell off the roof and broke my knee and leg. The cows were sold about a month after my accident.

Tell us about your farm when you started and describe what it looked like when you retired, including how many cows you milked when you retired. When I started, I had an Allis-Chalmers WD45 tractor with a trip bucket that I used to put silage on a pile because I didn’t have enough storage space. I had two round, steel corn cribs and a wooden corn crib and two 14- by 40-foot stave silos. I had 200 acres and milked 34 cows in a stanchion barn. By the time I retired, I had added onto the barn and was milking 50 cows. I also put in two maternity pens and was routinely milking 55 cows or so and had put up two Harvestor silos before I retired. After I retired, I bought 200 more acres and custom raised heifers and bull calves for a neighbor, Dennis Lezer.

What were some of the big advancements you made during your career? I built the Harvestor silos and bought more land, bigger tractors, a Bobcat and a four-wheeler.

What did you love about milking cows? Walking into the barn every morning and seeing the cows, knowing that my hard work and dedication paid off. I also enjoyed seeing the calves grow up and turn into good cows. I also enjoyed checking the maternity pens and seeing that the good man upstairs had left a beautiful calf in one of my maternity pens. Test day with the Dairy Herd Improvement Association was always a highlight as I got to see how many cows I had over 100 pounds of milk. The most I had at one time was nine cows.

What was the highlight of your dairy career? Getting my first cow over 30,000 pounds of milk, then getting my first cow over 250,000 lifetime pounds of milk. My farm was also recognized as a century farm in 2019. Having my son, Cole, show my first cow at the state fair was also a highlight. One of my favorite highlights is when my daughter brought a Brown Swiss crossbred heifer to the county fair, and they told us we could not show her since she was not a Holstein or Brown Swiss. When the head of the Benton County Fair heard of the situation, he created a crossbred class so we could show. It then became a class at the state fair, so we could show that heifer at the state fair, too. It is now one of the biggest classes at the state fair.

What is the biggest challenge you faced in your career and how did you overcome it? Working for Morton Buildings Inc. I thought I could earn a little extra income. But I was getting up at 4 a.m. and milking cows, then going to work, then milking cows again when I got home. I wouldn’t get to bed until 10 or 11 p.m. That really took a toll on me, trying to work and farm at the same time. Another challenge was not enough calf shed space or feed storage when I started out. I later built more calf barns and silos for feed storage.

If there is one thing you wish you could have done differently during your farming career, what would it be? I wish I had built a parlor; bending down all the time took a toll on my body. I had two back surgeries, two rotator cuff surgeries, a broken finger, a broken wrist, a broken leg, and a broken arm, and both of my ankles are fused. I have a plate and a rod in my knee, too. I also wish I had built the sheds and the Harvestors and bought the Bobcat years earlier, but money was tight.

What piece of equipment or technology has been introduced that you wish you had for your dairy career? I wish they had come up with grid sampling, auto steer and GPS sooner; that would have been great to use. Cell phones would have been nice too, instead of always running to the house to check the land line if I had any missed calls.

What do you miss most about dairy farming? The cows. I liked seeing how many Excellent cows I could develop. I also enjoyed seeing all their different personalities and dispositions.

What advice would you give to a young farmer today? Try to find a farmer who is close to retiring and work with him or her to work your way into the farm. It is so hard for young farmers to get started today.

What is your tie to the dairy industry today? I have two grandchildren who live close by and we lease dairy cattle from the Spencer Hackett family. The Hacketts bring over 20 head of prospect heifers and they spend the summer on my pasture. Together, his grandkids and my grandkids show the animals at different shows. I also donate hay to our county’s state fair dairy kids.

Was retiring an easy or hard decision/transition? When I retired, I wasn’t ready, so it was really, really hard. I couldn’t do much with a broken leg so even though I didn’t want to, I had to sell. I had a 25,000-pound herd average for milk when I sold out. I had quality awards from my creamery several years. The cows were like kids to me. I fed everything with a wheelbarrow, and so I was constantly with the cows. When I broke my leg, my kids milked the cows in the morning before school and my brothers did chores during the day, but it got to be too much for all of us.

What have you been doing since you retired? Since 2015, I have a beef herd of 30 cow-calf pairs and I still farm the land. I go to a lot of my grandkids’ activities and games in addition to training and showing dairy heifers with the Hacketts.