Barn Full of Memories: Simon Wells

Simon Wells
Wells, Wisconsin

Within this feature the Dairy Star  catches up to retired farmers to talk about the ups and downs they had when dairy farming. The feature includes how each individual farm changed throughout the farmer’s career and what each has been doing since they hung the milkers up.

What year did you start farming and what year did you retire? I was farming for as long as I can remember. I started an FFA project in the early 1950s that evolved into our family’s beef herd. During that time, I started milking a small herd of Jersey cattle. I retired in the early 2000s. We sold some of our herd to farms in California, and my daughter, Annette Trescher, bought a few that she took into her herd. 

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 retired, I was milking 24 cows. I seldom milked more than 24. When we first started milking, the cows were crossways in the barn and we had wooden stanchions. Later on, we changed the barn completely. We took out the wooden stanchions and installed a barn cleaner and a pipeline. Those wooden stanchions were really well built. 

What were some of the big advancements you made during your career? One of the things that we started doing was contour strips for our crops. We did that to control erosion, and since then, we’ve been pretty much all no-till or minimum-till. In the milking barn, we completely revamped the setup. With the help of my dad, we built a milk house. That was a big change from carrying the cans that we used to. Not having to carry the milk anymore was a big deal. I was hauling milk and hauling canned milk for another fellow around here, so it was quite a bit different when we put the bulk tank in. 

What did you love about milking cows? My favorite thing about farming was my beef herd that I raised, but I did enjoy the Jerseys. They’re nice little animals. They didn’t get a lot of milk, but their test was high. They had a really nice temperament, unless you wanted to load them into a truck or something; then they weren’t as cooperative. 

What was the highlight of your dairy career? One of the highlights of my career was when we had the barn all fixed up, new and with the new milk house. It didn’t happen all at once, but it happened in a span of a few years. The new milk house and bulk tank and putting in the pipeline were really important. I was active with Associated Milk Producers Incorporated and was a delegate to their meetings. I got to do some traveling to their meetings in different cities around the country. We had a big meeting in Chicago and another in Kansas City, and there was a huge area in north Texas that was their bottling plant. We had the chance to observe the bottling process, and I hadn’t seen that before.

What is the biggest challenge you faced in your career and how did you overcome it?  One challenge I had was learning how to treat our animals. We had some battles with milk fever, and learning how to give a treatment of calcium in the jugular vein helped them recover and keep them going. I got pretty good at it and my neighbors even asked me to do that for them, for other cattle besides Jerseys. Learning how to keep them as healthy as possible was very important to me throughout my career.

If there is one thing you wish you could have done differently during your farming career, what would it be? I don’t think there’s much I would have done differently. We never got rich, but I’ve been pretty happy most of the time. A highlight for me was my beef cattle that I started as a project in FFA. When my kids were old enough, my daughter showed Jerseys a little bit, but basically all my kids showed beef cattle and some showed at some national shows. That was kind of a family vacation during those days. We’d load them up and head to wherever it might be in different states, and be gone for a few days. We were all together, and it was kind of a vacation for us. We had some great neighbor boys who took care of the farm while we went on those trips.

What piece of equipment or technology has been introduced that you wish you had for your dairy career? Our first tractor. My dad bought it in 1953, but the tractor itself was made in 1903. We’ve had it partially restored and now I have two or three collector tractors that I’ve bought that were popular back in that era. The advancements that have been made in machines now are amazing; it’s stuff that if you had told me was possible back in 1953, I would have thought you were crazy.

What do you miss most about dairy farming? I enjoyed seeing the cattle continue to grow up and our herd evolve. I enjoyed working with my cattle. We did a lot of showing and that was where I spent a lot of time with my kids. Having time with my family and all of us working the farm together and seeing our herd continue to move along was tremendous.

What advice would you give to a young farmer today? If you’re starting on a farm, it takes a bunch of money and a lot of commitment. The biggest thing is just to stick with it. There’s going to be some lean times, some lean years, but if you’re passionate about it, keep working through it and sticking to it. It’s a rollercoaster ride sometimes. Sometimes you have to hang on a little bit and see what happens.

What is your tie to the dairy industry today? My daughter is still actively involved in a dairy operation. She and her husband have a large number of Holsteins, but she got a few of my Jerseys at our sale, so it’s been neat to see her continue to have some of our Jerseys in her barn when I get to visit.  I’m still a big user of butter, milk and ice cream.

Was retiring an easy or hard decision/transition? Retiring was a fairly easy decision for me. I had been at it for 40 years and it felt like it was time. I started working at the Walmart distribution center in Tomah. When I started it was a lot of food storage. It was interesting to be on that side of the food distribution. Having been in the food production for as long as I was, it was really neat to see how the products were handled and distributed after they were created. It was just completely different than the actual farming, but still an important piece to help put food in stores and on people’s plates.

What have you been doing since you retired? Up until this last year, I was helping out with the farm work. I would help with the hay a little bit, raking when I was needed and just checking on the farm. My grandson took over the majority of the raking this year, and did most of the cutting, too. The beef cattle that my family raises are descendants of the herd that I started with my FFA project. I had also been active on the fair board. I was active with the fair and state association of fairs. I’ve been a fair person all my life, ever since I could walk. I got my first calf when I was 9 years old and was active or did something with fairs ever since.