Dairy's Working Youth

Grace Woitalla (third from left) is pictured with parents, Patty and Keith, sister, Abby, and uncle, Kurt.
Parents: Keith and Patty Woitalla
Employer: Keith and Kurt Woitalla
Woitalla Dairy LLC
Avon, Minnesota
125 cows
Senior at Holdingford High School
 
Tell us your favorite experience of Grace helping with chores. Keith: One of my favorite experiences about Grace helping with chores is watching her pick up new skills with running all sorts of equipment. She always learns new skills fast and always asks if she is doing it right and ensures a quality job. I can trust her in running machinery from hay production to tillage and most everything in between. Kurt: There have been many great experiences with Grace but one of my favorite is watching her be meticulous about cleaning and taking care of the animals. She has great attention to detail and always makes sure the animals are taken care of.
 
What qualities does Grace have that benefit the farm? Keith: Grace has many qualities that benefit our farm from working with the animals and helping in the fields. The biggest quality she has for me is that she is respectful to the machinery, and I can trust her in operating the machines. She always makes good decisions and always assures me she will do the best job possible. Kurt: Grace is always willing to help her dad or me whenever we need her. She always stays until the job is done and never leaves us hanging. Her attention to detail helps because I always know my animals and machines are being treated as best as they should.
 
What are your responsibilities on the farm? I have many responsibilities on our family dairy farm that spans from barn chores to fieldwork and machine maintenance. I help with day-to-day tasks such as maintaining a clean environment inside of our milking barns, mixing feed, feeding the animals and milking cows. I also help clean and bed other holding areas for our animals and monitor the animals for any ailments. Overall, I do all aspects of working with the dairy herd and the associated processes with running a dairy. For example, the fieldwork that I do includes tillage, cutting hay, raking forage products, hauling silage and gravity boxes, maintaining tractors and other machinery, and helping manage the rotations of crops in fields.
 
When did you begin helping on the farm? When my sister was born, I was 5. My dad would take me to the farm to give my mom a break. When I was that little, I would do small tasks like pushing in feed, picking eggs, getting the cows up for milking and feeding all of the calves. As I got older, I was given more tasks and responsibilities. By age 12 or so, I was milking, feeding and helping with most of the chores. At 14, I started doing fieldwork. My first task was raking hay. From there, I learned many types of fieldwork such as tillage practices, fertilizing and rotating crops, forage production and grain production. I am now almost 18, and I do every dairy chore and basically every field chore.
 
How do you balance school, extracurricular activities and farm chores? I am passionate about my education and always try my best to get good grades. This has made it easy for me to excel at school. My parents have always had a strict rule. I must have all of my homework done before I can help with chores or in the field. I am only in two extracurricular activities. I am the Holdingford FFA president and a Stearns County Dairy Princess. These organizations and programs support and promote agriculture and the dairy community. This makes it easy for me to be in these along with doing chores because I can use my experiences to help me be better in those activities. My parents are also supportive of me being in these programs and always want me to go to events and not worry about the farm. I am passionate about these programs, so I am lucky to have such supportive parents who push me to be my best and not hold back because of the farm.  

How has working on the farm shaped your character? Working on the farm has shaped my character in my ways. One of those ways is my work ethic and time management. I always like to plan out my days and make sure I get everything I wanted done. I also like having a clean facility for our animals, and I often scrape manure off the allies or tops so our animals stay healthy and hygienic. The biggest thing our farm has shaped me into is being a passionate advocate for the agricultural and dairy community. Through the two programs I am in, I am able to take all of my dairy and agricultural experience and show my support and skills to the community. Without the farm I would not be able to do the stuff I am doing now. So many of the skills I have or will learn will be kept with me for my life and make me a prosperous and successful adult.
 
What do you love most about farm life? Being able to work together as a family. My whole family has a common goal of having a successful dairy farm, and this makes it enjoyable to work with them because we are all looking for the same end goal. I also love being able to take my experience and educate people on how ethically run dairy farms are and how they are beneficial to our communities. My all-time favorite chore on the farm would have to be fieldwork. I like that I can be alone in a tractor but also be able to help my farm create quality feed and other products. Overall, I like every part of our dairy farm and am grateful for the opportunities it gives me and the feeling of accomplishment after a day’s work.
 
What is one thing you have learned from working alongside your family and your employer? From birthing a calf to maintaining machinery and how to rotate crops and so much more. The multitude of things I have learned from working with dairy maintenance, milking cows, calves and replacement heifers, and fieldwork is hard to describe. One of the biggest things I am grateful I have learned is the fieldwork aspect of the farm. When I started doing fieldwork, I started with just raking hay, but now I am helping with the whole process of cutting, raking, baling, transporting and wrapping. I love running machinery, and I am grateful my dad taught me how to run machinery.  

What are your future plans? To attend Ridgewater College in Willmar. I am planning on an associate degree in agribusiness with the specialization of either crop science or agronomy technology.