Morning Milking at a Champlain Valley Dairy

The lights come on in the milking parlor while the sky is still black. One by one the Holsteins amble in from the pasture, unhurried and familiar with the routine, and the steady rhythm of the morning milking begins — the same rhythm that will repeat that evening, and every morning and evening after.

Dairy is the backbone of Vermont agriculture and its most demanding discipline. Cows do not take holidays. Whatever else happens, they must be milked, fed, and cared for twice a day, every day of the year. It is a life measured in that unbending schedule.

The rewards are quieter than the workload. There is the satisfaction of a healthy, contented herd, and the pride of shipping milk that becomes the state's famous cheese and butter. There is also the plain beauty of cows on green grass under a Vermont sky. The farmer leaning on the gate at dawn has been up for hours already. By the look on their face, they wouldn't trade the view.