Riverview LLP

Our trip to Morris, MN was really wonderful. We were taken to the ROC center which is a building owned by the university for dinner and to meet our hosts. From there the choir was taken to the new school where we performed in a huge auditorium. Then to our hosts house for the night. Diane and I stayed with Randy and Lori Fehr along with their youngest daughter. Anni, Janell and Katy stayed with their other daughter and a few of the other young group sisters from Morris at their cabin on the small lake. When we asked Randy just how big is the small lake he replied, Oh its only about 800 acres. Randy told us a bit about the family business. His dad, brother and a few others of his family started Riverview LLP. Check out their website:
http://riverviewllp.com/
We were so interested we asked if he would give us a tour in the morning before breakfast. What we saw downright amazed us. The facility he took us to  milks 50,000 cows they have farms scattered all over Minnesota and Iowa. This wasn't any small family farm, they have 700 employees. Nothing and I mean nothing, not even the waste gets wasted. The manure is pumped into huge covered concrete pits where the methane gas is collected and made into electricity. Each of their manure digester generators produce enough electricity to completely run 5 houses each day.The liquid waste is squeezed out and knifed into the ground. Once the moisture is removed the by-product is fine, dry and soft and is used for bedding. 5 tankers of milk a day go out of this dairy and as the cows on this farm are a hybrid of 50% Jersey and 50%  Holstein most of this milk is used to make cheese.
Below are a few pictures of this amazing farm:

Above is one of the buildings that housed the actual milk cows and below is one of the buildings that housed the calves. Their calves are given an area to play in and a feed bunk that is always kept full. They are housed inside in a climate controlled area

 Above are the newborn calf huts. The calves are picked up each day and put in a hut where they are bottle fed until weaned on to dry food. Below is the milking parlor. A huge carousel. The cows line up to get on this ride, the ride takes 10 minutes to make a complete circuit. Each cow is cleaned, checked over, hooked up and milked.

 Below you can see the cows lined up waiting their turn and the cows getting off the ride at the end. The employee standing at the gate watches, if a cow is flagged that she has a problem he closes that gate and sends them down the ramp to the hospital.

Below is the hospital stocks and behind the sign through the door is the actual hospital. This farm keeps a lot of veterinarians on staff 24 hours a day. 

 The cows that are ready to calve are kept in pens near the hospital in case of trouble. Below is a cow that has just calved.

Below Randy is collecting some fresh squeezed manure out of the pipe to show us how dry it is and how it no longer smells. The conveyor belt in the background hauls it up to be dumped in a huge pile where some is used for bedding and some sold.

 Below are the manure digester generators

 We were late getting back for breakfast and didn't really get to see everything. The place is so big and amazing it was like the queen of Sheba telling Solomon, "the half has not been told!"
Lori had a wonderful breakfast waiting for us.

We made it to church in time and had a wonderful day worshiping together with the Morris church family. A really funny part of the weekend must be told. Diane's father-in-law lost his garment bag containing his suit. No one could find it or figure out where it could have gone. An announcement was made after the first service asking if anyone had seen it and no one had. Finally on the way home it was announced John's suit had been found in the people's house that kept Eva Jean in HER closet. She saw the garment bag but thought it was just an extra suit of her hosts. Of course when we reached Peoria at 1:30am we needed to frisk Eva Jean.
It was hard to get out of bed this morning. The foals were checked on, the horses fed and stalls cleaned. We have a purebred Friesian mare coming in for breeding today. The owner called to report the mare is in season now and wants to use Valiant. Gem could be checked today but I don't want to have Dr. Hoerr out as none of our mares are ready for an ultrasound. We will need to wait a couple of days. There is a lady coming this afternoon to see Ribbon's filly.