Our herd was meant for us.

I have been traveling the past few days through northern Iowa into Minnesota. It's been awhile since my husband and I have traveled anywhere. In fact it's been almost a year. Our last trip was to Illinois to buy our herd. We were so excited and so nervous. We found them in an ad in the Spokesman. They had been milked on a farm near Peoria, Illinois. They were milked by a man and his wife. The man's wife suddenly died and the man was so distraught that he couldn't continue to milk and take care of them. His friends stepped in and sold his whole herd to a broker. The cows were trucked several hours in May of 2008 to an auction barn where they stayed until we purchased them. I don't know why the broker kept them so long. He had a milking facility at his business and he and his wife continued to milk the cows. The previous owner's only request was that they be sold as a herd. Finally, in mid-August, the broker put an ad in The Spokesman. We were almost finished our brand new facility. We were nervous about finding a herd. We didn't want to look too soon because if we found one, we might not be finished and the alternative to that was that we would be finished and not have any cows to milk.
Anyway, we traveled 4 hours to Illinois. We arrived in time for the evening milking. We had no experience as dairy farmers. We had been milking intermittently with one of our dairy friends who gave us huge amounts of information on what to look for in a dairy cow. Our first impression was that they were not the herd for us. We were worried about a few cows who looked lame. We had almost no information on them. They had been preg checked by the broker's vet and we had delivery dates on them. But that was about it! We knew the amount of milk they put out because the broker had been milking them. After the evening milking, we felt better. They seemed to be such a gentle herd. By the next morning we decided to buy them. The broker agreed to keep them for another 3 weeks until the facility was completely finished. They arrived in two semi's on September 22, 2008. It was a wonderful and scary day..but that's another story!