Wednesday at Grants Pass

The folks at Henderson's had installed the new front shocks and motion control units (MCUs) on Tuesday, and the rest of the parts for the rear axles had arrived late on Tuesday, so we knew that they should be able to complete the work on Wednesday. 

Gracie backed into the shop on Wednesday morning.

We decided to take the opportunity to go visit the Rogue Creamery, located a short distance out of town.

The farm stand and start of the tour.

Dwayne and I had toured this creamery back in 2017 (https://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2017/10/producers.html)... we mentioned that to the tour guide and she said that the tour had changed some... they don't allow folks to get as close to the animals. During COVID, they had to reduce contact, and they found that overall their animals (particularly the calves) were healthier... leading to a decision that it was better not to allow external folks to come into the barn areas.

Some of their cheese products

The Rogue Gold Dairy went out of business, but Rogue Creamery bought the rights to use the name and logos. We purchased a wedge of their "Caveman Blue" cheese to enjoy at home.

We could not go into the robot room but we looked through the window and saw one of the cows being milked.

Information signs provided more details -- I remember that when we were here before I was impressed by how much data they gathered and how it was used. Our tour guide this time told us that the milker "maps" the udder of the cow when it is first introduced to a new cow; the first "introduction" is accompanied by one of the herd managers to make sure that the cow doesn't get freaked out by this odd thing moving around her -- the notes on the board that I included above indicate that cows have 300° span of vision, only missing directly in front and in back. Each cow has a somewhat distinctly shaped udder with uniquely positioned teats. Once the robot "knows" a particular cow, it can attach more quickly and get her milked and on her way!

Inside the barn - there are different areas for cows in different stages of lactation...

The cows to the right are the currently active milkers.

This is the calving area. One of the cows had given birth a few days ago and she is still in there with her calf. The calf will eventually be removed to the nursery where it will be bottle fed and the cow will go into the active milkers. The cow on the right was due to calve at any time.

Grinding grain and hay to feed.

We got back to the farm store and looked around a bit. We decided to get lunch there -- grilled cheese with tomato soup - Yum! We got one of each of the sandwich options - they were both good -- the one with blue cheese was very distinctive and tasty!

A picture of the big barn with the cow-jumping-over-the-moon logo on top.

It was fun to share places in Grants Pass with Carl that Dwayne and I had visited a few years ago.