[birds chirping]
- Trathen Cheek: Seeing a newborn calf, you...
From the time it's born to all its life,
you're its caretaker.
You feed it and you raise it and watch it
turn into the productive animal it is throughout its life.
And watching it have calves...
You know, watching all that go on, it's just rewarding.
Feels like you got purpose
or you're doing what you're supposed to do.
[calf mooing]
[upbeat bluegrass music]
Usually try to get out of bed about 4:30.
Get out.
Get ready to make sure to get the cows in.
Get them ready for morning milking.
And we usually try to start milking around 5:00.
Right now, that's taking 'til around 6:30-ish.
Do that, feed baby cows if we've got any to feed
at the time.
Then usually by 6:45, 7 o'clock we're working to load.
We'll start mixing feed for the dairy herd.
- Brandon Cheek: Some days, it is as hard as it looks,
but at the end of the day, you go home--or, I do--
and there still ain't nothing I'd rather do.
- Rodney Cheek: Started, my grandparents bought this place
in 1910, '11, somewhere in there.
And then my dad and his brother took it over in the late '50s
and they had commercial layers and beef cattle.
Well, then in '79, they helped me
get into the dairy business,
and we've been in the dairy business ever since.
So it's been about 42 years now.
- I know a lot of the farm.
Me and Brandon's the fourth generation on.
There's actually a piece of the farm
that we're the fifth generation on.
So that would throw our, mine and his kids, be in the sixth.
You watch 'em, watch how much fun they're having and you...
You can't really put a price on it.
It's this...
It's a good life for 'em.
You know, just to see 'em happy all the time.
The most upset mine is is when he can't be outside
'cause weather's bad
or he's got to go stay with a babysitter.
[milk splashing]
- Right now, we have the milk heating in the pasteurizer
to pasteurize it.
And while it's heating, I'm labeling these jugs
so that when it gets cool,
we'll run it through this bottler
and bottle it and put it straight in the cooler.
And then as the orders come in,
we'll take and deliver to the stores
what we have bottled up.
The problem with milk sales
is if you ever notice, they'll price milk cheaper
than what they buy it for to lose money on it
because if they can lure you in with a cheap milk price,
chances are before you get back out the door,
you're gon' buy several more products
that they're gon' make money on.
Well, the problem with that
is that also bankrupts us people producing it
because we can't sell it
for what it truly costs us to produce it.
It's a...
Every small farm I know, one spouse
is more or less the breadwinner
just to keep the small farms going.
- Yeah, I've said that about my wife several times,
that she works--
as a matter of fact, she holds down two jobs--
so I can keep farming.
Small farms is getting fewer and fewer
and harder and harder.
Seems like everything now is geared for larger farms,
and it's the little, small family operations
is getting tougher.
And then with the regulations and the way everything's went
in the dairy industry especially,
it's like they're trying to force the small guys out.
In 1979, Allegheny County had 110 dairies
and they was the number two dairy county
in the state of North Carolina, and now they have no dairies.
And it's that all over the state.
- Trathen: For me, ever since I could remember,
farming's all I ever had any real interest in.
You sort of feel you're called.
It's your calling or in your blood that you belong here.
That's just the best way I know to put it.
- There's a lot of people concerned about
what goes in food, whether it's safe to consume or not.
But the American farmer's busting their hind end
every day to provide food that's safe for everybody.
Just like the ice cream we make here,
I feed to my own kids,
so I want to make sure it's safe for everybody.
We ain't out to kill nobody or destroy the Earth
'cause that's how we're making our living.
- After we're done with the land
that's been granted to our care, we're hoping that
when we're done with it, it's in just as good of shape
and possibly better shape than it was when we started
for the next generation.
[ending guitar note]
[spoon playing] [upbeat bluegrass music]
- Announcer: Boonies is made possible
by the Watauga Economic Development Commission.
Also by First Security Insurance.