Today we visited Shatto Dairy and Schweiver Orchards. The first stop at Shatto Dairy was not at all what I had in mind. I’ve been to a few dairies, but Shatto Dairy was impressive. They run over 300 head at their dairy and they spend Tuesday through Saturday giving tours of their operation to the public. We had the chance to see the inside of their milking parlor and milk a cow by hand ourselves!
Shatto Dairy is known for their many flavors of milk. Some including banana, cotton candy, chocolate and root beer. In fact, their root beer flavored milk was awarded number one in the nation. Very cool! My favorite was the cookies and cream flavor. Yum! They also made ice creams and cheeses, as well as cute cooking and clothing apparel. After tasting the milk and cheese we took a special tour to the cow barns where they showed us how they feed and manage their dairy cows. Of course we stopped by all the calving huts to pet the babies. How could we not?! The overall tour was very different from other dairies I’ve visited before and I’m glad, because it’s always cool to see new things and of course the flavored milk was a must see.
The second stop was at Shweiver Orchards. This was my favorite stop of the day because our tour guide was the owner of the orchards and he was very personable as well as interested in the West’s agricultural practices. Some students on the trip come from tree farming backgrounds so it was really cool to listen as they shared different farming techniques with him. We took a tour of a smaller portion of his farm and it turned out that it was not simply an apple orchard. They harvest apples, pumpkins, vegetables, peaches, multiple berries, corn, soybean and christmas trees! It was a really incredible operation. To top it all off the small farm we toured, in a couple weeks they will be giving hay rides, open their pumpkin patches and mazes to the public. They had their hands full, no doubt.
After both tours we ate lunch and then took a little side detour to Kansas City. We went to the American Royal, which is a national show convention for livestock. We watched the National Quarter Horse show for a little bit and then looked at the Kansas City Livestock Exchange building. Kansas City is full of history in regards to agriculture livestock marketing. To end the day we enjoyed some famous Kansas City BBQ. The food was outstanding! Tomorrow we head to our final destination, Omaha!
Until we meet again.
