Dear Friends of Sunnivue,
There is more wonderful news to report from the barn at Sunnivue: when the classifier visited recently, he found yet another Sunnivue cow - Hazel - to be excellent, and two more were newly classified very good. Ellinor’s hard work, skill, and good judgment continue to be evident in these results and in the high esteem in which the Sunnivue barn is held.
This week Ellinor will be spending some time at the Canadian Holstein Convention which is taking place at the Western Fair Grounds in London. A cow jointly owned by Sunnivue and Medway farms is consigned to the elite sale at the convention, and her mother Loretta is pictured, with head held high, in the brochure for the convention and the catalogue for the sale. Loretta is the same individual who previously brought fame to Sunnivue in the Walk of Fame at the CNE.
During the convention, Ellinor will take advantage of the opportunity to tour other local dairy farms by bus. She will take with her Anselm, a 16-year-old German visitor who is helping out for several months at Sunnivue and who has developed a strong interest in the dairy herd.
For the rest of us, whose knowledge of dairy cows is at a more elementary level, there will nonetheless be opportunities to learn more. We are expecting that the speaker at this year’s annual general meeting of ROSE will be Jenny Butcher, a field representative at Organic Meadow, the producers’ coop to which Sunnivue belongs. Jenny has spoken enthusiastically about the "exemplary animal husbandry" at Sunnivue, and she will be able to help us understand what this means and what the classifiers are looking for when they judge the cows.
The AGM - to which everyone is cordially invited - will coincide with this year’s opening of the farm store, on Saturday, June 7. Please mark that date on your calendar. By then the snow will be gone - surely! - and we can look forward to the very special early fruits of the summer harvest.
With best wishes,
Sally (for Sunnivue Farm)