Students soak up every drop of dairy knowledge
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Bringing milk, cheese and ice cream to the dinner table is a labor of love, K. William Harvey Elementary students learned last week in a tour of Shock’s Mission View Dairy.
The annual field trip has been going on for more than 15 years, but it never gets old, according to dairy operator Greg Schock and schoolteachers who return year after year.
“It’s our favorite field trip of the year,” teacher Crystal Cornwell said. “They do a great job and are wonderful hosts. The kids look forward to it all year. They love the tractor ride. They love the calves. They love the butter.”
In different stations the students learn about varying aspects of farm life and the dairy business.
“A few years ago we had a group of 70 and out of that group only one person lived on a farm,” Schock said. “It shows where your food comes from.”
Getting exposed to life on a working dairy is becoming a rarity in a part of Montana where it used to be an everyday part of life.
“When I came back to farm in 1976 there were 45 dairies in Lake County, 40 dairies in Flathead County and about 40 in the Bitterroot,” Schock said. “There is only one now in Flathead County … there are four of us left in Lake County and three or four in the Bitterroot.”
The Schock’s dairy has around 100 cows. Every other day a truck retrieves around 1,400 gallons of milk that comes from milking twice per day, at 1 a.m. and 1 p.m. Local cheese producer Flathead Lake Cheese also accesses the milk for their artisan cheese business in Polson.
The grind of farm work comes with perks, Schock explained. Regular encounters with cute calves, grizzly bears, deer and elk abound. Some of the kiddos got to get a taste for the wildlife when a large herd of elk streaked across a nearby pasture as their bus arrived at the scene.
But one of the biggest benefits Schock said the farm life has given him is the opportunity for him and his wife, Paula, to raise five children who grew up with their grandparents also on the farm. Most of the time when heavy-duty work is being done on the farm, all three generations are involved somehow. The dairy was originally purchased by Schock’s father, Walt, in 1956. At 87 years young, Walt still keeps the younger members of the family on their toes.
“I wish I had half as much ambition as he does,” Schock said. “He had his hay irrigated before I even got my sprinkler turned on.”
Walt spent the day teaching kids how butter was made, letting the youngsters shake small jars of milk until it curdled.
“We might have to keep you here the rest of the day,” Walt joked to young Autumn Cunningham, who kept on shaking long after the rest of her classmates grew bored or tuckered out.
Even through light rain, the children were happy as they played and learned.
“It’s a great day,” Schock said.
