Virtual Tour: Bron's New Job

Virtual Tour: Bron's New Job

• 6.08.2009

The Old Schoolhouse

BRIEF HISTORY:

William H. Miner was an entrepreneur and businessman. He and his wife, Alice, started the Heart's Delight Farm in 1903. At its peak, the farm had 15,000 acres and 800 workmen. The farm was unique in the way that it combined the latest sciences and technologies to farming. The Heart's Delight Farm even had pressured water and electricity before the governor in Albany. The farm had the finest cattle and horses. It produced grains, giant corn, maple syrup, and even had a fish hatchery among other commodities. Mr. Miner was convinced that farming was the most important occupation to human kind and made the Heart's Delight Farm a piece of paradise.

TODAY:

I traded a small family farm for a much bigger one! The property is no longer called The Heart's Delight Farm. Instead, it preserves its history and honors William H. Miner with its dedication to research and science to better agriculture.

The old barn is awesome! It's no longer a milking parlor, but houses horses instead.

This red barn is home to heifers just waiting to grow up, calf, and join the other ladies in the milking barns. The cows here at the institute never graze and never go outside. Instead, they spend their entire life in climate-controlled barns and free stalls. The controlled temperature and lack of rain and snow make the cows better milk producers.

One big, long, barn full of bovine beauties ready to be milked three times a day.

Just further to the west is the milking parlor, connected to the barn.

The newest barn just west of the milking parlor. In it is one of Bron's projects.

The white boxes are called Calan gates. Each cow has a remote tied around its neck. Each of the remotes opens a specific gate and allows the cow to eat. Therefore, each cow has its own feeder and researchers can track, identify, modify, etc. the cow's diet. Now training a cow to learn to eat from its own feeder is another story.

These ladies are all expecting a calf sometime soon. There's a sensor in the barn that opens and closes the blinds automatically on the windows to keep the barn at a perfect temperature. There's even a breeze when the garage doors on both ends are open. Spoiled cows, huh?

That's our car in front of our duplex. Behind the car on the right hand side of the picture is the library. Just beyond that is the Miner Center where Bron has his own office. He can either eat at the cafeteria there or come home for lunch. It's really nice. He's just a stone's throw away from home!