Door County

     Door County is on the peninsula that forms the "thumb" of Wisconsin. Green Bay serves as kind of the entryway to the county. It is long and narrow and is the home to several small harbor towns and several large dairy farms and orchards. The towns are artsy in nature and loaded with artisan shops selling things like hand made furniture, paintings, local brews, wines, and a wide variety of cheeses, fudge (no surprise), and olive oils. It is a major tourist destination and a place for Green Bay'ers to escape the heat.

     While driving on Highway 42 through Sister Bay, we came upon Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant.  Inside were all manner of things Swedish. The food was fantastic too! But notice the roof of the restaurant in the photo above. Those are goats on the sod roof. Seems many years back one of Al's "friends" played a prank on him and put a goat on his roof. Al turned that prank into a marketing gimmick and now there are usually five goats that hang out on the roof (weather permitting) all summer long.

     Wisconsin is know for its cheese and you can't really have cheese without cows. Just about a mile from our campground was a huge industrial dairy farm. Here you can watch them as they milk the 500 cows in the herd, 3 times a day, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!

     Not sure who or what makes the decision, but at some point the cattle line up in a pen outside of this room. They are funneled into a chute and enter the above contraption in single file. A computer chip around their neck helps the machine keep track of the individual animal. 10 at a time they march in and wait their turn. The guy in the middle cleans and sanitizes them, then hooks them up to the computerized milking machine. The machine tracks their output and when the output reaches some magic number, it disconnects from the cow automatically. When all 10 have been milked, the worker applies a sanitizer and balm to the teats. When finished he raises the barrier to the right of the cows (can't see it in the photo) and they file out of the area. The worker then turns his attention to the row opposite and repeats the process. Meanwhile he hoses down and cleans the line previously vacated and gets it ready for the next set of 10. This goes on 24/7/365! All of this milk is then sent to Land O'Lakes Creamery where it will become the butter or cheese or other milk product that shows up on your grocer's shelves.