Where the milk comes from - Laggis Farm, East Hardwick, VT

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:35]Good morning, America. Put the coffee on and let's wake up. Get moving. Gosh, it's a gorgeous day on the outside. Tons of sun. Digital forecast coming up. But first, traffic.

[00:00:47]>> Mom, there's no milk.

[00:00:50]>> Oh, George, didn't you remember to bring the milk home last night?

[00:00:54]>> No, I forgot. Just went by the store. I forgot it was Leah is tired.

[00:00:59]>> Sorry.

[00:01:00]>> I need milk for my cereal. Dad, >> George, I'm changing the baby. Could you please go get the milk?

[00:01:07]>> I'll go get the milk. I'll go get the milk. I'll be right back. I'll get the freshest milk I can find.

[00:01:54]Come on, baby.

[00:01:58]William.

[00:02:02]Hey. Hey.

[00:02:38]Heat. Heat.

[00:02:59]That's what Hi everybody. Welcome to Top View Farm.

[00:03:23]This is a two family farm and this land has been farmed for more than 100 years.

[00:03:28]We have a lot to do today. So, let's get your barn boots on and follow me. We have only one rule here on the farm, and that's that you need to stay close to me because there's a lot of heavy equipment here, and it can be dangerous. You may not know how much work goes into making milk now, but by this afternoon, you will. Here in Vermont, the winters are long and the summers are short, so we work all summer harvesting crops and storing them for the cows to eat in the winter when the grass doesn't grow. Do you know what cows like to eat? Heat.

[00:03:57]Heat.

[00:04:28]It's breakfast time now for the cows.

[00:04:30]So, we make them a mix of grass and corn silage, hay and grain. It doesn't look good to you or me, but the cows think it's great.

[00:05:06]Every day, 365 days a year, starts and ends with chores. The cows need to be milked. The animals need to be fed. And of course, the barn needs to be cleaned.

[00:05:38]Our cows like a really clean barn, so we use a skid steer to scrape the manure out of the barn and into a manure spreader.

[00:05:59]We recycle cow manure by spreading it on our fields where it makes the grass grow tall and healthy.

[00:07:47]Hey, there's Kala. She's our incredible diving dog. If you throw rocks into that pond, she'll dig them out for you. While we make hay, she plays all day.

[00:08:52]A farmer's day starts before the sun comes up, so lunch never comes early enough. On beautiful days like today, we try to get the family together for a picnic lunch.

[00:10:18]I don't know, Jeff. Heat. Heat.

[00:10:59]When the grass is tall enough and the weather forecast is for three sunny days in a row, it's time to start haying.

[00:11:07]We begin by mowing the grass with a disc mower.

[00:11:12]Heat. Heat.

[00:11:34]Heat. Heat.

[00:11:43]Heat.

[00:12:04]Heat.

[00:12:22]After we're finished mowing the grass, we ted it. The tedar spreads the grass out so that it can dry in the sun.

[00:13:01]Heat.

[00:13:12]Heat.

[00:13:22]Heat.

[00:13:45]Heat.

[00:13:48]Heat. Heat.

[00:14:26]Once the grass dries, it becomes hay and gets rad into wind rows for the bor to pick up.

[00:15:01]Heat. Heat.

[00:15:51]Now that the hay is ready, it's time to make bales. The balor picks up the loose hay and makes it into rectangular bales, and the kicker tosses them into the hay wagon.

[00:16:14]Heat. Heat.

[00:16:23]Heat. Heat.

[00:17:02]If a field is too small or too steep, we unhitch the hay wagon and let the bales fall on the ground. We'll pick them up later with a pickup.

[00:17:11]Heat. Heat.

[00:19:09]Remember this morning when we were making breakfast for our cows?

[00:19:20]This is how we make the grass silage that we use in that mix.

[00:19:26]The chopper takes the newly moaned grass and chops it up. Then it blows it into a high dump. When the high dump's full, it gets dumped into a dump truck that takes the grass silage back to the barn where it gets stored in a bunker. Heat. Heat.

[00:20:00]Heat.

[00:20:26]Heat.

[00:21:10]Now that the day's harvesting is done, it's back to the barn for evening chores.

[00:22:01]This is what all our hard work is for.

[00:22:04]Each of our Jersey cows eats more than 30 pounds of grain and silage and drinks 40 gallons of water to make about 90 cups of milk a day.

[00:22:18]To begin milking, we clean and sanitize the cow's teeth.

[00:22:37]Next, to get the milk started, we gently strip out each of the four teeth.

[00:22:58]When they are all clean and ready, we put on the milking machine.

[00:23:04]It has a gentle suction on each teeth.

[00:23:06]Now, you might think that this would bother the cows, but our cows really love the attention they get while they're being milked.

[00:23:15]It only takes about 3 to 5 minutes to milk each one of our cows, but it takes almost 3 hours to milk all 250.

[00:23:23]The milking machine takes the milk from the cow directly to our bulk tank where it stays nice and cool until the milkman comes to get it. Once the cow is through milking, the milking machine automatically shuts off. And then it's time for the cows to leave and go back to the barn or the pasture.

[00:23:59]Every other day, the milk truck driver comes to our farm to pick up our milk.

[00:24:09]>> Dean opens his truck, takes out his hose, and he fits it through a small hole in the side of our barn that goes into our milk room.

[00:24:17]Then he plugs his milk pump into our barn so that it can suck the milk out of our bulk tank into his truck.

[00:24:48]Every time he visits our farm, he takes two samples of milk from our bulk tank.

[00:25:03]He uses these samples to test our milk to make sure that it is of the highest quality and nutritious so that when products like cottage cheese, ice cream, cheese or milk are made from our milk, they taste wonderful when you buy them in the store.

[00:25:41]We love our life on the farm and we work hard to make sure that we can be proud of the milk we make for you. We have even won awards for our high quality milk.

[00:25:57]Dean hooks up his hose to our bulk tank >> by screwing it on to the outtake valve.

[00:26:07]But before he turns on his pump, he has to measure exactly how much milk is in our bulk tank so that he knows how much to credit us for.

[00:26:19]To do that, there's a calibrated stick that goes into our bulk tank that has tiny lines on it that tell him how many gallons or pounds of milk are in our bulk tank before he pumps it into his truck.

[00:26:43]It only takes a few minutes to pump thousands of gallons of milk from our bulk tank into his bulk truck.

[00:27:08]And when he's all done, he shuts off the pump, closes up the hose, and he puts it back into his truck.

[00:27:18]>> This is the end of the milk's journey on our farm. But it's only the beginning of the milk's journey before it gets to you. Heat. Heat.

[00:27:55]Now Dean takes our milk to be unloaded at the milk plant. That's where it gets made into the dairy products you buy at the store.

[00:28:05]That's the end of our tour today. We're sure glad that you stopped by Top View Farm. And we hope that the next time you go to the store to buy dairy products, you'll remember our family farm and where the milk comes from.

[00:28:45]up.

[00:28:47]The one here.