The Farmer Body Workout

It's summer, and we all want washboard abs and muscles to go with our farmer tans. But have you have felt like the girls in the barn are just out to ruin your summer workout plan? "Oh, you wanna work out?" says Bessie the milk cow, "Guess I'm going to have a baby JUST when you're getting ready to leave. No abs for you, Farmer Ted!"

Well does the Cow Chronicler have a solution for you! Developed with the help of my personal trainer/not-so-little little brother, I have a work out plan that you can do at home on the farm!

ARMS

We all complain about carrying the watermelon up the front stairs. Instead of whining, turn that hard-to-carry melon of goodness into an extra "oomf" during your squat routine! 

Down.....

...and up!

Those kittens are adorable until they won't leave you the heck alone. Use these balls of fluff as an extra weight to push you even harder through that one push up. (Cause let's be real, you're not going to make it past one push up with cats on your back). Now do some bicep curls until one bites you. A calf has probably gotten loose somewhere on the farm at this point anyways.

LEGS

Fighting with a sibling about who's feeding calves tonight? Squat out the anger kids.

.....squat it out





















.............Worked for Karate kid, didn't it?

  

Wanna be the fastest wheel barrow driver in the 4H barn this year? Give this one a try... Just don't throw your back out.... and watch out for those meddling kittens who like laughing at your struggle.









That bag of sawdust? Do a few lunges with it. Grunt like it weighs 50 pounds... people won't think you're as tough if they know how much it actually (doesn't) weigh.

  

ABS & CARDIO

Nobody's using the tractor? Good, because you and your workout partner are going to use it to get that to get that 6 pack that you can't buy at the local beer distributor. 

Do your show heifers need to lose a little weight too? You know what, do it together. It's like the new version of halter breaking, except... not at all.

Now get up off that tractor and go get that farmer body you've been dreaming about!

Milk... Just Drink It

 

If there's one thing I've realized through use of social media, it's that people want to be offended. That even includes myself, as I thrive off of battling false information. However, it will constantly blow my mind that people can turn one thing into something else so absurd. For example: milk. Milk catches a lot of heat for being "bad" when in reality, it is truly one of nature's most perfect foods.

A blog called What Not To Eat: 15 Unhealthiest Foods On The Planet was sent to me, and some of the items listed I can totally agree with; having a candy bar after each meal and several sodas (diet or regular) on a daily basis isn't going to make you live forever. However, #8 is when my face went from normal to a cherry tomato.


8. Cow's Milk

When you drink a glass of milk, you may be consuming more added extras than you bargained for. Non organic livestock are routinely administered antibiotics and growth hormones, traces of which are regularly found in milk. But that isn’t the worst of it.

Due to the sheer volume of milk each animal is expected to produce, many go on to develop udder infections. This means that pus leaches into the milk. In tests, one liter of Californian milk was shown to contain 298 million pus cells.


Oh. My. God. Really, again with the antibiotics and milk pus? LOLZ (a term meant to express anger, sarcasm, and laughter all in one word.... the Y generation is weird). Let me break this down for you, and let you know what's REALLY going on with milk.


"When you drink a glass of milk, you may be consuming more added extras than you bargained for. Non organic livestock are routinely administered antibiotics and growth hormones, traces of which are regularly found in milk. But that isn’t the worst of it."

1. First off, farmers administer antibiotics to help sick cows. Kind of like when your kids/family/friends/whoever you care about is sick and you want to help them... you give them medicine. When cows are administered antibiotics, it is done so that there will be NO traces of the antibiotics in the milk product that you'll be consuming. Just ask the FDA and USDA. It's like, the law guys.
2. Hormones, hey guess what, they're a normal thing. They will be found in milk that has been produced by any cow on this planet (not much research on cows not on planet Earth, unfortunately). Farmers will use hormones to help cows increase their feed/production efficiency, allowing less cows to make more milk, decreasing the carbon footprint (isn't that what you people want?). And in NO way does it change the quality of milk or harm the cattle or human consumer. In fact, you can't even tell in a milk test if there are "added" hormones. That's straight science, yo. And ladies - you'll be drinking the whole farm by the time you match the hormones in that birth control you're taking ;-) #RealityCheck

"Due to the sheer volume of milk each animal is expected to produce, many go on to develop udder infections. This means that pus leaches into the milk. In tests, one liter of Californian milk was shown to contain 298 million pus cells."

1. There will be cows who get sick, and that's just life. One of the biggest concerns for a dairy farmer is that his cows will face a disease called mastitis. Cows udders are cleaned and checked for this disease EVERY TIME they are milked. If there is a case of mastitis, they're milked last after all of the healthy cows and the milk does NOT go into the milk supply. It is obtained separately and then properly disposed of.
2. Before milk is collected and shipped to milk plants, it is tested to meet several health requirements. If the bacteria count is too high, or there is ANYTHING wrong with the milk, it does not make it to a milk processor or to the consumer at all.
3. A farm isn't a factory plant. We can't tell a dairy cow "Hey Bessie, you better up that number of milk cans or you can say bye-bye to line manager!" Dairy cows are provided with the nutrition, comfort and overall care that allows them to produce what THEY are capable of without putting their health in danger. Farmers are humans with hearts, you know.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is.... Nelly drinks milk, and so should you.