“Despite advances in technology, breeding and feeding, Bob Muzzall says being a dairy farmer still requires a lot of faith.Muzzall would know. For most of his 79 years he’s been been raising and milking cattle and growing crops on his Whidbey Island dairy farm. It’s a tough life, a lot of work, Muzzall says. And if you can’t see through that to something better, it’s hard.As an example, Muzzall recalls a time several years ago when he and his family were clearing a new field. We were picking up stumps and rocks and brush and the kids said, ‘Gee dad this is endless,’ but all I could see was a cleared field ready to be planted, he says.That kind of vision and faith has sustained Muzzall and Muzzall Farms since his father Lyle bought a small patch of land in the Scenic Heights area in 1912. Over the years, the family has raised laying hens, turkeys, and always cows. It is one of a handful of dairy farms on Whidbey that has survived and thrived over the years as dozens of others have shut down. Today, the farm has grown to include150 acres, and another 150 acres of leased land – much of which commands an expansive view of Penn Cove. Muzzall Farms encompasses four houses, outbuildings, several stall barns (or cow bedrooms – Bob’s term), a milking parlour and several fields that sustain vegetable-seed crops, crops for feed, chickens and about 125 Jersey and Guernsey cows.At 79, Bob Muzzall has turned over the management of the farm to his son Ron, but he stays busy caring for and feeding calves and younger cows not ready for pasture.Weather-tan, trim and slightly stooped, he has the hard hands and ropey, muscled forearms of a man who’s earned his living working with them. The work has also left him with the constitution of a much younger man. His main transportation around the farm is an old 10-speed bicycle, and a recent mishap with a table that required dozens of stitches only kept him from work for two days.A typical day on a dairy farm begins at about 5:15 a.m., Muzzall says. Its starts in the milking parlour, amid machines and hoses that automatically milk cows that stand on an elevated U-shaped concrete platform.Work stops for a big breakfast at about 8 a.m., then it’s back out to finish milking and clean the equipment and parlour. After lunch, there are crops to tend, stalls to clean, fences to mend and a myriad of other chores to get done. Dinner comes around 5 p.m., then comes another round of milking and cleaning that usually takes about two hours.Two advances have made the work easier over the years, according to Muzzall.Electricity and hydraulics were the best thing that ever happened to farmers. It’s very mechanized now, he says. When I was a youngster, a farmer and a boy could handle 20 cows without help. When I was farming, I was running 50 cows. Now, we have 125 cows. We still do the same thing, only in greater proportion.Mechanization on the Muzzall farm is represented by the automatic milking machines, trucks, front-end loaders, hay mower-conditioners, forage choppers, high-dumps (which look like mini-silos on wheels) and a large and well-outfitted shop and tool room.With all the gear he uses, a farmer also has to be a mechanic, Muzzall says. One, it would cost a small fortune to call in a repairman every time something broke down. Two, the nearest town with any selection of farm machinery and parts is Mount Vernon, almost an hour’s drive away.The family installed an irrigation and sprinkler system in 1972, which has also made a big difference for the better, Muzzall says.There’s a problem though, he adds. There’s been so much development and so many more wells dug that we get salt water intrusion in the water table and we have to quit irrigating in September.Another obstacle to farmers can not be mastered by machinery, according to Muzzall.We are so entirely dependent on God for weather, he says.In the winter, a hard freeze can kill an increasingly profitable vegetable seed crop, and a prolonged summer rain can ruin hay and silage, like alfalfa and grass, which is used for feed for the animals.You cut forage and hope for a week of good weather, but rain can spoil $1,000 worth of forage in a couple of days, Muzzall says, adding that Tuesday, his son Ron was trying to determine the weather in order to cut hay.But the real cash crop on Muzzall Farms walks around on four legs.The Muzzalls move their cows to a different pasture every two days to ensure they have a constant supply of green grass. They also keep their milking parlour restaurant clean to ward off diseases like Mastitis, an infection of the animal’s mammary system which can render milk unmarketable or even prove fatal. It’s a constant battle to keep everything clean, Muzzall says. To keep cows in dry, warm conditions and to clean the equipment to milk them.The production of milk has increased tremendously over the years, Muzzall says, because of upgrading cattle through breeding and learning how to produce high-quality feed. There’s not as many dairies in the region as there once was, but factoring in technology, We’re producing as much milk as when we had 60 or 70 dairies.These days, much of the milk Muzzall’s Jersey and Guernsey cows produce goes to making Dairy Gold cheese and butter, due to its high fat and protein content.But market conditions and fluctuating prices can still hurt a dairy farmer, even if he’s done everything right.The price varies due to production, Muzzall says. Sometimes we kill ourselves. We have a good price for milk and everyone adds a few cows and we flood the market and the price drops.Muzzall credits his son Ron with helping the farm stay current and competitive in today’s market.Ron Muzzall, who earned an agricultural mechanization degree from Washington State University, stays current with the latest findings for everything from choosing the right fertilizer, choosing and mating cows for best production and durability, and determining the right mix of grain to mix with the forage the Muzzalls grow.He also says his wife, Evee, has been a huge factor in the farm’s success.A good wife is the most important thing. She takes care of the kids, the house, works the farm … and if she isn’t happy, it just doesn’t go well.The farm wasn’t paid for when he bought the land, but Muzzall never needed to take a job in town.My hopes were to pay for the farm, have my kids go through school and have a dollar, he said. ‘And we did. We put all the kids through school, got the farm paid for and I’ve even had a buck in my pocket when prices were good.Muzzall said his other main objective was to be a good steward of the land, to leave it in much better shape, ecologically, than he found it.Muzzall, who has been conducting walking tour of the farm, stops on a rise and looks west in the direction of the Olympic Mountains. If he has any regrets, he says, it’s that he’s stayed so busy on the dairy farm he never got around to do as much camping and hiking in the mountains as he would have liked.But that’s OK, he adds, because he was able to introduce his children, Mike, Maura, Robbie and Ron, to camping and hiking and they’ve inherited his love of the outdoors and open spaces.Besides, he considers the lifetime he’s spent working for a living on a farm as time well spent.I love it, he says. It’s a way of life that is great. And it’s the greatest place in the world to bring up kids.——————–Farming factsHours: Eight-to 16-hour days, depending on the season, seven days a week.Salary: Varies. Bob Muzzall says a moderately successful dairy farmer can clear about $30,000 per year. However, that’s after meeting expenses which include electricity, feed, fertilizer, equipment, mechanical repairs and extra labor in the summer, which can add up to as much as $250,000 per year. Feed alone can account for half the expenses.Benefits: Free produce, milk and eggs and plenty of fresh air and exercise.Conditions: Long hours and strenuous outdoor and indoor labor in all seasons.Dress: Appropriate for the weather and working conditions. Blue jeans, chambray shirts and heavy leather shoes are staples for Muzzall.Requirements: Ability to handle and care for animals, equipment. Mechanical knowledge necessary. Carpentry knowledge very helpful. Ability to study, plan for and react to market and weather conditions; plan long-range; determine most productive stock, feed, fertilizer to use. Agricultural degree and ability to utilize Internet helpful.Experience desired: Definitely, but not essential if you own the farm and have a lot of money.Equipment: Depends on the farm but Muzzall’s includes front-end loaders, tractors, hay bailers, mower-conditioners, plows and disks, trucks, forage choppers, high-dumps and a large shop/tool room.”