Family dairy farm part of Barn Tour

ELY — Step onto the Takes family farm in rural Ely, and you're not stepping back in time. The farm's barns — a milking parlor, cow barn and calf barn — were built in the late 1990s, when the family started raising dairy cows here.

But the farm is still part of an upcoming Johnson County Historical Society barn tour. Though most of the tour will focus on historic and restored barns and farms in Northeast Johnson County, the Takes farm is the start of a new chapter in Iowa's history of family farming — at least, that's what the family hopes.

Dan and Debbie Takes started raising and milking dairy cattle here in 1998. Now, three of their four grown sons are involved in the operation, along with their daughter-in-law Chelsea Takes, 29.

Her husband, Dustin, 30, also holds a full-time job as a firefighter in Cedar Rapids, but that doesn't stop him and Chelsea from helping Dan and Debbie milk the farm's 140 cows twice a day.

'I've grown up with it my whole life. It's just something I've always loved doing,' he says.

Sons Tyler, 27, and Riley, 20, are also involved in the farm. A fourth son, Troy, 32, lives in California.

Visitors on the barn tour will get a chance to see the cows being milked, and to see what a family farm — long an Iowa farming tradition — looks like today.

'They wanted to see a family group doing it — to see a working farm,' Dan says of why the Historical Society approached him.

Dan, 57, and Debbie, 56, bought the farm in 1983 and started milking in 1998. Debbie's parents were hog farmers, but Dan grew up in Cedar Rapids and only started farming after he and Debbie met.

'After I met her and started helping her folks on the farm, I knew it was what I wanted to do,' he says.

The farm will become even more of a family operation this fall, when the family opens a creamery on Main Street in Ely. The store, which has been given the tentative name Dan and Debbie's Dairy, will sell creamline milk from their farm, homemade ice cream and cheese curds. Daughters Josie, 25, and Tori, 22, will likely help with the creamery, Dan says.

For now, the family sells their milk to Swiss Valley. Opening the store will help them financially and help secure a farming future for their children, they say.

The farm isn't organic, but it is as local as one can get — along with the cattle, they farm about 500 acres of corn, soybeans and alfalfa, all of it going to feed their cows.

In their milking parlour, they can milk 16 cows at a time. Moving all 140 through is time consuming — they milk at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. and typically don't make it to bed until 2 a.m.

The cows each have names, like Boxer, BJ, Oakley or Jumpy. Debbie names them, starting when they're calves. Standing in the calf barn, which houses 18 bottle calves and 20 more weaned calves, she lets one energetic youngster suck on her fingers as a host of barn cats watch nearby.

This farm is where she raised her family, she says, and she's glad they'll continue the work.

Chelsea left a job as a receptionist at a Cedar Rapids dentist to help full time on the farm.

'Watching them, I just think it's interesting to learn what they do. I love animals, so that's a big part of it,' she says.

Dan says he, too, loves his adopted vocation.

'I like that you're doing something different every day, and that you're working for yourself,' he says. 'I like working outside, and you get to be with your family every day.'

If you go

What: Johnson County Historical Society's Annual Barn Tour

When: 9 a.m. Saturday

Where: Bus will depart from Johnson County Historical Society, Iowa River Landing, 860 Quarry Rd., Coralville. Tour will stop for lunch at Baxa's Sutliff Store and Tavern.

Cost: $25 for members, $30 non-members, includes lunch.

Tickets: Reservations required; call (319) 351-5738.