DAIRY DISCOVERY (Alto - 2021 - 5K)
55 Mile Drive
Registration:
The RunSignUp page
was a very personal write-up from the owners of Swisslane Farms and Dairy Discovery. It was funny and fun. Some of the best parts of the description
included: (https://runsignup.com/Race/MI/Alto/DairyDiscoveryRoadandTrail5k15)
“We are teaching the
truth in agriculture and healthy nutrition and no better way to teach about
health and nutrition then by getting people to moo've their dairy airs.”
&
“We do not allow
other pets to attend race day, as our focus is on our cows. We hope you
will be encouraged by their moo-velous support.”
They had a 5K and 15K
that started at the same time with staggered starting. Price difference was $10. They listed award information, what
registration included, gave parking and timing information, aide station
information and stroller precautions on their page. “Female and Male Racers” and the four age
groups were in different colors and stuck out.
It was interesting. Packet
pick-up was very cool right outside the Swisslane Farm Specialty Shop. There were awesome girls handing out bags to
participants.
Course:
The course was
amazing and always changing. We started going
down the grass field by the dairy farm parallel to 84th Street. It was a really choppy hard grass area to run
through. We got onto Wingeier Ave SE and
took that down to a set of cow barns that we ran through. Running through the cow barns was the best! In Free Soil at Stakenas Farms I ran on a beautiful
cow farm course near cows twice but never through the the Stakenas cow barns. We toured them after I ran. The cows were very active and vocal in the Swisslane
Farm cow barns. The course was very flat
like Stakenas Farm and we could often see other runners very far ahead in the distance. We got on a dirt road after leaving the cow
barns. We went down the dirt road a good
distance and then entered a trail through the woods. The trail had very muddy areas that took some
skill to run around. Our turnaround was a
folding sign on the dirt trail. From
that point it was back on the exact path we had run on to get there. We got to go back through the awesome cow
barns. We saw amazing rays of sunlight coming
through the cow barns from the west. It
made for an awesome picture. The finish
line stretch back in the choppy grass made it difficult to sprint into the finish. It was very reminiscent of Stakenas Farm and
their grass farm path. Challenging and
unique courses help train and make runs memorable.
Swag:
We got awesome red
shirts with their cow artwork logo on them.
They were very soft and said, “Hoofin’ it for Dairy Discovery!” We got cool Dairy Discovery paper bags with
information on dairy farming and chocolate milk. We got the same blue chocolate milk wrist bands
I got at the Stakenas Stampede. There
was a T-Mobile stand that gave all the kids, paper fans, hand sanitizer, pens
and gloves. There were no finisher
medals for this run.
Food:
The finish line food was amazing! I knew they were going to have chocolate milk. This time it was the mini lunch box containers of TruMoo. They had precut bagel thirds in asiago, everything and blueberry falvors. We also got ice cream cups with a choice of vanilla or chocolate with mini plastic spoons in a box. They looked just like the plastic spoons that Baskin’ Robbins uses for sampling. They had pre poured small dixie cups filled with water for us on a separate table.
Awards:
Award categories
were interesting. They only had four age
groups: 18 and under, 19-34, 35-49 and 50 and up. Age groups only went two deep. Winners received awesome dairy bags with items
from their specialty shop. First place
age group winners got plush cows! I knew
I couldn’t get a cow when I saw the funky age groups. I wish I could have gotten a plush cow, it
was an amazing award prize! They had
awards for overall male and female for the 5K and 15K but no Master’s
awards. I was told by farm staff that
winners received a few pounds of ground beef, maple syrup and a gift card to the
Swisslane Specialty Shop. The awards
were amazing at this run. I wish I was a
faster runner at events like Dairy Discovery. I also wish that age groups had been smaller. I like to see little kids competing with 10 and
under or 12 and under. I’ve never seen such large age groups at a run
before.
City Notes:
Alto, Michigan is an
extremely small town. It has to be one
of the smallest towns I have run in. We couldn’t
find a green city limit sign because it’s technically not even a city. Alto is an unincorporated community. Alto has a very nice and quant veteran’s park
downtown. There was an American Legion,
Library, Post Office, Church, NAPA Auto Car Center and the Alto Bar downtown. There were a handful of closed businesses in Alto
including a really cool older brick building that said, “South Lowell Grange.” I learned the South Lowell Grange was a
school built in 1940. It was used as Grange Hall after getting a renovation. It was added to the National Historic Places
register in 2005. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_Grange)
The Alto Bar was an awesome
building that stood out in town. The
kids played at Alto Park just north of downtown Alto for awhile while Jason and
I snacked on cheese from Dairy Discovery.
I learned after leaving Alto that Alto has The Boulder Ridge Animal Park
and a well known golf course called Saskatoon Golf Club. Boulder Ridge Animal Park is a neighbor to
Dairy Discovery on the other side of the Pratt Lake Creek. There is a huge manufacturing and assembly facility
for Magna Mirrors just south of downtown Alto, across the street from the Alto Elementary
School.
Swisslane Farms has
a history dating back to 1915 when 91 acres of land was purchased in Alto,
Michigan by 26-year-old Frederick Oesch.
Oesch had come to America at the age of 16 for a more prosperous life. By the time the second generation of Oesch’s
could work the farm, Swisslane Farm had 24 cows. There are now third and fourth generations of
the Oesch family with 35 members living within two miles of the farm presently. Swisslane Farm currently has 2,000 milking
cows between their main farm and their 21st century robotic farm.
(https://www.swisslanefarms.com/slhome)
A fun fact I found about
AMS cow milking systems:
“2000 – Approximately 800 farms worldwide started
using AMS. In Japan, the milking robots were testing at four public
agricultural experimental stations and were in use at over 20 private dairy
farms.”
(https://roboticsbiz.com/history-of-automatic-milking-systems-ams-timeline/)
For being a very small unincorporated community, Alto has some great entertainment for families and employs a lot of people. Alto’s population is listed as being just over 6,000, but I believe that’s including a larger area out of Alto zoning into Kent County. I couldn’t find the actual population of Alto. Unincorporated communities typically don’t have enough people for the time and money it takes to govern themselves so they are governed by a larger nearby city or town. I would think in the case of Alto that would be Lowell, MI but I have not confirmed that. At first glance it may seem very little but Alto is a very dynamic small town. It has an amazing fourth generation dairy farm, a lot of hidden gems and many things that surprised me.
City Sign:
We used a sign that
read, “Alto Business District and Library” for the Alto city sign. It was all that we could find. We may have missed one. Alto, being an unincorporated community, didn’t
have traditional city limit signs. We
got a good picture of Luke and I at the Alto Business District sign. The sign had a cool picture of a train on
it. It was taller than Luke and he could
stand under it. The Alto Business District
city sign was right in front of the park the kids explored.
Other Awesomeness:
I saw an awesome group of women dressed in cow themed clothes! I asked them if I could take their
picture. The run staff got a lot of
great pictures of them. It was a very
cool way to show up at a run. Their
shirts said, “I love cows!”
There was a GIANT cow on a trailer near the start you could see
from the road. We took pictures with it. I think a lot of participants saw it as an
awesome photo op from the event. I
wonder if it was brought up for the event or if it is always there facing 84th
street. Either way, it’s awesome!
There was an area kids could have fun climbing tires and a metal
jungle gym. They had a small homemade slide
with two by fours attached to a gated trailer.
It was really unique. In that
same area were baby cows, chickens and goats.
The boys spent a lot of time in the kids area while Luke and I ran the 5K. The kids area also had a cow statue that was
the size of a normal cow, not as giant as the one by the start/finish.
I loved the Swisslane Farms Specialty Shop. They had awesome farm
fresh food. You could even buy the first
place plush cows! It was tempting, but I
would rather have it be earned. We
bought two steaks, garlic herb cheese curds, fancy candied peanuts and my personal
favorite…
HONEY COMB!!
The garlic herb cheese curds were voted the best. All the kids got mini foam cows from the Swisslane
Farms Shop.
I saw an awesome dad and son wearing matching homemade shirts. The dad’s shirt read, My Proudest 5K” and the
son’s shirt read, “My first 5K.” It was
very heart-warming.
We saw farming equipment driving down a country road in Alto! It’s now something I look for at every rural town
run I do because it started happening so frequently. We also saw a tractor crossing sign and a huge
barn with a cool mural while driving to the run. I will always get pictures of farming
equipment on roads on my way to or from rural towns. It has officially become a tradition now.
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