Just south of the Village of Oxford, nestled alongside county Road 32, John and David Marshman have co-managed the Marshman Dairy Farms for nearly two decades. The family-owned agribusiness has been passed down through the generations for well over a century, with each generation taking on a slightly different approach to keep with demand of the ever-changing dairy industry.

On Monday, I ventured from the walls of my cubicle at The Evening Sun office to Oxford to lend a helping hand in the dairy parlor of Marshman Farms, thanks to the generosity – and patience – of John Marshman and his employees who tackle the day-to-day operations down on the farm. Having only a little farm work experience of my own, I can’t say I was especially confident about working in a dairy, and I knew enough not to expect to see a 19th century milkmaid milking cows using nothing but a bucket, a milking stool and her cold, bare hands.

“Everything we do every day is designed to fill the tanks with high-quality milk,” Marshman told me. “From start to finish, we have that one goal in mind.”

And for a couple hours, I played a part in that goal ... sort of. A very small part. Marshman explained that he keeps 10-12 farmhands year-round, each one with a different task that’s crucial to keeping Marshman’s 400 milking cows happy (because as I’ve learned in my time covering the agriculture beat for the newspaper, happy and comfortable cows make more milk).

Marshman Farms is one of the larger farms in the county. While it may be far from the size of much larger dairy operations in New York, it does more than enough to hold its own. “We’re having a pretty good year so far,” Marshman said, noting that increased milk production per cow has kept the farm above water. On average, the farm ships approximately 10 million pounds of milk per year (roughly 1.1 million gallons). But milk production is contingent on food supply, said Marshman, which is one of the most critical aspects of dairy farming.