SOSMagAprilJune2022

How It Shaped Them career, Matt was hired to work on Don Shaeffer’s dairy farm, Ro-Bern Acres, Inc. Heather was raising the children and would periodically help Matt’s father on his dairy farm. Heather said, “I would do things like run the baler or the rake, or help with barn chores.” She laughed and said, “I studied sheep production, Matt studied dairy production and we ended up buying a hog farm.” Heather took more of an active role on the hog farm. After Matt’s father died, Matt took over the 300 acre dairy farm and became a full time farmer. “The hard part is trying to maintain a household budget on an ever changing income based on the markets and weather. Every year is a gamble” Heather explained. Now that the Kromer’s children are grown and married, with children of their own, everyone pitches in at one time or another on the Kromer farm. Heather said, “The farm is a great place to raise a family.” She has provided pictures to illustrate her point. “Today, besides keeping the books, I just come out to ‘play’ when they need a driver for the baler or when they are trying to beat the weather and need someone to work the ground to get it ready for planting,” she said. That doesn’t absolve her from being called upon to help with barn chores, running for parts, bags of seed or another roll of bale wrap. She does that, too. As of that is not enough, Heather is also the Assistant Director at the Catholic Cemeteries in Sandusky and she runs her own home inspection business, Kromer Inspections, LLC (419-515- 3539.) Melissa Graham, 44, grew up on a farm. It was a dairy farm until her Junior year of high school. At that time, Heather Kromer’s husband, Matt, was working for Melissa’s father. He was milking 125 dairy cows. Eventually, when Matt wasn’t milking, Melissa and her sisters were responsible for seeing that all of the cows were milked. She said, “We did chores in the barn before we went to school and when we got home from Graham, age 4, is not afraid to use a pitch fork Alba, age 7, feeds a calf Josie, age 2, is not having a good day on the farm Helping Grandpa empty the corn wagon Helping Grandpa, Johnny, age 5, fell asleep on the backhoe 7