On my way to the Women Changing the Face of Agriculture event in Quincy, Illinois last winter I made a few #FarmHer stops, one of which was to meet Rachel Asher of Asher Family Farms.  Upon walking into the old farmhouse that she shares with her husband, she told me that they had a calf living in the basement.  This particular trip was in the thick of calving season in southern Illinois and having a calf in the basement is no surprise during this time of the year.  The calf's mother wasn’t producing enough milk and they had to move it into the warm house and bottle-feed it to keep it alive.  Rachel mixed up the milk replacer and showed me down the narrow stairs into the dimly lit basement.  The calf perked up at the sight of the bottle and by the end of the feeding session was up and out of the box it had been laying in.  Rachel then let her dog into the basement to show me what good friends the two had become and sure enough, the like-sized buddies romped around the basement as if they had been friends forever.

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