Doing It Wrong Dairy, a Victory Enterprise

It is common knowledge that you can’t pick your family members. But every once in a while, they pick you.

Tristan Swartz got in his truck one evening in Missouri and didn’t quit driving until he reached Gilman. Given an unexpected break from the fast pace of the wheat harvesting business he’d been immersed in when his contracts imploded, Tristan decided to go back to his roots by dairy farming. Realizing that the methods employed in his hometown weren’t for him, Tristan recalled an earlier trip to Wisconsin where the family dairy enterprise was still a thriving, down-to-earth business.

“I drove to Minneapolis until I ran out of fuel, I got on I-94 and came over here and I ran out of fuel again and I woke up in front of Romig’s,” said Tristan, recalling opening his eyes to find Gilman native Jim Schley knocking on his window.

Schley took him to breakfast at the cafe next door where Tristan told him that he was looking to buy a dairy farm. After breakfast, Schley took Tristan to the first dairy west of Gilman which was for sale. Tristan fell in love with the land and the property, and with the generosity of the people in town, and bought it.

As Tristan was settling in and getting to know the locals, he had heard rumors about his closest neighbor to the west. “Don’t go over there,” they told him. And Tristan listened.

So when Tom Victory pulled into his driveway a short while later and Tristan approached to give him a handshake, maybe he shouldn’t have been so surprised when Tom went into his pocket and came out with a grenade, pulled the pin, and tossed the grenade at Tristan’s feet.

“I took off running,” Tristan said. He said Tom laughed and said, “It’s a dummy, you dummy.” Tristan liked him immediately.

“He looked like the Unabomber,” Tristan laughed. From then on, Tom’s aggressive style of looking out for Tristan became a theme in their relationship.

Tom was not short on opinions about the way he thought Tristan should run his dairy. When Tristan was getting ready to plant alfalfa, Tom was adamant that he should be doing it differently, and he wasn’t afraid to put his money where his mouth was. Tom made Tristan a deal; he rented 20 acres from Tristan, and Tristan planted what Tom told him to plant.

Tristan was the grand champion in the dairy hay category at the World Dairy Expo that year.

The win was unexpected. “I went in my overalls,” Tristan said.

Tom continued to give Tristan unconventional advice, and Tristan continued to put his trust in Tom. “For the next ten years he helped me do all my farming,” Tristan said.

It wasn’t always work. Tom put in plenty of time tormenting Tristan as well, including running fishing line across his driveway so that a blank shotgun shell fired when Tristan walked across it, or shooting to get his attention as Tristan was plowing a back field because Tom didn’t have a cell phone and his lighter was out of fuel. Tom even robbed Tristan at gunpoint for the contents of his wallet after Tristan was behind on a rent payment.

And Tristan shared Tom’s love language, reciprocating by putting a firecracker in the end of Tom’s cigarette.

“We were perfect for each other,” said Tristan. Eventually, Tom’s health began to decline, though he wouldn’t discuss details with Tristan. It became Tristan’s turn to look out for Tom, a role he took seriously even on days that Tom didn’t make it easy. Tom’s hands were crippled, and Tristan came over every morning to light him a candle so Tom could take care of his own cigarettes. He shopped for Tom and made sure he had everything he needed. But Tom wasn’t finished looking out for Tristan.

“I don’t want you to rent it anymore, I want you to own it,” Tom said to Tristan of his farm.

“He sold me the farm for what he bought it from his dad for,” Tristan said. Plus two packs of smokes, two meals and three bottles of soda each day. Tom made Tristan promise that he’d be able to die in his own home without ever seeing the inside of a hospital, a promise that Tristan kept.

Tristan slept on the floor at Tom’s feet so Tom would only have to reach down to get his attention. The last thing Tom asked Tristan to do was prop him up on the couch so he could look out the window and watch Tristan work on the farm. When Tristan returned from chores an hour later, Tom had passed away.

At Tom’s funeral, Tristan played a jack-in-the-box tune at Tom’s request.

Tristan continues to farm after Tom’s passing, milking 50 cows on his aptly named Doing It Wrong dairy. His barn is full of misfits who were discarded and unwanted until they stepped off the trailer on his property. He doesn’t separate the calves from their mothers, so the aisles are clogged with babies bucking back and forth. The only thing his cows have in common is that they’re all bovines, as he milks Angus cattle, Charolais, Herefords, Longhorns, a chimera Holstein, and Milking Gir, a cow originating from Argentina that resembles a Brahma. The typical holsteins he does have came from kill auctions, mostly because they were too aggressive and unable to be handled.

“Freaks sell better,” said Tristan. “We’re not going to make any money, we might as well have fun.”

It’s too simple just to say that Tristan enjoys a challenge; he thrives off adversity, which is likely why almost everything that Tristan does on his dairy is unconventional.

He puts his cows in his retirement pasture when they’re no longer able to be milked. Most operations cull the cows and send them to be processed as it’s more economical. But Tristan says that just doesn’t feel right to him. He knows that there’s nothing wrong with the practice and acknowledges that many dairies are unable to invest money into an asset that’s no longer producing. He knows he’s doing it wrong It was not an accident that Tristan ended up next to Tom. They needed each other. Tristan needed Tom’s guidance and steady, albeit abrasive support. He needed someone who had been through the trials and roadblocks that one encounters when starting a small business with a million moving parts. Mostly, he needed someone to remind him why he drove all night to get there in the first place.

And Tom needed Tristan. Tom needed someone who could accept him exactly the way he was and see the man underneath the gruff exterior. Tom needed someone who would enable him to do everything his way until the very end, which was exactly what Tristan did.

“The neighborhood seems a lot darker,” Tristan said, looking out past his pasture to Tom’s kitchen window.

But Tristan isn’t alone; he has animals, and his biological family, and his makeshift family. And somewhere out there, a young farmer is driving all night, looking for land and a few cows, hoping for a soft place to land in friendly community where someone like Tom and Tristan is waiting for them.

Sometimes, we accidentally end up exactly where we’re supposed to be.

Tristan Swartz and his Milking Gir bull, Larry. Milking Gir are a dairy breed originating from Argentina. Tristan is the only farmer in the state to own them.

Tristan Swartz was the grand champion in the dairy hay category at the World Forage Analysis Superbowl with a top-secret hay mix created by Tom Victory.