My latest magazine piece explores the dairy industry’s logistics, life on small farms, and the undersides of cows.

It begins:

At 3:45 a.m., Folgers coffee poured, I headed south from Sheboygan, Wis., to Joosse’s Trucking in Oostburg. There I was confronted by two rows of scowling milk trucks — their double-walled cylinders certain to inspire a Pavlovian response in Diet Coke drinkers. I met Scott, a retired Kohler engineer now pulling 16-hour shifts as a driver. He’d later explain, “God made me to work,” and work he did. The cows don’t take days off, so neither do the drivers — in rain, in snow, or on Packer game days.

You can read the rest here.

Here are a few bonus images from the coverage:

The Detroit diesel rumbles awake.
The Detroit diesel rumbles awake.
Local cow eyes NR reporter with suspicion.
Local cow eyes NR reporter with suspicion.
The cheese plant in all its reflective glory.
The cheese plant in all its reflective glory