Years ago, dairy farmer Bubba Kurtz of Live Oak, Fla. had about seven employees running three shifts a day and milking the cows almost around the clock. Then Kurtz decided to break with the milk co-operative and become the independent producer and distributor of his milk from grass-fed cows. He constructed a modern one room bottling plant next to his milking facility, thinned his herd down to around 50, dropped back to just one hired hand and now only milks the cows once a day. Since the first of this year, he hasn’t sold any of Kurtz and Son’s Dairy’s milk to the co-operative and has been selling all of his own milk in the local economy. The process hasn’t been easy though, Kurtz said. His two daughters, Amelia, 17, and Virginia, 15, and his wife of 21 years, Leslie, are the other help around the farm. “I think it has been real good for our family as far as the togetherness that we get to spend,” Kurtz said. Kurtz and Son’s Dairy is a rotational grazing dairy that utilizes management intensive grazing. Customers tell Kurtz that the milk tastes better and lasts longer. The number one place that Kurtz sells his milk is at the Union Street Farmers Market in downtown Gainesville on Wednesdays from 4-7:00 p.m.