So, when the idea to expand the milking herd and build a new barn was tossed around at their Peterborough County farm, the decision was based on practicality.

You can’t earn a living on 30 cows, Carlow figured. He also needed a way to get into the house before everyone was in bed and prove to his two boys that farming isn’t slavery but a viable option.

So, they emptied the old 50 ft. by 60 ft. tie-stall barn and up went the debt and the beautiful, roomy 100 ft. by 60 ft. 4-row freestall with a 76 ft. by 60 ft. milking parlour added at one end, complete with a Westfalia-Surge double-8 herringbone milking system.

They bought more quota and hope one day to fill all the stalls and increase the milking herd to 80 "when funds permit," he said. Now, they milk 60 cows in an hour, a tremendous boost from the old barn where they had just started to milk 50 cows in three hours, using four portable milkers on a pipeline.

Carlow is also back in the house by 7 p.m. One recent Sunday the chores were done by 6:10 p.m. and he and his wife, Suzanne, took their four girls to the zoo. "We had never done that before. That was a simple thing that everyone else takes for granted."

They started milking in the new barn on high and dry land at the end of July and held an open house Sept. 18 that attracted more than 400 visitors. In retrospect, the expansion seems more of a family necessity than a business decision.

"I had to find a way of getting into the house by 10 o’clock at night," Carlow said. "Because that’s no good with all the kids. And I needed to show the boys that there’s a future here. That there’s a better life."

Until the expansion, the two boys, aged 14 and 12, saw the farm as a place where work never ends. Things are looking up. Their father’s good nature helps. "I’m not a worrier," Carlow said. "You couldn’t do this (put up a new barn) if you were. Before we started this we didn’t owe a lot of money. Now we owe a lot of money but it creates a future for them."

They own four Excellent classified cows and Carlow sold a cow in 1999 that in the following year was named best three-year-old at the World Expo in Madison,Wisconsin.

Carlow’s grandfather bought the farm back in the roaring twenties, when more farms used horses than tractors. His father, Elmer, 75, still bales the hay but is crippled up with arthritis. Suzanne is the daughter of the late Ferg Moher, who owned a beef farm nearby. The two families went to Mass and to school in nearby Douro.

Now with all this savings in time, maybe Carlow can get into the house early enough to help his wife with the dishes.