Perfect Day

Today was a perfect early spring day.  I woke up before the sun, just shy of 6 o'clock, put the kettle on and stumbled, still dreaming, into the hot shower. Got out, made coffee and had a slice of dark rye bread I'd made the night before with some peanut butter, a meal that warmly reminds me of my mama.

Got into the car around 6:35 and drove over to Fraga.  To the east the sun was just barely rising over the Cascades as I descended Holley hill on my way into Sweet Home.  Got to the farm at 7 and Larry was waiting for a large order to be picked up by the distributor.  I set about getting the milking parlor all ready, jamming out to my tunes and working quickly.  

[An aside: for the last few days I've had a cold.  It's the first time I've been sick since December 2011 when I had scarlet fever.  The cold came all at once on Thursday afternoon last week, with chills, headache and runny nose.  I forgot how crappy it feels to be sick!  But I took care and by this morning was feeling back to normal again, better than I had felt in weeks even.  What a pleasure it is to have energy again!  I think I'd been fighting something off for some time.]  

It took about 3 hours to milk all 50ish goats today because we have a number of first-timers in the line up.  These are goats that were born a year ago and had their own babies just last week or the week before, so they are new to being milked.  With one exception, they are all a pain to handle.  They either sit down on the milking stand or kick mercilessly.  Nevertheless, they are cute with their teeny tiny teaties and one day they're going to be veteran milkers.  So who better to break 'em in than Old Lu?

Drank more coffee with fresh goat milk (lots of water too, don't worry folks) and spent time with the girls.  Once the milking was over at 10 it felt like the morning was just beginning.  The sun was out and I was riding the high of a good night's sleep.  Steve showed up and we got to work making cheese.

First we pumped all the milk out of the bulk tank and into the pasteurizer and then I cleaned the bulk tank as well as the milking system.  We pasteurized the milk, a process that takes about two hours, and then made some chevre, a process which takes about two minutes (at least the first part).  Working in the "make room" as we call it, requires one to be completely mindful because screwing up comes at a very high cost. (Let's say there are 80 gallons of milk in the pasteurizer, that's 80 pounds of future cheese, which is worth close to $2000.  Scald that milk and your ass in grassier than grass.)

So yes, mindfulness is king in there, especially because we are often juggling more than one task at a time.  That being said, the more extensive my understanding of the process and the system becomes, the easier it is to multi-task and be hella productive.  That's what we were today, I'd say.    While waiting for the pasteurizer to heat up or cool down I salted and packaged a bunch of chevre that was made last week and some Farmhouse as well.  The funnest part about packaging is getting to eat the left-over end pieces when you're all done.

Steve gave me a quick lunch break around noon when I got to eat an apple and some of the aforementioned end-pieces.  I love an apple and some cheese, mmmm... yummy lunch.  

Around 3 we were all done in the make room and there was a ton (literally) of other work to be done.  I got to back Larry's F-150 up into the space next to the barn with more than a ton (that's 2000 pounds, people) of feed in the bed.  I unloaded and stacked over all of the feed bags for both the goats and the chickens.  It wasn't as physically challenging as I had expected.  

Once that was done I helped Larry give some shots to a Mama Goat who'd given birth yesterday.  She and her two doelings all needed CDT.  I gave all these shots sub-Q and then gave Mama one intramuscular shot of selenium.  It's a little tough to give shots, especially because I've always had a serious distaste for needles.  But it was good practice and someone had to do it.  After everyone was all full of medicine, Larry and I scooped up the two kids and Mama followed us into the big pen with all the other goats.  After that I scooped out all the messed up straw and hay in the birthing pen and got it all nice and clean for the next little Mama to give birth in later this week.  Rose is due any minute.

Once all the work was done it was 4:30 and I'd only had a quick 15 minute break all day.  But I wasn't even tired!  Jan invited me in for some goat curry and rice she'd made the night before in her crock pot.  It was unbelievably delicious and tender.  SO good and just what I needed after more than 9 hours of hard work.  What a great day on the farm!

On the way home I picked up some essentials...orange juice, toilet paper, jellybeans.  And got home just shy of 6 o'clock.  Poor Pete has food poisoning and couldn't take little Roscoe for much of a walk all day, so he started bouncing off the walls the moment I walked in the door.  I threw the rabbit (dead, dressed, vacuum-sealed) I'd bought from Larry in the fridge and whisked Roscoe off to the land of logging roads.

We hiked/ran up Our Hill and watched as the sun set over Linn County.  I threw some sticks for Rosky to tire him out and then he sat next to me on Our Log and I reminisced.  I thought about college and all the good times I had at Reed.  I thought about this time of year over there and how everyone begins buzzing at the start of spring, with joy at seeing the sun and stress at the looming final due dates.  I miss all the excitement, the dance parties, the people.

We hiked down our hill and there was still plenty of light in the sky by 7:15, so we followed another trail up a creek.  We kept going and going until the sky was a darker shade of blue and it was time to turn around.  As I walked back to the car, the air smelled of summer in California.  It was warm!  I was reminded of the summer camp I worked at along the Tuolomne river and the feeling of walking back to my tent after dinner, before the nights festivities were to begin.  Such fond memories, I know I will be back there one day.

All in all, it's been a perfect day.  Got home from the hike around 8:15 and made Pete some chicken noodle soup, which we both slurped up gladly.  Now I'm beat and ready to crawl into bed, or perhaps curl up next to my good smelling dog and watch some T.V.  I'm addicted to the Sopranos.  Here is my favorite song today....