Rainbeau Ridge Weblog

New Year's Message

So there was going to be this clever version of The Night Before Christmas, modified to mirror life on the farm; a blog entitled Silent Night (and day) reflecting the new found quiet in the milk barn now that the goats are dry; alternatively I considered a mushy retrospective on the year.

In the end, the time has gotten away from me.  Instead of blogging, I‘ve been slogging --through mountains of 2007 paperwork and planning for the 2008 season.

But things warrant a time out—a pause from these tasks—long enough to say thanks to all who made 2007 such a wonderful year at Rainbeau Ridge.

To our friends, customers, vendors, kids, teachers, Farm Team, family, and others too numerous to name individually, we appreciate your continued support as we worked to expand our products and services in an effort to make sustainable living second nature(tm).

We saw our children’s programs, CAP program and cheese business expand significantly in 2007 and we are optimistic that 2008 will be even more successful.

We may face record cold during morning chores these days but the glossy covers of incoming seed catalogues give us hope.  We crack the ice out of the water buckets each morning but we’ve begun the countdown to kidding season and know that cheese production will be here before we could even forget the delectable taste that lingered on our palate at Thanksgiving.

We wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year and hope you share our enthusiasm for the upcoming offerings we will bring to you this year.

-Lisa

Food Memories

There are a zillion reasons why I love food…but a very important motive is for all the memories that cooking and eating trigger.

For me, Thanksgiving is one big eating marathon.  Growing up, it was generally a holiday that involved seeing relatives whom I would only see annually.  Once past the obligatory jokes, cheek pinching and coat checking, the day was pretty boring.  Except—the food was fantastic—and the food rules (or lack thereof) were the best.  Shirley Temples, chopped liver, little hot dogs, nuts in the shell, olive trays—ok, not very Thanksgiving-ish—were my favorites.   I had to pass on the deviled eggs but they had their place on the hors d’oeuvres platter year after year.  We could stuff ourselves silly and not have to make excuses for why we weren’t eating the main course but managed to have room for dessert.  We even got to watch television—the parade of course—while eating.

As I stood in my kitchen today, preparing for family and friends, I moved quickly from one dish to the next, multi-tasking—cleaning, prepping, chopping, sautéing, frying—one after another, memories popped into my head.  Sometimes there was a direct connection, others seemed more remote.

The chopped liver and pigs in a blanket have been replaced by goat cheese and other contemporary foods. My menu is eclectic—not really traditional dishes but certainly traditional ingredients, made with a twist.  You will not find green beans, sweet potatoes sporting pineapple or marshmallows and I shy away from everything pureed (until dentures become a reality).  And of course, there are my kids’ favorites, regardless of whether they qualify for Turkey Day fare.

So as I made the ‘zippy tuna’, I was transported back to when my aunt & uncle would make this signature appetizer when we visited.  We couldn’t hold a family event without it and have adapted it somewhat to make it our own.  All my daughter has to do is say she’s coming home and zippy tuna appears on the menu.  Needless to say, I picked up the cell phone while prepping this and called her.  “do we use onions in our version?”— “No mom, but why not give it a shot.”   Didn’t matter what the answer was—just an excuse to connect.

The corn fritters, a new concoction and added to the hors d’oeuvres list as a nod to the ‘three sister medley’ reminded me of making latkes!  That triggered a quick call to my friend Lesley with whom I always share a knuckle grating story or two.

It was on to the wild rice dish, for our good friend and gluten free guest, Andre.  It happens to be an old Silver Palate recipe that was a notable favorite of my mother’s—unfortunately her untimely death just following Thanksgiving has made this food fav somewhat bittersweet.

By dinner time the day before Thanksgiving, (normally a no cook zone but a must cook because both kids were going to be home together for the first time in ages), I was whipping up their favorite Japanese meal.  As I ‘polished’ the sushi rice, I thought of my dear friend Kyoko and how much she taught me about Japanese cooking—not to mention her awesome meals.

By early afternoon on Thursday, the smells of roasting turkey mixed with freshly baked desserts wafted through the house.  Although some important people were not able to be with us, I was nevertheless floating above the scene, mulling over Thanksgivings past and contemplating those yet to come.  Free flowing associations of food , friends and family continued until the last dish was served—in fact until the last leftover was consumed. 

Adding to the personal side are Rainbeau Ridge’s cooking classes, I’m happy to report that we’re creating new food memories at the farm for our friends too.  My favorite these days has got to be the reports from our young cooks—kids in grades 4-6—making chutneys, pumpkin fudge and apple bread pudding at home for their families.  I couldn’t be happier that these young people are actively involved in the holiday food prep and with what will ultimately be recollections of their early cooking careers.

From now until New Year’s, there will undoubtedly be tons more culinary efforts that will be filed away in the family scrapbooks—whether we’re a piece of it our not, just knowing that food is such an important piece of our collective memories—makes me smile to be in small some way a piece of the ‘pie’.

The Last Hurrah . . .

It’s late October, with the temperatures feeling more like summer. 

The otherwise brown stemmed tomato plants are still pushing out flowers—one more chance to bear fruit—and we covet each and every fruit the plant wants to give us.  Just when we thought we were fed up with tomatoes, we realize we have to wait another nine months before we will have the privilege to taste that wonderful flavor again.  We may regret not harvesting enough or making ample sauce to get us through the winter. Ok, maybe next year…

The colorful peppers continue to hang on the plants like Christmas ornaments, glowing vibrant orange, purple, red yellow and green.  Time to think of a recipe to preserve these gems!

Snow peas, planted in a cool window as summer (officially) ended, managed to push enough growth to provide us with some real gems. 

Despite the temps, the plants have had enough cool nights to hear the call—“it’s getting to be winter, produce seeds, produce seeds so all is not lost for your future!”  So they are responding with little black dots clinging to the remnants of the vegetation, waiting for a breeze or bird to come along and ensure their reappearance next year.

Until all things finally fade in the garden, we’ll savor the joy of eating (one last hurrah) from our own backyard, regret plants we let slip through our fingers, cherish the tastes, thankful for the season we had, mindful that next year is only 6 months away!

Let's Eat Local & Get Started

To “eat local” in July and August is hardly a “challenge”—it’s a pleasure, it’s easy, it’s delicious— the harvest is peaking and the abundance of produce is overwhelming.  Those of you who participate in Rainbeau Ridge’s CAP or membership programs have been rewarded during these months with some of our best produce.  Others have been taking advantage of the growing presence and number of farmer’s markets which are popping up all over and increasing in their diversity of offerings.  Still others have gardens of their own and find themselves befriending neighbors, just to give away the overflow.

But being a locavore in October is more of a challenge—the choices from the garden are becoming slightly narrower, local fruits are fewer.  Still we have a fair amount of local resources to draw on.  Register to join fellow locavores.

Why eat local?
There are tons of lists going around on the value of eating local. “Top ten” and on, but in our estimation it all boils down to three important points:
• It tastes better
• It’s better for you
• It helps the environment

The rest of the explanations are detail. 

Tasting better is due in part to eating things in season, they’re being picked more closely to the time they’re being consumed. Things are picked ripe: not under ripe; not forced by use of ethylene gas to color up in time for your purchase but devoid of flavor; nor over ripe or damaged because of the long journey traveled.  It is unlikely that local foods will be GMO because these bioengineered products are largely the provenance of big Ag. 

Which leads us to ‘better for you’.  In the time elapsed from farm to table and in the distance much of our food travels (reportedly from 1200-1500 miles), important nutritional value and flavor is lost, not to mention the affected air quality and pollution resulting from the transport.  Typically, eating local means we’re preparing whole foods, a better choice than prepared, fast foods.  E coli and salmonella are more often present in large scale commercial operations, not those in our neighborhoods.  More imported foods are coming under attack for lack of quality control but little is being done to ensure our safety.

For most of us, environmental stewardship is becoming an obligation, not just a desire.  Local foods and farming preserve open space and viewshed, protect biodiversity and species and provide important biological corridors.  Reducing miles traveled speaks for itself.

If these reasons are not enough to convince you of the value of eating local, there’s one last argument—quality of life.  By connecting with your farmer and others shopping similarly, you’re re-connecting with your food and building community—two values that are significant to us at Rainbeau Ridge.

Up until recently, we have lost most of our connections to our food (come hear Ann Vielisis speak on her brand new book Kitchen Literacy October 30th  at 7pm) but many are struggling to get that back.  When you eat local, you become in touch with the seasons, the weather, the moon and stars and the miracle of growing and raising animals.  We need to re-connect!

What’s local?
How we define our foodshed is an important starting point.  The space of where food is produced through where it is consumed is described as a ‘foodshed’.  For most of us, the majority of our food comes to us from across the country and even across the world.  This pattern evolved in response to our desire for plentiful, low cost food of all types anytime we want it.  So yes, we can get strawberries in February but we pay the price in taste and carbon footprint terms.

Taking the local challenge and reducing that footprint or that foodshed is typically described as buying from within a 100 mile radius.  Being in the Northeast, that’s a daunting radius when you actually put it on the map.  It’s times like this I wish I lived in California!  Extending the radius in concentric circles quickly incorporates important food growing in regions in NY State and nearby states—you’d be surprised how much we do have here in the Northeast.

Take the pledge (or plunge)!
There is power in taking the challenge and connecting with others attempting to do the same thing.  It doesn’t matter whether your goal is as simple as a single meal over the challenge period or as complex as the full month; whether the mileage restriction is 100 miles for 100% of your foods or regionally for 1 meal a week—the consciousness and attention paid to the subject makes it a worthy undertaking.

It’s true that the devil’s in the detail—even in the height of the season, if you stop to journal what you consume, you’ll quickly see that staples and spices that we depend on are sourced from miles away—coffee, salt, spices and olive oils are just a few of the obvious examples.  It has become known as the ‘marco polo’ exception in the food challenge circles—but no matter what you call it, there will undoubtedly be exceptions to the rules—just understand it, define it and document it.

In trying to truly being 100% local, there are tricks of the trades, tips and ideas, substitutes and things that will help you tweak your eating habits and make them even more local—substituting sweeteners for sugars is an obvious one—local honey, maple syrup or even applesauce are good choices (Mary Duncan can help us refine these substitutions and take out the guesswork—especially when baking.  Watch for her recommendations and take her November cooking class). 

More ideas will be shared with our participants and we want to hear your ideas too!  If you’ve signed up for the Challenge, you will receive a copy of our kit (on-line or hard copy) with many ideas and a support network, including optional, weekly conference calls.

Preserving the harvest—making it last!
As the white shoes get returned to the closet (remember those rules?), the kids return to school, traffic in town builds up, the pool’s just a little too cold to swim in, a handful of leaves are changing color, you’re a little tomato fatigued and on squash overload, you realize that in Zone 5 our bounty of local, seasonal produce will soon fade along with summer.

It’s not too late to think about ‘putting by’…and it’s not too early to be planning for next year’s garden.  To help you with your thinking, Rainbeau Ridge is offering several very exciting and timely authors who will speak on books they’ve written and experiences they’ve had very germane to our topic at hand.  Come to hear Joan Dye Gussow on October 10th, a pioneer in the field (pun intended!).

Remember it’s about reconnection—not perfection!
There is power in joining the challenge—no matter how you define your pledge.

It’s about taking incremental steps – balance—something is better than nothing—every step, even asking questions about your food and making conscious choices, is key!

Make trade offs—if you can’t find a local source, make your food purchases conscious choices—think about local, organic, family farm, regional, fair trade or any other distinctions that are important to you. 

Awareness is huge—I was in town and starving the other day.  Instead of grabbing and rationalizing my typical food choice (coffee and something sweet), I went into the green grocer and found myself standing in front of the nectarines.  (Ok, an apple would have been the better choice.)  But in selecting my nectarine, I didn’t rely on the sniff test—but read every one of those tiny, annoying sticky labels until I found one marked ‘north eastern USA.  Maybe next time, I’ll go for the apple—but it did slow me down, make me think.

It’s not too early to plan for the following year—plant your own, join a CSA, help out on a local farm…grow something—preserve something—make choices.

We hope that by signing up for the Challenge, the experience will be interesting, fun and healthy.  Join us and get connected to RR, community and your importantly, food!

Watch Us Grow . . .

That was the theme of our Summer Sprouts program this year.  We examined the things that it takes to make a plant grow, how the plants develop and examine the parts of the plants that we eat.

One key reason that we offer our kids’ program over time (and not a one week stint) is that we feel strongly that children need to witness the growth for themselves…and have they ever! 

Lettuce seeds that they planted themselves have yielded countless mouthfuls as we’ve cut and let it come again.  Carrots have developed “shoulders” that the children know to look for before pulling these gems from their underground home.  Transplanted tomato plants that barely required their cages in early July now cascade over the tops of these structures and bear hundreds of flowers and fruits.

On the animal front, spring’s goat babies have literally shot up before our eyes in these brief seven weeks of Sprouts.  DC, our calf out of Destiny, is frolicking around independently and barely nursing.  Chicks have become chickens and are laying eggs.

As importantly, the children themselves have grown so much!  They have developed a sense of self-confidence and independence.  They walk boldly into the chicken yard and head to the feather-footed hen who they know will let them pick her up.  Entering the goat paddock has become an essential feature of each session as the children seek out their special four legged friends and embrace them with assurance. They are tender and playful, disciplining and guiding.  How wonderful that the two-legged kids allow these four-legged critters, standing at least as tall as their human counterparts with a tendency to nibble on dangling zipper pulls, to jump up with their forelegs and don’t even flinch.

I especially love the post-program whirl around the farm when the Sprouts escort their parents or caregivers around ‘their’ farm and ‘their’ garden pointing out the special things they’ve learned and correcting the adults when they don’t properly identify the cucurbits!

If nothing else, the kids learned patience—and the wonderful concept of anticipation.  They had to delay gratification—almost a foreign concept to a generation that expects and gets instant everything from electronic games to food.

‘Looking forward’ may have seemed like an eternity when we began sowing lettuce seeds in early July.  Would these tiny nuggets yield anything??? The time until we’d be able to reap the rewards of what we sowed was an unknown and was in the hands of weather which, these days, has been anything but predictable.  It seemed unlikely that anything would happen in our few weeks together but in reality the time passed and we were rewarded amply—in terms of quantity and taste. 

We turned milk into cheese, cheese to pizza, tomatoes into sauce, lemon verbena into frozen yogurt, chocolate mint into sorbet and zucchini into bread…

Seven short weeks later, where our food comes from and what it takes to grow things have been partially demystified.  We have only scratched the surface but in doing so we hope that we’ve imparted a joy and appreciation of the things growing in our own backyards.

We all need to take time out, slow the clock down a little and learn to appreciate things that take time and seek enjoyment in longer than an instant—when we remember to do that, it’s amazing how rewarding it can be!

Timeless tomatoes…

Did you know the CD turned 25 recently?  I had not been aware of this occasion but just heard the news flash.  Not only did the story announce this milestone but it commented that the CD may be becoming obsolete.  After all, we continue to need greater portability and maximal storage—witness the nano and flash drives.

For this technology-impaired farmer, I have to confess to just coming up to speed with existing technologies and storage devices.  So I hope they don’t retire those items anytime soon.  Perhaps my knowledge is limited and my usage somewhat awkward, but I get the job done.

In my 50+ years, I’ve seen my share of new fangled gizmos and gadgets—some bringing real improvements to our lives, others in the category of what I’d call unnecessary consumption but lots of fun to have…

Regardless of my judgment call on the merits of each, one thing is indisputable—these technologies inevitably outdate themselves before too long. 

I’m happy to say that on the farm we take comfort in things that are timeless.  It’s August and the garden is bursting with produce.  The combination of Deb’s awesome gardening and somewhat cooperative weather and bugs has yielded a bumper crop of tomatoes—over 20 varieties this year!

Big Ag and research universities have experimented and developed new breeds, hybrids, disease resistant strains, hydroponic techniques and alternative growing methods. But at the end of the day, “heirloom, old fashioned, like your grandmother grew” tomatoes yield great fruits!

These timeless tomatoes cry out from the vine—“Eat me!  Slice me! Dice me! Sauce me!”  With the peak of the season at hand, I happily oblige. 

As I devour my lettuce and tomato roll up or my rustic tomato sauce with basil on whole wheat pasta, I am already cognizant that the season will fade all too soon.

Nothing obsolete about a naturally grown, juicy tomato—savor the flavor—enjoy—hang on to the memory when the season fades and hold on to the notion that some things don’t have to be reinvented to bring pleasure…

Eggscellent!

Front page New York Times news today—“Cage free chickens produce better eggs”…It would have been more accurate to print—‘free range organic birds produce the best eggs’.

I had to laugh when I saw the accompanying picture to the article—massive quantities of birds, beak to beak, albeit no cages.  The caption should have read “Times Square at New Year’s Eve or jail cells—you pick the more desirable way to live…” There was nothing appealing about the conditions of cage free birds in such mass quantities which, at the end of the day, spend all their time in crowded confinement.

Whether you look at this from an animal rights standpoint or from an egg quality one, you come up short.

I was proud today when we served breakfast on the farm to 45 guests who were here for a family overnight (stay tuned for another blog).  We scrambled (or should I day Karen scrambled) up all the eggs we had from our hens.  Because we anticipated some hardy appetites, we bought extra organic eggs from a large, commercial producer.  There was simply no comparison—our eggs were head and shoulders above the others.  The commercial producer’s eggs may be better than say really crappy store bought eggs…but they didn’t hold a candle to ours! 

The color of ours was so deep, so much richer.  And the eggs had ‘taste’ – imagine that—even the kids picked up on the differences.  I’ve never invested the several hundred dollars required to test the nutritional value of my eggs but I’d wager a lot that they’d finish well in that race too.  (Click on the picture to see a larger version.)

Our chickens are confined part of their day to a coop and yard—both of which are sizable.  But then at mid-day, when most of the eggs have been laid in nesting boxes, we allow the girls to have the run of the farm.  The partial confinement helps us from having to conduct an Easter egg hunt 365 days a year…We’re able to collect the eggs promptly, clean and refrigerate them.  By confining the hens for their first 6 months, they learn where  “home” is—where we feed and water them.  After that, they’re allowed to range and we have reasonable certainty that they’ll be back by dusk.  Ranging around the farm allows the chickens to supplement their diet and apparently they do it better than we even feed them.

So while we’ll never produce the volume required by national chains, restaurants and food stores, what we do produce is such a superior quality.   If more people would choose to keep a small flock to feed their families and neighbors, the pleasure of eating farm fresh eggs could be available to so many more.

It would clearly be an enhanced eating experience and I bet a healthier one too.  Some food for thought this winter—there’s plenty of time to start a flock in the spring!

-Lisa

Keynote hits a high note for future of artisan cheese

The keynote speaker at Wednesday’s opening ACS session was Paul Kindstedt , PhD and noted food scientist from UVM with a keen interest in farmstead cheesemaking.  Trained under Frank Kosokowski (a Cornell cheese science legend and ACS founder), Paul now heads the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese.

The question Paul was asked to address is “whether the sun is setting or rising on American artisan cheese”.  Is the enormous growth we’ve witnessed in the last 10+ years sustainable or will the trend reverse itself and fade?

Overall Paul had a very positive outlook on the future.  The key to sustainability, in his view, is the “values-based” interest in artisan cheese that has become the domain of mainstream consumers.  Let me back up…

Rooted in the 60’s, many in the back to the land movement,  those who questioned the establishment and looked for the simpler life,  adopted lifestyles that had them growing their own food, baking their own bread and making their own cheese (some of my best friends--Annie?! Dan?! Elizabeth?!).  If they weren’t producing it themselves, they were procuring it from locals who crafted it organically and responsibly.

In the 60’s, the values were held by those considered left of center and belonged to what was thought to be a fringe group.  But now these values are showing up in conventional segments of the population.

Now these ideals are part of the vocabulary of a majority of Americans (frightening to those of us who think of ourselves as non-mainstream…never mind), set in newer contexts. 

Today, the core drivers of these principles leading consumers to demand cheese that is natural, organic, local, fresh, high quality and hand made by artisans they can know or access can be summarized by the following--
1. Biological stewardship--Biotech/biodiversity—a distrust of science that has brought us cloning, GMO and other innovations—while exciting, we are reluctant to let this into our food supply;  we care about the sustainability & viability of the animals which are part of the food chain.
2. Environmental stewardship—More people are demanding we do right by our soils and waters and reverse past practices known to be harmful to our environment;  The desire to minimize fuel inputs is being voiced and backed up as we source our foods closer to home.
3. Taste--fresh & local—we have rediscovered the differences in food that is produced organically and locally—the flavors are significantly better than those that travel to get to us or arrive out of season.
4. Social Responsibility – we are inclined to support the providers that value  workers and support fair pay whether it be to citizens, immigrants or workers elsewhere in the world

What’s interesting to me is that these values and their implications extend well beyond cheese to all the issues we are involved in at Rainbeau Ridge-- which may mean for once in my life I’m “on” the curve, not behind it!

This does not by any means signify a panacea ahead for fresh, local, organic artisanal goods.  There will be obstacles ahead—The pressure to achieve economies of scale coming from “big ag” will continue to create a wider divide in out respective products—but as an ‘obstacle’, this point of differentiation may end up helping more than hurting…

The most important impediment to future success in our sector may be whether consumers are truly willing to pay for things they say they value.  Lip service is too often paid to issues we presumably value.  For example, look at education—we say it’s of great importance yet we rail against salaries that teachers draw.  In another arena, we say we want to lessen our impact on climate change but resist downsizing our supersized vehicles or lifestyles.  Will we say we value food then refuse to pay for it?

With so many goods lining the shelves of our supersized food stores at all times of year at commodity prices, it’s hard to size the market potential from those who wish to better connect to their food sources and connect to quality truly giving up the ever-ready, very cheap food available to them.

Further complicating the issue of whether there’s a financially sustainable future for cheesemakers is the role of distributors and retailers in the value chain.  With distributors and retails taking the lion’s share of the cheese’s value added structure, will farmers or cheese makers ever get a fair shake?  I’m not sure they will—in the mean time maybe they can ‘make it up on volume’, right dad?

The potential for growth makes me hopeful as the demand side is fueled by “values” — an encouraging indicator for artisan cheesemakers and others who provide local, natural and quality food products since we are, as a whole,  ‘mission driven’ …   But the proof will be in the pudding—or should I say cheese? 

Cheese Heads

The faces change but the stories have a familiar ring to them.  Whether they’re 30 or 60, male or female, the people making artisanal cheeses around the country are working 24/7, despite minimal incomes but in all cases, passionate about what they do.  You’d have to be or you wouldn’t put up with what’s involved…They are ‘values’ driven people who are motivated by stewardship of their craft and of the land and their animals.

The American Cheese Society’s 24th conference held in Burlington Vt this past week was crawling with these cheese heads—no, not the ones from Wisconsin wearing wedges of cheese on their heads…and there were no plaid jackets of usual conventioneers, no jeans or mucking boots from those making farmstead cheeses.

Everyone exchanged their farm clothes  for civies as we heard speakers talk about the outlook for our products, the future of raw milk cheeses, the technical aspects of affinage and the impact on cheese fabrication, pairings of  cheeses with wines and beers, merchandizing of cheeses and more as over 600 people converged to network, share and celebrate accomplishments.

There were veterans of the industry—actually, legends who have been making cheeses for 30 years-- when there was no market for goat or sheep milk cheeses—pioneers who built the market and experimented with cheesemaking techniques before most of us thought about the business.  There were enthusiasts who came just to be near these legends.  Accomplished or novice, young or old, large or small these cheese colleagues were up at 6am and conferenced ‘til dark—not a lot different from a work day.

It was interesting, informative and fun for me—as it was my first conference and first time in a room full of so many who could relate to what I do each day, the challenges I face as a herdswoman, cheesemaker, farmer, employer, woman, spouse, mother and friend. 

The networking and introductions were amazing—I reintroduced myself to Ricki Carroll—considered by many to be the godmother of cheesemakers.  It was in Ricki’s kitchen that I got my first introduction to cheesemaking in 2002, one month before I acquired my first two Alpine goats, as I wondered what I would do with their milk.  There was Neville McNaughton, a Kiwi, who instructed us at Cal Poly’s Dairy Science class in 2004 and a whole host of cheesemakers that I knew by way of email or reputationally but had never met before in person.  It was equally thrilling to be a ‘celebrity’ in my own right.  A woman in the business for 30 years from Texas asked me if I was the lady in the New York Times article; others asked if I would autograph the Rainbeau Ridge entry in the Atlas of Artisan Cheesemakers!

Cheese overload set in before long as it was served at each break, meal and receptions. But I never tired of the sessions or the interchange.  I learned so much, left energized and professionally challenged.  I’m even thinking of entering the competition next year in Chicgao-- stay tuned!

Road Trip . . .

The day started like most others—up at 5—horses to feed, Sprouts to prep for, cheese orders to organize, payroll to make—but things took a new course mid-day and by 2:30 my car was packed and I set out for Burlington, VT where the American Cheese Society was meeting. 

Having been an ‘enthusiast’ for years, an aspiring cheesemaker for a few less and a certified farmstead cheesemaker for two, I decided it was time to step up and join a professional association.  Although not more than a blip in their statistics, this was a big deal for me . . . another acknowledgement that I consider myself a cheesemaker (guess there’s no turning back now that we’re also published in the new Artisan Cheese Atlas—even signed my first two autographs!)

I wasn’t looking forward to a 5 hour drive but it would be good decompression time for me…I ride with a pen and paper by my side—much to the dismay of staff and Karen who accuse me of thinking too much, causing the already too long list of to-do’s and new ideas to expand exponentially.  My jotted notes are usually incomprehensible by my arrival—I spend the evening trying to decode my short hand and scribbles as I remind myself of these thoughts and inspirations.

I chose the highway over the local route.  As soon as I crossed the Vermont border, the scenery changed (for the better).  The pine trees lined the roads, so thick that I felt like I was driving in a green luge—my vehicle speed appropriate for the sport. What is it about broad views, vistas, sunbeams and sunsets that take your breath away?  No matter how many times you come over a hill and see landscape that stretches forever, how many burning balls of fire that set in a matter of seconds tucking behind mountains—how come we never tire of the view?  I find it intoxicating!  So the tedium of the drive was broken up by these special moments and I managed to stay awake despite exhaustion.

The disconcerting part was driving along VT 91 and seeing signs marking rest stops with “WiFi access!”  Comforting on the one hand that in the middle of nowhere/no cell service, I could unpack my laptop and catch up . . . but it didn’t seem to fit with the pastoral landscape.

I suppose this push/pull feeling is parallel to what I feel in farming—on the one hand, I want to retreat into my own world, commune with nature and live simply.  Yet I also feel compelled to be public and push the ‘mission’ which leads to anything but balance or a simple life.  How do I reconcile this dichotomy?  Not sure that one does but that’s for another blog . . .

But back to the road trip . . . I’m whipped from being up since 5am, juiced to be off farm, stimulated by the ideas that streamed in during this alone time, bewitched by the scenic views, hungry for lunch and dinner, jazzed by the anticipation of the upcoming conference.

I checked into the hotel, got some well deserved sleep and looked forward to the morning’s round-table breakfast meeting, keynote speaker and networking in an environment where what I do is not considered odd! 

Time for shut eye—more tomorrow.

-Lisa