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July 1, 2017: How I Became a Farm Frau – and Learned to Love Raw Milk

The above title is an intentional play on Stanley Kubrik’s “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb.” The parallel is this: both Dr. Strangelove and I ended up clinging to that which is destined to kill us. The bomb, a product of a dysfunctional society, and milk, a product of a dysfunctional off-the-grid household.

Pete left me here yesterday. He took off with my horse and went on a four-day pack trip. I was very gracious about this going – I felt like the Queen of England, said “go, go, have a great time.” Big mistake. Once again I have been left with far more to do than I can do well. This is a two-person operation. As efficient as I am (and I am very efficient), I can only do the work of one person.



 

The most pressing thing right now is hoop house management. Yesterday afternoon I went to do the watering. I then took note of the fact that there’s a cluster of hoses with valves on them at the entrance to the Eden-like man cave. I picked up the hose in the hoop house and turned a valve, fully expecting water to gush out of the nozzle. All that came forth was a mere drizzle.

I spent about an hour, walking around and turning valves on and off. No water. I next walked across the yard and got some water out of the nearly full garbage can. I lugged it across the yard and into the hoop house. I then poured what I had on hand onto the plants. I quickly deduced that the amount of effort and time that would go into watering all the plants by hand would make this too great an undertaking.

Sad to say, this is one of the things around here that I am going to have to forego—so this year we are going to lose our hoop house garden.

There are other things that right now, are also amiss. Our kitchen set up was designed and is primarily used by a right-handed handyman. I reach with my left hand do something, like say, put a dish in the rack, but I have to switch said implement to my right hand. Very inconvenient.

Pulling the bucket, which contains the icepacks and milk up from the root cellar into the kitchen addition, is also difficult. The nail on which the rope hangs is too distant from my shorter arms. I often drop the rope, and have to go down the ladder to get it.

Pete did not leave me with information as to the end steps of making yogurt. In attempting to get the glop off the cheesecloth I made a real mess, one that took some time to clean up.

Oh well. The milking has been going well. I now have a routine – I get the goat ready, give her food and go at it. Nice to sit behind her and do something that takes a minimal amount of brain power. Dr. Strangelove, in sitting on the bomb probably thought the same. Yep, we are both riding high on what is to be our own undoing.

Next: 179. 7/2/17: Midmorning Winds

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