This series of posts describes my recent trip to Bobolink Dairy Farm. I decided to break it into chunks because I apparently have a lot to say about it. Today’s entry chronicles the journey itself.
Dawn broke on the big day as we woke up to head to the dairy. Actually, dawn didn’t break until well after we’d woken up, bu that just made it feel all the more farmier. A quick breakfast (cereal and a protein shake for me; leftover homemade pizza and cottage cheese for the Lady. Seriously.) followed soon after, and then we got bundled up. We knew it’d be in the 30s and we’d be tramping in snow, thanks to an email from Jonathan White, the cheesemaker and half the head of Bobolink Dairy Farm, the other half being Nina, his wife, who bears the lovely description of Dancemaker on the website since she is a ballet dancer as well, and who teaches breadmaking classes.
So, I donned a pair of sweatpants, over which went my “fat pants” (size 33 jeans which I used to fluctuate from fitting into comfortably to unable to get over my thigh let alone button). Two pairs of socks, a t-shirt, sweatshirt, hoodie, and jacket followed, my standard snow-shoveling uniform. I laced up my boots, slapped on some gloves, and was ready to roll, as my lovely Lady chronicled with the camera.
Not a Morning Person
I’m never a huge fan of having my picture taken in the best of times, so it’s no surprise that I was sporting my patented half-smile of tolerance. My eyes, nicely puffed from not enough sleep, also displayed the characteristic Popeye look that my family is known for. Oddly, though, my father’s left eye was the squinty one, while mine is the right. The picture does do a poor job of showing that I really was looking forward to our trip, but an excellent job of showing my marked lack of enthusiasm for photo time first thing in the morning.
In contrast, Lady Aravan was bright and chipper, as she usually is when she’s been up for a bit. She too was bundled up, and had twisted her long curly hair into a pair of quite adorable braids. I was ready to go before she was, of course, but had to refrain from making that point too clearly. At one point, I thought we were heading to the door to leave, but in actually she was heading to the closet by the garage door which holds the coats, which earned me a snap and an admonishment not to crowd her. I respect her place as Alpha Female in our pack, and chose not to bother with asserting my Alpha Male status in return, since we were about to spend an hour and a half in the car.
I knew it was an hour and a half drive, since I’d checked on Google before we left. We were supposed to be there at 8. I wanted to leave promptly at 6:30, but launch time was delayed by about ten or fifteen minutes. I won’t say who caused the delay out of politeness (/points at Lady Aravan discreetly), but we were in the car and rolling. I wasn’t sweating it, since the way I drive, I can make up ten minutes in an hour and a half trip easily.
My Lady starts entering the address into the GPS as I pull out. It had been snowing a bit a couple days before, but the roads were clear. Off we went!
About a minute later I hear Lady Aravan gasp. The GPS is saying that it’s going to take over 2 hours to get there. Our arrival time won’t be until after 9 am. She’s upset, I’m grim. I can make up some time, but not shave an hour off of a two-hour trip. The culprit ended up being a mistaken look at Google plotting a course to their old farm, not their new one (both of us looked at it, so there wasn’t anyone to blame), but we learned that later. All I knew was, I needed to drive.
This is the point that I should make the observation that it was either very fortunate or quite unfortunate that I’d watched Death Race and Transporter 3 a couple of days prior.
As Lady Aravan sent an email to let our instructors know that we’d be late, I drove fast. I didn’t cut anyone off, I wasn’t aggressive or mean, but when I had open road, I took it. I did not obey the speed limit that day. In fact, it wasn’t even the merest thought of a suggestion.
Closed bridges forcing detours through unknown territory? No problem. Snow-clogged hilly one-lane roads? Pshaw. Poorly marked turnpike ticket-grabbing stations? Meh. All unfortunate delays, but right around 8:30, we pulled into the farm and Lady Aravan was able to open her eyes and let go of the door handle. It was time to go farming!
In Part 3, the adventure begins, with cows.
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how neat!!! I have friends whoes father was a Dairy farmer…. he never took a day off in his life. You sometimes forget what goes into producing what we eat.