Day 1

I'm in Everett, north of Seattle, off the interstate, across the valley, on a farm down a slow, dead-end road with a dog on it. I'll take some time to document this place after I synchronize my surroundings. The farm has been a whirlwind of fantastic activity since my arrival. I got out of the car and met Marcia, who took me on a tour of the property. She showed me all the chickens wandering around, the huge Anatolian shepard dogs, and the goats. I arrived at 3pm, and took the opportunity to watch the afternoon milking. I watched as the milkroom handled 60 does and collected several gallons of milk. It's an impressive operation. I'm glad it isn't done by hand; seems like that'd take all day.

After the milk room was cleaned out, we headed into the kitchen to get a bite before heading to bed. One of the deals with this job is free room and board, and around here, board means we have free access to anything and everything in the house. I opted for some summer sausage, cheese, tomatoes and avocado, washed down with some raw, unpasteurized cow milk. I'd never had that before. It was rich, creamy, and delicious. I wonder if I'll ever be able to go back to the milk I was drinking before.

I mentioned to Marcia that I'd only had goat milk once. That was the stuff we got from the store on that cross-country trip to North Carolina. Marcia kind of laughed and went to the milk processing room. She returned with a half-glass of fresh, raw goat milk and offered it to me. Folks, this stuff was fantastic. Night and day better than the stuff I had in Arizona. Winter prices reach $20/gallon or more, so we won't be drinking much until all the pregnant does have their kids. I'm told that people drink more milk in winter than during summer months so by then, demand and prices will fall, and most of the does will be in milk. This will provide a huge surplus and much of that will be turned into cheese. Word is that we'll be able to make cheese with cow milk in the meantime.

There is a lot going on at any one time. Today, in addition to the milking, I learned how they process and bottle the milk. Today for lunch, Craig, the most senior intern, made pizza (including the dough) entirely from scratch. After lunch, I watched Erin (another intern) use the tractor to plow up a section of yard, which will be used to expand the garden. I'll get a chance to try my hand at tractoring when we re-do the pasture. Oh, it looks like I forgot to mention the little kid that was disbudded after lunch. Disbudding is a fairly heart wrenching procedure by which horns are removed from young bucklings. It's rough, but it's necessary, and preferable to having bucks tear each other to shreds with growing horns. There's a lot of reality around here. Not all of it is pretty, but it's all beautiful. Does that make sense? Something about the synergy of this place feels incredible. Even down to the chickens pecking through fresh goat droppings. This farm is amazing. I'm really glad I'm here. I'm off to go help with the afternoon milking.

- Steve