The Churchills are trying to let go of dairying

I went to Thelma's this morning and during the usual conversation, she said "Your neighbors are selling their cows."

Oh my.  I'm not surprised I didn't know.  Vermonters are generous with information if you ask a question (many jokes notwithstanding), but are reluctant to talk about themselves to anyone they haven't known for more years than I've lived there. Nonetheless, I stopped at the house late this afternoon. Lori answered the door and I asked if I could ask about what I'd heard, that they were selling the cows. And they are.

A lot of it is about the price of milk.  But most of it is about the work, and the work to keep dairy cows going is huge. You want to minimize how much grain you feed cows, because you can't grow the grain yourself.  What you can grow is your own hay or corn, and the hay work (after you wait out the rain and get three days of warm sun) is exhausting. Hours on the tractor, mowing.  Hours on the tractor, chopping, or tetting and raking.  Hours on the baler, and all of this is in hayfields that aren't all that far away, but are by no means next to the house.  And loading the hay into the hay barn and getting it stacked up.

 Then there are the barn chores. Cows don't care how dirty they get, and udders have to be cleaned prior to milking. Milking machines are heavy. The person doing the milking is bending over all the time.  The milk parlor has to be cleaned top to bottom after each milking. And the hay has to be fed out, and the barn mucked out (horses are a piece of cake compared to cows). And equipment repaired. And cows aren't very trainable.  Docile, yes.  Trainable, no.  If you have to doctor a cow, you're wrestling with her. Ray and Lori have a hired man, who works hard, but he's no spring chicken, and for the last few years his job has been to manage the milk room and the cows in the barn.  Everything else is pretty much up to Ray and his son-in-law Paul.

A farmer stops dairying because of injury in a farm accident, or because the farmer wears out, and that's what's happened to Ray.  His back is gone.  He had some discs fused in 2001, and that gave him relief for a while, but the farm work started undoing that result about 3 years ago.  Ray can't stand up for more than about 15 minutes without leaning on something. He's in constant pain again. The pain and the work mean that he's running on empty all the time.

This is a business and continuing-health decision, but it comes at a great emotional cost.  Ray and Lori were high school sweethearts, and both are from dairy families.  For Ray to give up dairying changes the course of their family's histories. 

But there's a herd history that will end too.  Ray and Lori's herd started with Ray's first cow, Candy.  Starting when Ray was a Junior Showman, Candy took blue ribbons at Tunbridge Fair for a number of years.  Many of the current cows are descendents and grand-descendents of Candy.  The cows are very much their own family, not patched together from an auction here and an auction there.  And they're part of the Churchill family. 

26 cows are sold, and Ray and Lori are trying to seal the deal on 25 more.  They're relieved that the 26 have gone to a young woman in New Hampshire with a degree in dairy management, who loves the Jersey cow, loved Ray's cows, and paid him "the right price".  They will be her foundation herd, not just 26 more in a monster herd, so they've gone to a good home.  Even so, Lori is taking this hard, because the breakup of families is hard to deal with, even though the decision makes very good sense if Ray is to keep his health.

It's hard to think of not seeing Jersey cows in those fields, and next to my house. Several years ago another local farmer gave up dairying because his back gave out, and he says that decision has kept him out of a wheelchair. I think Ray sees that wheelchair rolling toward him.

Ray and Lori would like to keep a small herd of 16-20.  They have private milk customers that they'd like to keep.  Ray says he can do the haying, but Paul really does not like the milking part of farming (although he will do it). Ray's daughter Brenda has a full-time job, so she can't take the milking over.  Lori  doesn't do milking, and I'm sure there's a good reason, because she isn't a slacker. They are going to try the small herd until the fall of next year, and then decide what to do.  Paul would like to run beef cattle, and there is a growing market for local beef. 

Farming is gratifying to those who do it successfully, but it is difficult beyond words. However long and however well you farm, the work, day after day after day, never stops. And it wears you out.

Did you say it was 6:38 am?

Oh for heaven's sake.  Despite a couple of well-placed Post-It notes, I forgot.  The alarm went off, I got up, did the morning breakfast routine for self and cat, turned on the radio and wondered why the program was not what I expected.  Chalked it up to the pre-coffee morning fog.

Fired up the computer and sat down (with coffee) to check email.  What? 6:38 am? That means I got up at 5:15 ...

Well, the clocks are now properly adjusted, and there will either be an afternoon nap or an early bedtime.  But it's nice to have morning light an hour earlier.

Leftovers can be wonderful

What to make for dinner?

• some sweet Italian sausage that needs cooking
• half a jar of pasta sauce that is about 50% home-made sauce
• some aging fresh mushrooms (shriveling up)
• leftovers from a small bag of pizza cheese (actually, half a bag!)
• some peas (in the freezer) that I had forgotten about
• a cup (uncooked) of penne pasta that's been staring at me for weeks
• the "special ingredient" : the last (close to one cup) of the roasted veggies - eggplant, onion, zucchini, mushroom, red pepper, tomatoes
  
  Cooked the sausage, added everything else (except the cheese) to the sausage and reheated it.  Then turned it into a casserole dish and mixed in the cheese.  Baked, covered, 25 minutes. Served with salad.  Oh boy was that good.

And what's for dessert?  Apple/Pear crisp

• Equal amounts of (peeled, sliced) apples and bosc pears
• A handful or so of dried cranberries
• A handful or so of chopped walnuts
• sugar, cornstarch and nutmeg (as though to make a pie)
• Turn into a baking dish
• Top with (1/2 c flour, 1/2 c brown sugar, 4 Tbsp butter, cinnamon, nutmeg)  all cut together and mixed with 1/4 cup lightly toasted  regular oatmeal.
• Bake at 375 for 30 minutes. Let rest at least 20 minutes before serving.

Election Day has come and (thankfully) gone

Well, Vermont has a governor.  The voters saw their duty to decide, and not to leave it up to the legislature.  But it was not decided until about 10 this morning, when the Republican candidate conceded.  It was a very, very close race (we're talking only a couple of thousand votes, if that) and apparently it became clear this morning that the towns whose results were not in could not bring in enough votes for the Republican to catch the Democrat candidate.  I dislike them both so much that I will not call them by name.

Thankfully we still have our very small but very effective Vermont congressional delegation.  Bernie Sanders did not have to stand for re-election to the Senate.  Patrick Leahy, our Senate veteran, was declared the winner about 15 minutes after the polls closed at 7 pm, and Peter Welch, our House representative, was declared the winner at about 8pm.  That is a relief.  The results for local legislative races are trickling in.  I've heard nothing about our district, which probably means no substantial changes, and that's OK.  Down in the Royalton area, the race is showing a one-vote difference.  They need a change down there from a long-serving, big-talker-do-nothing representative. The challenger is young and with no prior experience, but she has the issues nailed.  I hope she pulls this off. Edited later: Apparently, she has.  And, true to form, the incumbent is complaining that it's not his fault.

There's no point in me weighing in on the national elections.  You all know whether your congressional representatives will work for you or not (except for the poor DC people who are victims of a system they have no say in).  Politicos in Vermont are convinced that no money will flow from the feds to the states until after the 2012 election , and states with budget trouble (Are there any that aren't? VT has a multi-million dollar budget shortfall in the upcoming year) will continue to be in serious trouble.

Several local politicos and national ones as well are of the opinion that there will be two years of legislative stalemate in Washington, since the Republican's stated agenda is not focussed on the needs of the American people, but on ensuring that Obama is a one-term president.  This implies no new job initiatives, no improvements (and possible retrenching) on healthcare, no financial sector reform (which leaves people with troubled mortgages in real trouble), and so on.  Nothing that would appear to make the current administration look the least bit successful.  And the consequences for anyone else be damned.

There are no winners in this election.

Don't overuse your credit cards and do everything possible not to lose your job. That's the bottom line until another election cycle comes around.  Am I being cynical? No. Just disgusted.

Football

Yesterday I heard on NPR's All Things Considered that NFL players are confused about the league's decision to actually enforce the existing rule against dangerous hits. 

I don’t think I want to get into why the players – who, God knows, have suffered many injuries, and seen enough serious injuries, and serious after-effects, among their peers – might be confused.

What upsets me are these player statements:

From an AP article posted on NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130672660 ): 

"The guys who have had the knack to lay somebody out, I consider it a talent in itself," Broncos safety David Bruton said. "I feel as though these deterrents would be depriving them of the chance to showcase their abilities."

On the subject of head-to-head hits, Miami linebacker Channing Crowder said the only way of preventing helmet-to-helmet hits is to eliminate the helmet. "If I get a chance to knock somebody out, I'm going to knock them out and take what they give me," Crowder said. "They give me a helmet, I'm going to use it."

From an NPR-produced piece by Tom Goldman (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130757477 )

Lawyer Milloy, a defensive back for the Seattle Seahawks, said "You know, going into a game, am I thinking about it? I'd be lying by saying that I wasn't, you know. How do I tackle this guy? You know, can I have the woo hits like, you know, Ronnie Lott used to talk about? Theyre really taking that out of the game, and that's a shame." (Tom Goldman explained that to listeners: "The woo hits were what Hall of Fame defensive back Ronnie Lott called the violent hits that made the entire stadium go woo.")

It's appalling.

I stopped following pro hockey in the 1970s, because the Philadelphia Flyers, then an NHL expansion team, put their Goon Squad on the ice. The Goon Squad's job was to win games for their team by intimidating opponents, starting fights (or escalating them) and making hits with the express purpose of putting opposing players out of the game. The team and the press called them "The Broad Street Bullies." They were thugs, pure and simple.

The NFL players who think that “laying someone out” is a valuable talent, who will “knock somebody out” at any opportunity, and who believe that a big "woo” factor is a good thing, are thugs. The more of them that are suspended, fined or dismissed from football, the better.

A day in Boston and a mission accomplished

In early September my BWFF (Best Work Friend Forever) Sophia said "You haven't gone on vacation and you still have vacation money left.  Spend some going to see "Wicked" in Boston."  I love the sound track, so I decided to do it.

Despite the fact that there's a restaurant on the street level, the Opera House building must be behind the restaurant and above it, because you walk in the Opera House door and up a few steps, and turn right and lo! You're in the Opera House lobby, and many stairs later, you find your seat in the front row of the balcony.  I think that must be behind the top row of windows.  But maybe not.  I don't know.

There are no bad seats in the Boston Opera House. They say it, and it's true. On the other hand the sound doesn't carry through the house evenly.  But I do love the sound track, so almost all of it was familiar.  It's a good story (the Oz prequel, by someone else, not L. Frank Baum, about the life of the Wicked Witch of the West) and the singing by the two female leads is out of this world. There are many homages to The Wizard of Oz, and the story (and show) ending is unexpected.  The staging is terrific - Les Mis and Lion King raised the bar on staging and visual effects, and there are neat stage things galore. A good show!

Boston is a good 3 hours from Brookfield (assuming no traffic problems) but I only had to drive an hour each way.  Knitting friends told me about the Dartmouth Coach, a bus service from Dartmouth College to Boston.  Getting there and back cost a little more than $60 - $15 for all-day parking in Hanover NH (where Dartmouth is), $45 for a same-day round trip, and a couple of subway fares on the Boston MBTA.  The hour of driving is to and from Dartmouth.

I left at 7:45 am, caught the 9:00 bus, was in Boston by 11:30, ate a food court lunch, and wandered up and down Washington Street (big downtown shopping street) in Boston, and then took in the Boston Common.  It was a glorious and very windy day. I got one picture (above) and then the batteries died, and although I'd brought knitting I forgot about camera batteries.  In Boston Common there were men in colonial garb leading walks and talking about life in Boston during the Revolutionary times. The two I heard were either actors or re-enactors, because they were playing their roles to the hilt.  Boston also has handsome police horses (Metropolitan Mounted Patrol), but no batteries, no pictures ...

The show ran from 2pm to 5pm. Afterward I went to a restaurant in Chinatown for dinner, then back to the bus terminal for some serious knitting (what else to do from 5:45 until the bus came at 7:15??). The bus left at 7:30 pm, arrived in Hanover at 10 and I was home by 11. The bus provides single-serving bags of pretzels, bottles of water, wireless, music, and a movie ("Invictus" on the way down and "Date Night" on the way back).  I didn't do the movies: I knit all the way down and slept most of the way back, which is why I'm still awake at 12:40 am Sunday.

Not having to drive to Boston and back in one day made the entire excursion worthwhile. I  might think about doing it again sometime, for tourist purposes.  My only other trip to Boston was in 7th or 8th grade, with a church youth group, and I don't remember anything except that it rained the whole time. 

Mission Accomplished

Now it's 6:25 pm.  I finally got the wood stacked.  I just told myself to go out there and do it. 4 hours of serious work.  This wood is a pain in the neck. 

Tim's Fall Foliage pictures

Tim came to Vermont at exactly the right time.  The fall colors literally came and went over that weekend. Tim arrived on Thursday night, just as the color became evident. The peak color was Friday and Saturday, and began to fade (dramatically) on Sunday.  He got the good "fall color" pictures, and should put them on Facebook so everyone can see them.

Rochester Hollow Road, Braintree

 Rochester Hollow Pond

Thayer Brook Road, Braintree

Churchill pasture trees

Gorgeous golden tree

And let us not forget Ernie

Thanks, Tim!!