A Day at the Dairy Farm

I took a tour of a dairy farm on Sunday, and I have to tell you that I have a whole new respect for the milk I pour into my tea several times a day.

The Post family has been farming for three generations. Currently, they have 400 cows, 250 of which they milk. They farm about 750 acres; 200 or so are beans and peas that they supply to a cannery nearby, and the rest is corn that feeds the cows.

While we were walking around, a baby calf was born out in the fields. We learned that the calves are sold if they're males and kept if they're female. I also learned that a heifer is a female cow that hasn't had a calf. (See, you learn something new every day!)

We also learned that the farmer keeps track of every single cow, their fertility and gestation periods, how much milk they produce, what they eat in an exact recipe and everything else that keeps a cow healthy.

The cows are milked three times a day; each milking takes 4 or 5 hours. The milking is done by machine. The cows parade into the milking room, where a person hooks the machine up to the cow's udder. They're milked for maybe 5 minutes and when the milk is done the machine automatically releases. It's a messy job, and someone on the farm spends 12 hours a day milking cows.

They collect about 2,000 gallons of milk a day, which is sold to the Upstate Milk cooperative. It's turned into milk, ice cream and cultured products like cottage cheese and yogurt.

I'm not going to lie: a cow farm stinks. But I was amazed at what goes into producing milk. I never knew how much work it takes to run a dairy farm, or how much personal family life is invested in the success of that farm.

Farmers get a bad rap from PETA-nuts, are taxed into oblivion, and most the city folk would rather turn farmland into subdivisions. But the thing most Americans forget is that their food comes from somewhere, and I'd sure as heck get my milk from a local dairy farmer than from China. (As you already know, I've stopped using canned mandarin oranges because they're imported from China.) We need to start giving farmers some respect, because without them we'd starve. And I mean that literally.

So the next time you go to Starbucks, remember that somewhere in America, a farmer toiled over acres of cow corn, shoveled more manure than you can imagine a cow can produce, kept track of fertility and gestation periods of hundreds of cows, and generally spent his entire life farming - so you could have a latte.

Local restaurant honors soldiers ...

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a firm supporter of our troops, wherever they serve. My grandfather fought in WWII. My brother-in-law flies refueling tankers for the Air National Guard. I've adopted a soldier to write to; he's the son of my mailman. I always have a veterans' poppy in my car.

So it seemed like a natural thing to go to the Rochester Public Market yesterday for a promotion celebrating our servicemen and their families. A local restaurant was giving away 500 empanadas to veterans, active soldiers and their families, and hosting four hours of live Latin music.

The owners of the restaurant hosting the event have a son and daughter in the Air Force Reserves, so their support of the troops is natural. On display at the event, on a makeshift easel, was a photo of Marine Cpl. Reynold Armand who was killed in action August 7; his mother and uncle were there.

What surprised me, though, was how unpatriotic the whole thing was.

I got there early, and I had a hard time telling the soldiers from the regular customers. There wasn't anything identifying them - a red poppy, for example. There weren't any tables set up with information about the military - the USO, for example, or a veterans' organization.

Not a single musical act played the "Star Spangled Banner."

In fact, there wasn't even an American flag flying.

Don't get me wrong. It was a lovely gesture the restaurant did, but when I looked around the market I saw enormous signs promoting their breakfast sandwiches, and not a single thing that would have told a stranger walking into the marketplace that today was a day to honor soldiers and veterans.

In fact, there were a few unsavory moments for me. One of the musicians and I were chatting while some dance students were performing traditional Mexican dances, when he turned to me and said, "You can tell the difference between the Mexicans and the Puerto Ricans, if you know what I mean."

No, I told him, I didn't know what he meant.

He pointed to the dance teacher and then nodded towards the restaurant. "You know, the Puerto Ricans over there. Who own the place."

"I don't understand what point you're trying to make," I said, "but the people who own this place are friends of mine. And they're not Puerto Rican, by the way. They're from Chile."

"I love Chile," he replied. "It's a beautiful country."

I don't know what point he was trying to make, but whatever it was it was condescending to Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, and uncalled for under any circumstances.

I don't know why there wasn't a more patriotic display yesterday. It's a difficult thing, talking about war and it's not easy to separate the soliders from the Iraq war. I don't even know how I feel about the war, when we're talking about the big picture because I can't get past the names and faces of the actual men and women serving:

My brother-in-law Eric.
My mailman's son Jimmy.
My friend Jeremy.
Our friends Nela and Patricio.
Lisa Crandall, whose husband John is in Northern Iraq right now for his third tour of duty with the Marines.
Miriam Velez who lost her son Reynold on August 7.

But you can't separate the soldiers from America. No matter how you feel about the President or the government, there should have been some display of Old Glory yesterday, other than the flag-motif sweatshirt one woman was wearing. And if we can sing the National Anthem at a baseball game we should sing it at an event honoring soliders.

And so, in case you were there and didn't hear it, thank you, soldiers, veterans and family members. I know what a sacrfice it is to have your loved ones so far from home, to wonder if they'll come home waving a flag or draped in one.

Thank you, for committing yourself and your family to defend the freedom and honor of the United States of America.

Petit mal kitty cat

Murphy was acting funny today, kind of slinking across the floor unsteadily, and his eyes were darting back and forth. I took him to the vet, and while we were there it happened several times again. The vet things he's having petit mal seizures. They have him for the day and give him some phenobarbitol and then we'll pick him up to come home because there's no one overnight at the vet's.

It was so weird - one minute the cat was fine, the next he was all out of sorts, couldnt' walk straight or hold his head upright. And it only got worse. The last episode I saw lasted for a couple of minutes. I'm trying to find something he might have eaten or gotten into. That cat is everywhere. I came home the other day and he'd lost his breakaway collar. If I can find where he'd gotten tangled up I might be able to find what he got into. Although the vet says it's likely just epilepsy and not a toxin, but the blood work should give us more clues.

Indoctrinate U trailer

You have to check out the trailer for the documentary, "Indoctrinate U", from filmmaker Evan Maloney.



For more information, visit http://indoctrinate-u.com.

Scout and Murphy video

I'm experimenting with the new Blogger video tool, which supposedly will let me upload video clips to my blog. If it works you should see a short clip of Scout and Murphy pawing at each other when they think I'm not looking.

Jerry Lewis and his big mouth

Yesterday, while flipping through the TV channels, I paused for a few minutes on the Jerry Lewis Telethon. As a kid, it was a ritual to watch the telethon so I thought maybe I'd keep it on while I cooked dinner.

About 5 minutes into it, Lewis came on and did a bit about talking to your family. "You remember Bart, your older son," he said towards one camera and motioned towards another, adding, "Jesse, the illiterate faggot."*

Whoa! Wait. Did I hear that right? Did he just utter that word? I stood for a minute in shock. No way, I thought, there is no way. On live national TV? But I changed the channel anyway.

Turns out he in fact say exactly that. Except in their story today the Associated Press didn't print the word; they wrote "f------." Which makes me wonder if I'm not supposed to write the word? I don't know. In the article they have a link so you can watch him say it again and again, so I think it's OK to quote him in print. If I said he uttered the "f" word you'd think it was THE "f" word, the mother of all swear words, and while this "f" word is a really bad one it's not THE baddest one. Someone tell me the protocol on this, please.

Anyway, I thought I was hearing things. But apparently not.

(* In addition to being a slur on gay men, the word "faggot" literally means a bundle of sticks, like you'd use for kindling. I know that because when I was in grade school one kid called another kid that name and my music teacher made him look it upon the dictionary. But recently my lesbian friend explained why the word took on an anti-gay connotation. It's because they used to burn gays, and used "faggots", or bundles of kindling, to get the fires started. OK, that makes it even worse.)

Moon Day

Today is Monday, or should I say Moon Day. When I was outside with Scout at about 11 am this morning, I noticed that the moon was still out. Is that weird? Or is that normal and I've just never noticed it before?

(Postscript: David explained to me later that the moon doesn't rise and set like the sun, and that at different times of the year it's still visible in the sky during the day, we just don't see it. And again I say, you learn something new every day. Either that or I admit to being completely ignorant every day. You decide.)

Labor Day Weekend

On Sunday, we headed to Dansville to spend the day at Stony Brook State Park. There are three trails you can hike, two that take you up into the gorge and then the Gorge Trail, which goes along the brook and lets you get right in to the water.

We got there at about noon, and decided to head up the river on the Gorge Trail. We met maybe a dozen people as we walked along the edge of the water, stopping along the way once or twice to let Scout get a drink and swim. We weren't sure if it was OK to even get into the water, outside of the two stream-fed, lifeguarded gorge swimming pools

But as we got higher up, we started to see more and more people walking in the water and the crowd got more and more dense. And then we hit the stairs, which just about did us in. There were about a million stairs up to the end of the Gorge Trail.

When we got to the top we realized that we needed to either turn around and go back the way we came or take one of the rim trails. We opted for the East Rim, which had us go over the gorge and down the other side.

Except we didn't realize that in order to down we had to go up ... and up and up. I also didn't realize I was that out of shape, because by the time we reached the top I could barely breathe. The trail was uneven and rocky, but the view down into the gorge was amazing. The people looked like tiny little ants. It was hard to believe we'd been down there just an hour before.

When we finally reached the bottom and ended up back where we began, we decided to go back up the Gorge Trail just enough to let Scout swim in the pools and cool off. A quick stop at the car to let me leave my sneakers and grab my flip flops told us that a lot of people had descended on the park while we were hiking. The picnic area was packed, radios were blaring and cell phones ringing.

And when we got back by the swimming area, it was completely mobbed. We grabbed something to eat at the snack bar (next time we'll be prepared with lunch; our original plan was to hang out for an hour and then go see Ryan and Cheryl at camp), sat for a few minutes with a barking Scout, and followed the trail back to the beginning.

That's when we realized that another walk would be impossible. You could barely walk on the path, there were so many people, and the water was packed with people. Scout was wound up, barking at other dogs and people.

A word about other dogs: the park was filled with people and their dogs, and we only saw one dog being bad, and that was his owners fault. All of the other dogs were on leashes and under control. That was a surprise.

Anyway, by the time we were done we'd been at the park more than 3 hours, and we were all exhausted. Next time we'll hit the park earlier and bring lunch. But it was a great way to spend the day.

So while 2007 isn't the Year of Adventure (we were supposed to be hiking in Yellowstone this summer) is turning out to the be Year of Mini-Adventure, which is OK.

Travels with Charley

This summer, we were supposed to take a road trip to Wyoming to visit friends. The trip had to be cancelled for various reasons, and I admit that I'm still not over it.

I'm reading "Travels with Charley," John Steinbeck's account of his cross country trip in a truck and cab/camper with his poodle Charley. I've never read the book before (which is odd, because I've read almost everything else he's written) but it's got me yearning again to pack the car with the bare necessities, including the dog, and hit the road to ... somewhere. The friends we were supposed to visit in Wyoming are now in South Carolina, and that's a drive I can go by myself. So there's the possibility of that.

And yet I ask myself how much I do right in my own backyard. I haven't been to Letchworth since I was a child. I haven't pitched a tent and slept outside in two years, and even then only at the amusement park during Kingdom Bound. I went to the art gallery two years ago for the first time since high school, spent four hours looking at art and loved it, but haven't been back. I love the Butterfly Conservatory in Key West, and yet a larger one is down the thruway in Niagara Falls - in fact, they just built one right in Rochester. I haven't visited the zoo, or sat for hours watching my favorite river otters, in years.

I'm writing a column for ByLine Magazine about where I get my story ideas, and as I listed places - do something different, so the same thing differently, walk the mail route with your mailman, spend a day shadowing a high school freshman, for example - I realize I'm good at giving advice but not so great at taking it myself. Doing something once doesn't mean you never do it again, and yearning for the open road when you rarely travel past your own block is like wishing for the moon while sitting on a star.