Salvation

Pt. 1: Memory Lain(i)

The Spiciest One, alive and well

When last we met, I was preparing for a trip Up North to pick up a buckling from one Laini Fondiller, entirely unsure of how this would unfold for me logistically or emotionally. I'd like to say it's taken me this long to process, but the truth is I've been a lazy motherfucker whose will to weave words and otherwise create has been all but extinguished by a week of truly exhausting work days. 

Picture, if you will, two Saturdays ago. I know it's hard to remember that far back. I awoke to a clear, blue, sunny sky -- the kind that lulls you into a false sense of serenity before delivering an apocalyptic death blow. So you can see where my head was when I hopped in my car for the two hour trek to the Northeast Kingdom. Being that I haven't been back that way since I moved 5 months ago and that I have absolutely no spatial memory or orienting intuition, not to mention a paralyzing fear of repetition (more on this later), the first half of the trip felt entirely foreign and new. But once I hit 100 North in Waterbury, everything became familiar, and I started to get the ol' knot in my throat and stomach, reminiscing about what my life had been just a half a year before and romanticizing the fuck out of a time that now seems comparatively idyllic, what with the long leisurely afternoons and the amusing if harrowing Laini-sodes and anthropologically arresting features of living in an odd, sparsely populated mountain town. As I got closer to the farm, passing the turn for my old house, the bed and breakfast and Flash's garage and the monastery, and turned up Buck Hill Road, I started to get fully nervous about what my reception would be. Would Laini and I hug? Would it just be a quick, perfunctory "Here's the Buck, see you later!"? I prepared for the likelihood that our visit would not top five minutes and made my peace with that. But to fortify my soul, I turned up my recently unearthed Hole (LOLOLOLOLOL) cd a bit louder.

When I turned down the long, winding driveway, negotiating the smooshy earth brought on by an early onset/noncommittal mud season, I took note of the cow barn to my left, whose residents when I left, Asa and Ruby, were presumably in Laini's freezer by now, and the big luxurious buck barn standing full formed, which Barry had been toiling to finish at the time of my departure. I disembarked from my car expecting to be greeted by Gertie, but instead was met with the sound of drilling and intermittent cursing emanating from the barn, courtesy of Barry. Ah yes. Some things never change. I peeked my head into the cheese house, spying a table full of snowy white hillocks on the draining table, but no Laini. So I ascended the porch to her house and knocked. She was seated at her computer.

"Come in!" she hollered.

"Just a minute, I'm finishing up an email," she said without a glance my way as I passed the threshold uncertainly. "I'm emailing ... remember that lady who came and bought some goats from us from Fat Toad? Now she's working for this new company that makes flavored maple syrup and I want to connect her with Jack [Lazor] because they're having trouble with their yogurt sales over at Butterworks and I thought maybe if they were able to add more flavors they'd have better luck. You see all the flavors they have on the market now for yogurts? SO MANY. My GOD."

And thus began my hour-long visit with my one true love (besides Gary), Laini Fondiller. It was both like I never left and like our relationship had shifted from one of worshipful deference (me) to one of familial affection. Not before I submitted my sacred offering of worth-its-weight-in-literal-gold Animal Farm butter of course ("I eat butter like it's cheese on my toast," Laini exclaimed. I knew this). She sprang up to hug me and I curled up in an armchair and took in the sight of her -- her bedazzled cat's eye glasses and inside out striped turtleneck and unmistakable elfin face. I listened to her tirade about the latest drama at the farmer's market, her slow recovery from foot surgery, and the most recent outrage regarding the difficulty of selling her latest cheese-ular creation. Her annual tyric experimentations have historically been hit or miss -- last year's efforts, a mottled blue bloomy rind with a vein of lemon and paprika called Twilight that was meant to look tie-dyed came out looking, to the untrained eye, unintentionally spoiled, so it's anyone's guess as to why Laini went full steam ahead with a washed and brushed cow's milk she was forced for space reasons to ripen in the old aging cave next to her blues, thereby assuring that the little guys would develop a bit of blue on their exterior. After the initial hardship of getting these cheeses to move at retail, she devised a plan to sell them bisected, so that people could see the blue-free interior and be less put off. This seemed to work well, but the retailers refused to be the ones to cut the cheese for her, thus compounding the labor of her workers who were responsible for getting cheese ready for shipping every week. 

"I swear, I should just send a knife to every one of those shops who refuse to cut that cheese for me with explicit instrucions that reads 'Place knife on cheese. Apply pressure,'" she snorted, thoroughly put out. 

"I'm not sure sending weapons to your sellers in the mail would impart the right message, Laini, but that's just me," I replied. 

After a bit more gossiping (her favorite) and fielding questions about my new gig, which seemed to pain Laini a barely perceptible amount when I spoke of how wonderful my new bosses were, we headed out to the solar barn, outfitted just as it had been last year to create a makeshift nursery with stacked bales of hay. She climbed into one of the pens and scooped up my ward, whom she had already dubbed Q-tip (presciently it seems, given that she did so a few days before the passing of Tribe's Phife Dog). I stowed Sir Q-pert in my car and told Laini I needed to go see some friends in the barn. She led me in and I hesitantly asked if Spice was still inside. "Yep. We had to ship Chuli though. It's really too bad." My beautiful Chuli of the Navajo coloring. The most beautiful goat in all the herd.

Laini charged to the back of the barn as I peeked into each pen to pay my respects to all my old pals and see the new yearlings in all their pregnant glory. 

"Lauren's here to pick up that buck!" Laini yipped to Barry. 

"AHHH I thought I heard a familiar voice," he said by way of greeting. 

I was relieved to see my Spicey One-derful still residing in her old pen, bigger and healthier than I'd ever seen her. I beckoned to her but whether distracted by Laini's presence or completely unsure of who I was, she was standoffish at best. I went to check on my Placer ("Hi Place Mat!" Laini chirped) and even knelt down at eye level so Placey could push her face into mine like she used to, but she seemed thoroughly uninterested in rekindling our friend-mance, much to my chagrin. Some memories are best left untested, though I like to tell myself that if I'd had more time one on one with my old pals they'd have sniffed out my scent and recognized me in a matter of minutes. 

Placemat of my heart

 As it was, I was rather shocked Laini had let me stay so long, and with Q-pert in the car, I didn't want to overstay my welcome. Noting the new stereo system in the barn, I made my exit. We embraced once more as I idled near my car and Laini grilled me on the make and model of my phone, and I told her that flip phones were now so uncool they were becoming cool again, so she was once again ahead of the curve. And thus concluded my whirlwind visit to Lazy Lady Farm, site of my baptism into this strange new world and life I currently inhabit. I needed a good dose of Laini to help me prioritize toughness as a value and stop dwelling so completely in my sad-sack habitat of the past few months. 

Which I did, for like one and a half full days. Until ....

Pt. 2: The Paschal Goat

 

Tray

Sometimes you find yourself waking, rising, dressing and caffeinating at 3 am, --  a time of night day at which a mere 2 years ago you may well have been tripping drunkenly to bed -- staring down a goat with a baseball cap at 5 am, shoulder deep in a vat of milk by 9, and having a full half workday under your belt by lunchtime, otherwise known as the time I might -- might -- previously have stumbled out of my chambre to sally forth for a hangover meal of Coca-cola and egg-n-cheese and peruse all the ill-advised texts I'd sent the previous night.

You could say things have fucking changed.

But let me backtrack.

The week after my trip to see Laini was one for the record books. My sister in arms, one St. Helen, was away at a FSMA (don't fucking ask) training thing so I got an up close and personal view of what life at Twig Farm had been like before a second employee was added to the skeleton staff of two. Granted, I realize I'm still quite slow and inefficient with many of my tasks, but it's hard to fathom how one person could have managed to accomplish all that needs to be accomplished on a weekly basis. I felt by turns totally verge-of-tears overwhelmed by all that had to be done and horribly guilty that my lack of competency necessitated that Michael pitch in to help me more than he ought to have. Being that he starts his day EVERY day at 4 am, it seems reasonable to expect that past 4 pm he really shouldn't be needing to do much of anything other than spend time with his family and relax, certainly not moving cheese into the cellar and cleaning the cheese house, which he did one day so as to ensure I wouldn't be at work for more than 12 hours. 

Early in the week, I was informed of two things. One, that I would have my (evidently 3 months overdue?) performance review and two, that Tracy would be visited by the angel of death, otherwise known as a fellow from Green Pasture Meats, whose services we had secured to do an on-farm slaughter. As the week progressed, it became clear that this would occur on the same day. I fretted alternately about one and then the other, worried by turns about my lack of progress and contribution to the farm's functioning, afraid that my near-constant state of anxiety and dread was fully transparent and simultaneously paralyzed by the fear that my short tenure at the farm would be terminated before I was ready to leave, before I'd gotten my bearings or fully admitted that I couldn't hack it and certainly before I'd lined up an alternate line of work.  Whether or not I'd successfully talked myself down from that ledge, I began to contemplate Tracy and try my best to reason with myself that this was the reality of farming, that this was the best case scenario and that Tracy wouldn't know the difference. I had moments of righteous indignation that allowed for the possibility that I may never be ok with this aspect of dairying, and that perhaps that was alright. This quickly morphed into a further descent into the rabbit hole of wondering whether I was cut out for any of this life after all, a relatively frequent mental refrain.

I tried to make an effort to spend as much of my near non-existent free time as I could with Tracy the days leading up to her D-day, trying to comfort myself with the knowledge that I'd given her all the love and affection I could have, but when Thursday rolled around, I was physically and mentally keyed up and no amount of mental bargaining could calm me down. After a glorious, squee-filled reunion with my beloved compatriot Helen (seriously it was just a series of sublingual chirps for minutes on end) and a morning given over to preparing orders for shipment, it was time for my review, the contents of which is classified but which I'm happy to report did not conclude with my termination and if nothing else reaffirmed my deeply felt belief that despite this being the hardest job I've ever fucking had in my life, my employers are incredible, thoughtful, brilliant and kind people who are fully invested in teaching me things, creating reciprocity and attempting to provide me with as high a quality of life as they can (in full view of the fact that they are exacting and have very high standards and expect their employees to work their goddamned tails off).

With this minor burden lifted, I was able to focus the rest of my frayed emotions on the impending death of one of my favorite goats. I'd negotiated with Helen and concluded that much as I'd hoped to have attained the toughness I'd invoked earlier on in the week, I was not up to the task of witnessing this animal's death. She said she'd stay for the pm milking, as the appointment was due to overlap with the evening's chores. After tending to some post-lunch duties, I popped my head into the parlor to catch Tracy for her final trip up onto the stand, and I held her head as she munched guilelessly on her grain and wept quietly, kissing her on the nose and whispering that I was sorry I couldn't save her. "I tried, sweetie. I tried." When she was finished up I followed her out into the yard and gave her as many hugs as I could while she nuzzled me in her affectionate way and stuck her head into the hay feeders and fought off the interlopers who demanded I pay attention to them (Charlie, Crapple et. al). I cried a little more and then decided I'd need to beat a path out of there so as not to run into the AoD and feel the pangs in my stomach escalate to puncture wounds. I took my leave of her, and let the tears come fast and furious as I drove away from the farm. By the time I turned onto Route 30, I'd queued up some uptempo dance music and decided to take myself on a little shopping spree for [item redacted] to take my mind off of things. 

No sooner did I pull into the parking space in front of the [item redacted] store than I received a text from St. Helen: "Whelp. She's pregnant. Tracy's ovaries saved the day. No goat meat until winter."

The agrarian gods were smiling upon me. For the next 12 hours, I praised whatthefuckever for the stay of execution, all the while reminding myself that this is how it always ends, that no goat will escape some version of this fate. In an odd way, it gave depth and perspective to my own sense of mortality ... We all go about our lives, embroiled in our daily dramas, engaging in all the life-affirming activities that become rote and routine -- eating and sleeping and fucking, all the while with a target on our backs that makes it all seem comically pointless. To think of Tracy eating her grain with the knowledge that just an hour later she'd be a lifeless corpse gave me a chill, but no one knows when their clock will run out. With some exceptions, we all conspire to forget the inevitability of death. Of course we do, or else how could we go on? Why would we bother to shower or eat or apply mascara or take vitamins or engage in the other farcical endeavors that string our days together? 

Like, not to be a huge bummer or anything. 

The takeaway is that myself and Tracy live to fight another day ... for now. Stay tuned.