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| My own Placer |
This second leave-taking was more bittersweet than the first by an order of magnitude, because this time around, every second of my time there was a joy. I'm sure this was at least in part because I knew that there was an end date in sight. More than once it has occurred to me that this is in fact true of LIFE ITSELF, but somehow it seems harder to put into practice the "live each day as if it was your last" bullshit when the end date is unknown and possibly many decades in the future. I feel like Buddhism addresses this in more profound detail but I skipped that day and so cannot speak on it intelligently.
I digress. As I have written previously, everything felt different and better this time because I finally knew my ass from my elbow a little bit, and so my waking hours have not been gripped with panic that I was doing things wrong or fucking up irrevocably. I could drill down and notice some of the finer points of Laini's operation and appreciate her odd and mostly brilliant way of doing things. I could marvel again and again at what she has built brick by brick over many years, beginning with nothing. As I start on my own dairy venture, I discover how much easier everything is now than it was then -- access to resources and information are so much more readily found than they were in the late 80s and early 90s when Laini was starting up (thank you The Internet). In fact, there weren't really even any books on the topic, because artisan goat cheese was not even a fucking THING yet in this country. There was no roadmap. She became the roadmap.
As I turned down the driveway this morning, I tried to recall what it had been like when I first arrived back on the farm in May -- the snow was still receding even then, and the girls were not yet on grass. But within a few weeks, everything seemed to explode with life -- suddenly the sun was out and the grass was growing and the milk cans were full to overflowing. Now the pendulum has swung back in the other direction. The days are painfully short, the sun makes an appearance once every 10 days or so (but oh, when it does .... ), the landscape is swathed in muted tones of grey and brown and white. Hauling cheese has become a treacherous affair, a sort of wintertime Olympic sport, a mix of ice luge and ice climbing, only with a cooler packed with 50 lbs of cheese. For the first time ever, Laini began trusting me to take the goats for walks up the driveway, what I began to refer to as "getting our steps in." Few things in life have produced such unadulterated euphoria as watching 14 befuddled goats peek tentatively around the yard and then, slowly, begin to jog after me in a long line as we make our way up the snow encrusted slope of the road, occasionally having to yell encouragement as a shadow of a tree or movement of bird spooks them into paralysis.
Today I made my way over the mountain as day was breaking, the sky resplendent in a decidedly y 80s pastel palette of pinks and purples, the moon still tumescent over the northeast. I decided that this time I would not listen to the dulcet tones of NPR on my commute because I wanted to soak up every, every minute of my last drive to the farm. I began in the barn, the first day of no milking as we head into the dry season. The girls got their pittance of grain, there allotment of first cutting, fresh water and minerals. I gave face skritches to most of my VIP retinue, but saying goodbye to them didn't feel quite as burdensome, knowing as I do that I get to take my top boo and two other second tier boos with me. (Who am I kidding, I'm gonna miss all of their ruminant asses.)
Then it was to the old cave, to deposit a daffodil yellow batch of Fake Cheeses and gaze for the last time at the "1997" scrawled into the corner of the cement floor. In 1997 I was refining my abilities as a juvenile delinquent and really coming into my own in that sector. And then, finally, to the nearly empty bloomy cave to wash three batches of cheese and inhale for the very last time that beautiful, almost fruity smell of earth and mold and mineral.
"Goodbye," I said to my very last batch of Thin Red Lines.
"I love you! Goodbye," I said to Laini's dog Gertie as knelt down to pet her little teddy bear head. "Goodbye goodbye goodbye."
And then last but not least, to Laini. We sat with our pineapple pizza (fight me) and she regaled me with a few more brightly pigmented yarns of her origin story, changing the subject every time I tried to tell her how much I'd miss this place that has become a part of me, and her, my whole reason for everything.
I've moved seven times in four years, and this will be my eighth. I have so far travelled light (feelings excluded), so the prospect of buying plates and dishes and furniture and oh yeah FUCKING GOATS is insane and heavy and exhilarating and terrifying. Four years - the time it takes to get your undergrad degree. I began my education four years ago, never imagining that it would lead me here. Even two years ago, the thought of having my own farm seemed like an impossibility, an insurmountable challenge, one for which I was certainly not equipped. I was sifting through old blog posts because I could not for the life of me remember where I was two New Years' ago and unearthed an entry about getting to "play farm" at Twig while my bosses were away on vacation, and how unlikely it seemed that I'd ever be able be to do it for real.
It's only in hindsight that I have realized how, once spoken, these amorphous fantasies I barely whispered to myself have tumbled into concrete form and then sprung, improbably, to life. Not quite luck and not quite magic and not quite planned in the way that one makes plans. And yet, here we are. Another leave-taking, but towards a brand new endeavor. I am terrified, I am thrilled, I am happy and sad and everything everything everything.
An ending and a beginning. Again.
Happy New Year.
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