Day 269 - Farm Junk

Thought of the day: We finally made a leap of faith and decided to get cow shares for raw milk. I made the prerequisite visit to the farm today. It was a pretty long and boring drive but it was good to see the farm.  The cows graze on organically grown grass and they are fed nothing else.  As a result, the amount of milk they would produce is a paltry fraction of what a "normal" dairy cow would produce.  But what milk it would be - full of nutrients and super tasty.  In addition, the milk won't go through a high temperature pasteurization process that can destroy probiotics and enzymes which naturally occur in the milk and aid in the digestion of it.  The farm relies on its high sanitary standards and lots of testing to ensure the safety of its production.  They do more than what most farms are willing to go through - every batch of milk is tested for pathogens before it goes out of the door.  In any case, we put a lot of trust in this farm mainly because a couple of our friends, including long term customers, put a lot of trust in it too.  Hopefully, our trust will pay off and give us a long lasting health benefit in return.

Photo of the day:

One person's junk is another person's treasure.  How true it is!  I was glad to run into what looked like a junk yard in the farm. This colorful mess of farm castaways was a delight to photograph, especially against the cloudy and dramatic sky.

Day 230 - Cows

Thought of the day: Today we took trains to the town of Einsiedeln at the shore of Sihlsee in central Switzerland.  We visited the monastery but it turned out disappointing. So we spent most of the day walking along the lake shore and visiting the villages along the way. We walked past a number of neat, traditional farmhouses decorated with flowers of vibrant colors outside the windows or in the gardens. And, in the meantime, no less visible were weathered farm equipments parked under the roofs. The old machineries and the display of fresh flowers symbolized a daily struggle with the elements in the rough fields that did not preclude an apparent appreciation of delicate beauty.  The incongruity in this picture highlighted the complexity and sublimity of the human spirit. Yes, we're likely to be different, and often more complicated, than how we look from the outside. Shrek is one of my favorite movies because it contains the same message. In fact, the message is conveyed in literature, stories, and maybe even in the look of some simple farmhouses. Really, the message is universal, if we pay enough attention.

Photo of the day:

Something else that the farmers own, other than flowers and equipments, is a herd of cows. Does owning the cows fall into the realm of work or beauty?  Perhaps both. Perhaps the two realms are so interwined that they're inseparable anyway.