OVER THE MOUNTAINS AND THROUGH THE VALLEYS
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moon phases � |
I am still tired. Or stunned.
The combination of intense driving and profound boredom yesterday was very odd.
I left here at 7:45 yesterday morning to head up to Oneonta. Of course it was grey and treatening rain. By the time I got half way up our mountain I was driving in a fog so thick I could see only ten feet or so in front of me. That continued for another half hour. Then the rain started. At least the rain cleared out the fog.
My ninety mile trip to Oneonta only includes a very short stint on the Quickway (a real highway). Otherwise I am driving on two lane country routes over mountain and across valley. There are two mountains in particular that I drove right over. The first one was fine. The rain was falling and it was a drag to drive on wet and winding blacktop, but it was fine. The second and bigger of the two, Bear Spring Mountain, was a different story. The temperature at a more civilized elevation was in the mid to upper thirties with rain. As I climbed that mountain in my truck the thermometer reading steadily dropped. When I was three quarters up the mountain the trees were suddenly covered in ice and the thermometer read thirty-one degrees. I said a little prayer that there was some residual salt on the road and slowed my speed to what I hoped would only maim rather than kill should I hit icy pavement. It is a lonely ride over that mountain with no cell service...... I felt just a tad nervous. There must have been residual salt because the road was only wet (at least where my tires hit) and I got down the other side OK.
The required continueing education session was so boring I am shocked I survived it.
The Cheese Guild meeting was much more enjoyable. There are plans to revamp the guild to greater support and promote farmstead cheesemakers in NY. A new website is in the works which is a first priority. The guild enjoys great support from C0rnell university and the state department of Ag & Markets and those relationships have made it possible for myself and other very small producers to become licensed when only a couple of years ago that would have been impossible.
The drive back was a repeat of the ride up only more widespread ice was the order. The mountain tops were covered in ice almost all the way home. My mountain was still shrouded in a super thick fog. It is a good thing I know the road so well or I may have gone sailing off. I arrived back home at about 7pm.
Today the sun is shining but it is cool and windy. I need to wake up a bit more and coffee just isn't doing the trick.....
written at 8:42 a.m.
April 05, 2007
Miss something?
- - January 26, 2009
- - May 26, 2008
- - April 09, 2008
- - January 21, 2008
- - November 24, 2007