A Three Dairy Tour

Yesterday Jayita and I joined a Bay Area Green Tours led tour of three Marin County dairies.  It was a long day but we enjoyed seeing the beautiful green hills and learning a lot about animals, milk, and cheese!  Photos on picasa...

The farms we visited are all protected by MALT (Marin Agricultural Land Trust) which means they can't be subdivided and sold off.   Even with the financial help that MALT provides, its very hard to make ends meet for these small scale farmers.

One of the most interesting things was hearing the perspective these farmers had on organic farming.  They all used sustainable practices, but when it comes down to certified organic, they all said the same thing.  If an animal gets sick - they do want to give it antibiotics to help it get better.  Once they do that, the animal is no longer organic.  We met one farmer whose grasslands are certified organic, but their milk isn't because they don't believe in letting the animal suffer and possibly die when it gets sick.  Another farmer keeps two separate groups - if an animal needs antibiotics - it becomes non-organic.  But the rest of the herd is still certified organic.

Something else I realized I've been taking for granted.  Milk.  It seems obvious - but I hadn't really thought about it.  An animal has to have a baby in order for there to be milk.  So every year, every animal on the farm (hopefully) has a baby.  And all those babies end up somewhere.  The cute little lambs we saw were soon headed to an expensive restaurant in San Francisco.  This helps me understand veganism better.  If you're vegetarian because you don't like to see animals killed, then how can you use dairy products?  We only have the dairy products because of the babies - and many of the babies end up as food.

Finally - the tour gave a chance to learn about different groups of people who are working to preserve the slow, local, sustainable way of life.  When you feel like the world is changing so fast, everything is scaling up, and there's nothing we can do about it - hearing about all these local groups working to keep things local gives hope.  One of the groups mentioned was Slow Money, which is encouraging people to invest in keeping food production local.  After hearing how hard these farmers struggle to make ends meet - I'm interested in learning more about what it would take to make small farming economically sustainable.  Is it possible?

Here's a list of the places we visited.  You can make your own tour by following the Sonoma Marin Cheese Trail Map!  (More info)

• Nicasio Valley Cheese Company (Store is open to the public)
• Marin French Cheese Company (Store is open to the public.  Tours available)
• Toluma Farms Goat Dairy  (Offers tours once a month)
• Barinaga Ranch Sheep Dairy  (Not open to the public, but you can find a list of places to buy their cheese on their website)

This one time, on the way home from Tahoe...

After beautiful conditions on Thursday

A big storm moved in on Friday

Just back at the bus from an excellent day of skiing at Northstar. It's 4:30pm. Snowing hard. And I-80 is closed due to a huge pileup. We're going to have to head South and take Highway 50 home.  I gave Curtis a call to let him know we'd probably be in late.

16:30 Mar 18:  On our way
17:50 Mar 18:  Pulled over to check our chains and ... slid into another car that was checking chains.  Fender bender for us - I didn't see the other car.  No injuries.  They had to take a full report, including individually recording the ID of everyone on the bus.

Curtis: I see chain control status is updated from road closure to "split control", so maybe you'll come back soon.  Sent: 19:24 Mar 18
Jeanie: Or maybe. Not.  Sent: 20:39  Mar 18
Jeanie: We went south around Tahoe
Jeanie: Then... we hit a car. :(  no injuries but it took 2 hours to get going again.  Sent: 20:41, Mar 18
Jeanie: We are just barely south of the lake
Curtis: :(  hit a car?  Sent: 20:41  Mar 18
Jeanie: Indeed.
Jeanie: Really nasty roads.
Curtis: Well, I hope the rest of your trip is OK.
Jeanie: Me too!  Sent 20:43 Mar 18
Jeanie: We haven't moved in 20 minutes.  Sent 21:05 Mar 18
Curtis: :(
Curtis: I'm not getting the glympse data.  Might as well turn off the app to save your battery.   Sent 21:11 Mar 18

Jeanie: Still Sitting.  Sent: 21:34, Mar 18

Jeanie: I've been switching to airplane mode except to text you
Jeanie: Everyone else has squandered their batteries already.  Sent 21:35 Mar 18
Jeanie: We're debating having a snowman building contest
Curtis: It looks like hwy 50 has chain control and i180 is closed now.  Sent 21:36 Mar 18
Curtis: Well, don't squander your battery
Jeanie: We're turning around.  Sent: 21:53 Mar 18
Curtis: i80 is closed and the south roads look bad still, as of 9:39.
Jeanie: I think we're going to spend the night somewhere.
Curtis: ;(  Hopefully not on the bus!
Jeanie: They opened the road where we were waiting but they wouldn't let the bus through  Sent: 21:57 March 18
Jeanie: No.  Not on the bus.
Curtis: Well, let me know when you get somewhere warm.
Jeanie: Will do!
Curtis: Probably best that you're staying there.  Lots of precipitation headed up both highways.
Jeanie: Safe in the hotel.  Sent 23:01 Mar 18
Curtis: Yay!  Sent 23:02 Mar 18

The next morning we had breakfast and were on our way at 8:30am.

Curtis: Hey, so are you on your way this morning?  Sent 9:28 Mar 19
Jeanie: Taking the chains off!  Sent 10:19 Mar 19
Curtis: Yay!  Miss you.
Jeanie: Miss you too.
Jeanie: Trying to see where we are.
Jeanie: Can't tell.
Jeanie: Came down 50
Jeanie: eta is 1:30 to 2.
Curtis: Yay!  Sent 10:28 Mar 19
Jeanie: Is our house flooded?  Sent 12:30 Mar 19
Jeanie: We just saw 85 by our house is flooded.
Curtis: Ha, no, the rightmost lane at the shoreline exit has deep standing water.
Curtis: I actually called the highway patrol to report the problem.  Its neat to see how that immediately shows up on Maps.  But "flooding is an overstatement.
Jeanie: :)
Jeanie: So you are getting us all excited over nothing?  Sent 12:39 Mar 19
Jeanie: We're out of movies.  Road conditions are the best entertainment we've got.  Sent 12:39 Mar 19
Jeanie: Oh my god.  Sent 12:47 Mar 19
Jeanie: We seriously just got in another accident.
Jeanie: We're all ok
Curtis: Sorry, was on the phone.  What happened?  Sent 12:59 Mar 19

Jeanie: 
Curtis: :(

Umm.  Yep.  Walnut Creek.  One hour from home.  Turning into a parking lot.  The bus swings wide to make the turn; the box truck behind it passes us without slowing down; and the bus doesn't hesitate as it finishes the turn.  I could see it coming ... The box of the truck clips the front of the bus.  The windshield explodes.  No injuries.  But here we go again.

Curtis: Apparently there was an accident from that puddle that I called about :(  13:15 Mar 19
Jeanie: Police report goes so much quicker for your second accident in 24 hrs.  They'll just copy our info from the NV report.  Sent 13:59 Mar 19
Curtis: Geez... yeah, I guess so!
Jeanie: Woo hoo!  1:30 delay but we're back on the road  Sent 14:21 Mar 19
Curtis: Yay!  So everything is OK now?
Jeanie: Well... for me it is.

The bus pulled into Mountain View at 3:30 pm.  So exhausted.

---

Icicles on the front of the bus.  We got off during the 1 hour wait while they did avalanche control before the chain control checkpoint South of Lake Tahoe.  Unfortunately, after they finally opened the road, we drove 100m to chain control only to be turned back.

Ducks in the hotel swimming pool.

We were able to keep going after the first accident, which was just a fender bender.  But the second one took out the windshield and the door.  An hour and a half later, another bus picked us up to take us the last 1 hour of the trip.

In total, we spent 14 hours on the bus to get home - 7 hours Friday night, which got us from North Lake Tahoe to South Lake Tahoe.  Then 7 hours on Saturday.  If anyone ever tells you Tahoe is a short drive from Mountain View....