OK more like lattes. It just hit me one morning, bundled up in the 10-degree winter air, milking the cows as usual, the glass warming my fingers as it filled with milk. I needed more coffee.
You see, when you milk a cow by hand, a layer of foam builds as the jar fills. And the milk is warm. I have no idea what took me so long to make this connection, but I was completely amused that all over the world there are thousands and thousands of people using an relatively complex (and expensive) machine requiring electricity and water to essentially return huge quantities of milk (that has already been heated and cooled using complex equipment to pasteurize it, and then processed again to homogenize it) back to it's original state: warm and foamy. Yes, I realize it is not practical to keep a cow in the back of every coffee shop, nor could she produce enough milk to keep up with the demand, but the whole system is amusingly backwards none the less. But mostly, it made me wonder who made the first cappuccino and how, and what made the espresso machine inventor's light bulb turn on. How had I never wondered about this before, even after being a barista for four years? Weird. Maybe it was common practice to add fresh warm raw milk to coffee in the morning, and maybe in France the farmer's children would want some coffee with their warm milk in the morning, to be like their parents, and the café au lait was invented. And the foam just happened to be there, and came to be commonplace. And then one day a young man who grew up on a farm moved to the city and missed having his coffee with warm milk and foam so much that he decided to invent a machine that could reproduce it for him whenever he wanted. Yep. Pretty sure that's how it went down.

Anyway, I was inspired to make my own old-fashioned cappuccino. We already had a stovetop espresso maker that I'd been using regularly. The foam was a little bubbly, and it quickly turned into an iced latte, but it was pretty amazing, in my humble opinion.

I write this all from an adorable cafe in Evanston, Illinois, where I've been starting my days since I've been back in the Chicago area. Yes, I have left the farm. And I haven't written anything in two months - not for lack of content, just motivation and energy. It was surprisingly emotional flying out of New Mexico - I became very attached to the land, the place itself, and the animals. By the time I left, our time was mostly consumed with feeding the animals, milking three cows a day and making cheese with the milk. Several prospective workers came and left. My sister visited. Two snow storms trapped us on the mesa for a couple days. My body is still stiff and sore, but I am completely energized and ready to begin the next adventure, soon heading back to Seattle. I wonder what awaits me there...

My dear friends, it has been a while since the last update, aside from the Thanksgiving delirium that is. The past few weeks have been a roller-coaster of exhaustion, excitement, meltdowns, and hope. Mostly exhaustion, in every form you can think of. There are days when I feel completely engaged by the mission of this farm, amused by the animals, or enthusiastic about improvements. But the lifestyle and expectations here are taking their toll, I miss my dear friends and family, and am frustrated by the amount of my energy this job demands. It is my life, period. But being here has forced me to push myself in ways I haven't in a long time, driven me to re-imagine the future. I think I will leave here stronger, more confident in quite basic ways, more alive, with more clarity about my priorities, and more urgency to live a life packed full of activity. You see, the busy lifestyle here is not what I object to - I've really grown to appreciate it - but the isolation is sucking my spirit dry - I am realizing just how much I love people, how I miss making strangers smile, and being energized by a new connection. I just like people too much to be a farmer. That said, I am determined to really immerse myself now - no more wavering - to absorb as much as I can while I'm here, to contribute as much as I am able, with a plan of leaving in May at the latest, to return to my beloved city living.

So much has changed over the past few weeks. It seems obvious that this constant state of transition would be inherent of farming and living so connected to and dependent on the forces of nature, but it is fascinating to experience, and something that has taken quite a while to get used to. You just have to be ready for anything, expect things to go wrong, and learn to react quickly and adjust to surprises. Yes, this is true in life in general, but seems more pronounced and extreme here. A perfect example of this would be the lovely surprise last week of a newborn calf, born out in the pasture. The ground is freezing, the vegetables have nearly stopped growing, temperatures dropping as low as zero degrees fahrenheit overnight, but a few simple joys are all that's needed to lift the spirit. And I got two Monday morning: a fresh dusting of snow, and taking time to watch a newborn calf get a feel for his world. So it turns out that six more cows are unexpectedly pregnant, apparently from a very busy bull Ug, who was thought to be infertile, and who we happen to have been eating since I arrived. One of the cows is in the early stages of labor as I write this. The owner/farmer is still figuring out what to do with all these calving mamas, and will likely have to move some, as we probably won't have the resources to take care of them. But it seems we will keep at least one or two. In order to justify the extra labor and feed necessary to maintain mama cows in the winter, we will be milking them and selling the milk, and making cheese and/or yogurt to sell as well, and to eat here of course. I have already learned how to milk a cow, pasteurize the milk (which we may or may not continue to do), and make mozzarella cheese. This is all quite time-consuming - the milking in the morning takes about an hour for a gallon of milk, and they are also fed in the evening. Every few days the milk will be processed and that takes a couple hours. Plus, now that it's winter, the whole herd of cows are fed in the morning to make up for the lack of forage left in the pasture. Between the cows and the chickens, the entire morning is consumed with animal chores (which, by the way, are surprisingly exhausting - feed bags weigh 50 lbs and bales of hay are as big as me!), leaving only an hour or so each afternoon for other projects. It will be interesting to see what happens when we have to harvest again - fortunately we had the week off for Thanksgiving. Plus we have another farm helper moving here December 10th who is excited about and somewhat experienced in taking care of animals, so that will be a huge help.

Theoretically, the winter allows time for projects that are impossible when harvest and planting monopolize the daily routine, and hopefully we'll have the time and resources to get to some we've started planning. There are the mundane tasks that simply need to get done, like cleaning up the garden beds that have been harvested, organizing and storing irrigation tape and row-covers and such to be ready to use again in the spring. I'll be researching insulating fabric to buy (recommendations anyone?) and making curtains for our bedrooms, as well as the windows of the main house. The main winter project is fixing up the kitchen in the strawbale house (the one the apprentices stay in). Up until now it has been used for processing produce and milk, but we'll be shifting that to another area, punching a whole in the wall for a new door, routing new plumbing for the relocated work sink, adding a raised floor over the plumbing, painting, finishing the kitchen floor, adding cabinets/counters, and of course setting up everything. I have no idea how we will find time to do all of this, but it is nice to be able to contribute things I've learned in the past to help out here, rather than constantly needing to be taught things. So, we shall see how the winter shapes up. One thing I'm sure of is that it will be very, very busy.

It being Thanksgiving - a day devoted to gratitude, when we take a break from killing people to share our bountiful harvest instead - I found myself wondering what I'm thankful for. And when I say that I am thankful to be alive, I could mean it in terms of general gratitude for my life, which I do try to remind myself of on particularly downer days. But today, I am actually thankful to be living, breathing, moving - I survived my first solo voyage in traffic with the giant diesel manual transmission truck. After a very long morning with the cows and chickens, I took the farm owner to the airport in Albuquerque. I didn't plan the whole eating/resting thing very well, and between exhaustion, hunger, not really knowing where I was going, and not having driven any vehicle regularly in at least five years, let alone a stick-shift, I was shaking in my boots - literally. I was so completely drained when I got home that I went straight to the fridge, grabbed some deli meat (local and organic of course) to make a sandwich, but didn't exactly get to the sandwich part. All of a sudden I start giggling to myself, realizing it's 4:00 in the evening on Thanksgiving and I'm standing by myself at the kitchen counter scarfing down sliced turkey directly out of the bag. So poetic. Oh well. I've had plenty of harvest-sharing I suppose. And I didn't kill anyone today!