Long Days Upstate

I spent a few days last week helping out on some delivery runs for Ronny Brook dairy farm, a farm that prides itself on being "beyond organic". They (and I with them) believe that how they farm is, while not adhering to one stipulation, better than organic farming, and the quality of their dairy shows as much. They bottle in glass quarts and pints on the farm; they've use the same basic family of cattle for the last sixty-plus years, having neither purchased nor sold a cow in that time; they feed the cattle organically grown grass; and they keep up a well trained staff of veterinarians on hand to make sure all the cattle are healthy.

Here's some of them checking me out while I take their picture:

My friend and I were getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning to get to the farm and find invoices, load the truck, and head out on tours of upstate New York, and eventually Connecticut and Massachusetts.

The area is beautiful and ancient. You get the feeling roaming through the green how the early settlers must have felt, witnessing the never-ending sprawl of timber and game, fruits and nuts there for the foraging.

On the second day, the early one/long one (I was up at quarter-to-three)(this is when we ventured out-of-state), we had a truck that had what I liked to call an NPR-only radio. Here's a picture:

The runs into Connecticut were quick and non-consecutive (we went into Conn through one road, doubled back to NY for a few more stops, and then back to Conn on a different road), and the terrain and villages were all pretty similar to those across the state line in NY. In Mass, the villages and terrain was again very similar, but there were more trees of a distinctly pine-variety.

One of our last deliveries was to somewhere called Stockdale, MA, to the Red Lion Inn. It was a pity, my friend said, that we couldn't spend more time there, since the Norman Rockwell Museum is in the vicinity. Wow, I said, I've been there before, in 2007, when my fam (on my mom's side) ventured in that direction for my grandfather's 80th birthday party. We spoke about the museum for a minute or two, and I noticed the name of the inn written on a pilar or sign on a corner that we were coming up to. We needed to cross in front of the place, then around the back, then weaving through a dense collection of buildings that made up different areas available for rent from the inn-keepers.

I had a strange feeling when we passed the front of the Red Lion Inn. Then it hit me: this is the establishment we ate at after the trip to the Rockwell Museum. I said as much, and my friend said, good for you, they serve some good grub. I agreed.

We made it back to his house by 2 pm or so, which left me about an hour to go before needing to be in Poughkeepsie to pick up the train to Yankee Stadium for the night's game, a make-up game between the Yanks and the A's. having been up for more than twelve hours already before the train showed up, I was quite delirious and dazed for the ride back to town.

I had to make a stink as well to leave the train at Yankee Stadium. I had a train ticket for the longest possible route along the particular commuter line I was dealing with; Grand Central (the beginning) and Poughkeepsie (the end). The Yankee Stadium stop is between the two, and I was planning to just get out there instead of going all the way into Manhattan, turning around and taking the subway back. The ticket cost more than the distance I was planning on riding, so I didn't foresee any problem. But...in the infinite wisdom of the New York Yankee Cash-Money Printing Machine, there is a special cost of using the Yankee Stadium terminal, one which I wasn't going to pay. I was cranky anyway, and hungry, and made a scene, and was able to leave without paying the extra charge.

Of course, it was pouring down rain, quite windy, and pretty much miserable all around. Corrie and I met up, entered the park, found our seats, got some food and refreshments, and tried to keep warm. Isn't this July?

We were getting pretty fed-up with the whole shenanigans of not calling the game a washout just to keep people hovering around the beer and hot-dog vendors...finally, close to 9 pm, almost two hours after the proposed start was scheduled, we decided to leave. It was Thursday, and Corrie had already in that week worked 47 hours at her office, and I'd been up since before 3 am. We got home and learned they'd just started, close to 10 pm, which meant they ended close to 1 am. I was bummed we missed the game, but we couldn't stay any longer. Yankee Stadium is not quite a cheap place to just chill and wait out some miserable weather. Here are some pictures: