A day at Bobolink

I am interested in getting my feet wet when it comes to farming.  I applied for an internship at Bobolink Dairy Bakehouse here in NJ.  It is out, in Milford, NJ which borders the Delaware River.  I went on an interview there a week and a half ago and they invited me out for a day to trail this past Wednesday.  I was there at 8am in a nice sized, but overly cluttered farmhouse kitchen.  Interns (currently 3) were finishing up breakfast and starting to put their boots on while espresso was being maid and raw milk poured. 

It is a truly inspiring place, this kitchen.  It is filled with a vast array of containers of white liquid- some mix of milk and whatever other substances were poured in as they were explained to me as experiments.  As a renegade myself, I laughed to myself as I have been known to perform experiments of my own- usually to Matts demise.

We started by walking up the hill to fetch the cows with their Australian Shepard, Bridgett.  She did a great job of instinctively going around the herd to force them back down the hill to the barn.  It did not take much however and many of the cows, happy to go on about the routine like most animals, walked down the hill without much bark or bite.  And like any good herding animal the cows just follow the leader and went down to the barnyard where they waited to be milked 4 at a time.    

In the meantime, we (Jonathan and I) walked up to the back 40 to check out the job we would tackle- rearranging electric fence around a pasture that was ready to be grazed.  It was beautiful out there.  We went back to the yard to get supplies, the car, and also check on the whey pump that allowed for the whey left over from cheese making to be brought right to the pig pen.  Pigs love whey and in fact besides the natural forage, this is ALL the farm feeds the pigs.  Indeed, anyone who has bought prosciutto de parma along with parmigiana reggiano has witnessed the natural (yet, man influenced) symbiosis of cheesemaking and raising pork.

After morning chores of brush-hogging and fencing, we had lunch of left over cold bulgogi with cucumber salad, beet and tomato salad, and corn and pepper salad.  All incredibly light and delicious, and oh so appropriate for this kitchen that was so far from the granite and glass tile laden $70k kitchens of today, yet undoubtedly produced more delicious and enticing dishes then most.

Later on I helped shovel the milk parlor of any cow pies, fed stale bread to the chickens, and went on to do some more fencing until around 4pm.  It was a hot day up to the low 90s and I loved working in the fields. 

It was such a fulfilling day and I couldnt help but to compare it to my days wasted in a cubicle.  It was so alive- the swallows swooping over the fields poaching bugs, the hawks flying in between the trees, the millions of insects fluttering from clover flowers to the other wild flowers.  It was so harmonious.

I hope to intern this fall.  I think it would be good for me, who has read most books on the subject and needs to put my mind at ease regarding a farm as a career.