Today was the field trip day, to one of the many Organic Valley dairy farms in Washington—this one, specifically, Styger Family Dairy Farm in Chehalis, which is roughly a half-hour drive south of Olympia.

The organic milk produced by all of these dairy farms is pooled together to make the Organic Valley milk we sell in our stores. Many years ago, before Shobhit and when I still used cow's milk on my cereal, this was the brand I used to buy. I don't remember how many years ago it was that I did this, but eventually I switched to almond milk for my cereal, not in any attempt to become vegan (never!) but largely because, I discovered, the unsweetened vanilla flavor tasted just as good but it has half the calories.

Shobhit still uses milk for his coffee, though, and on the occasional times when he eats cereal, he uses the cow's milk. I also use plenty of it for when I make chai—using anything but cow's milk for that just doesn't work. We used to buy that at Costco pretty much exclusively, until those bastards stopped selling skim milk. Now we tend to buy it either at Trader Joe's or when QFC pretty frequently puts their private label half gallons on sale. None of it is organic. I was willing to pay more for organic milk back in the day, but Shobhit can't deal with how much more expensive it is, and I don't drink enough of it anymore to try arguing for it. I will still insist that organic milk tastes better than conventional milk, although I doubt it's a difference I could detect in chai.

I'm glad other people buy it, though! And I'm all for preserving small farms—something Shane and Jayme, the couple running this dairy farm in Centralia, said was only made possible by working with Organic Valley—as well as for organic farming.

I can't say that cows are my favorite animal in the world. I literally watched one stick its own tongue up both of its own nostrils in turn today. They aren't the worst either, though. I'm relatively neutral about them. I knew Laney, who loves cows, would be very interested in the pictures I took (36 total for today's visit). And it was genuinely interesting visiting the farm and learning how it's run, especially the two different robotic milking systems. The cows get in line to get milked by them of their own volition, when they are ready to be milked. I think there's an aspect of them getting "full" and thus having a need or urge to get emptied.

I never did get clarity on this, but I think Shane and Jayme may be the grandchildren of the couple running it at the time of the Sound Consumer article I linked to in the above paragraph, which was in 2014 and notes them nearing retirement age and that none of their children planned to take it over. Shane and Jayme are clearly a young couple, with a 2-year-old and an infant, and it doesn't feel likely that they would have been the uninterested children the article referred to. Whatever the case, it would seem they managed to keep this particular farm in the family.

Jayme mentioned more than once how much respect she had for how frequently these cows volunteer to get milked, "as a nursing mother" herself.

I believe they said they sometimes have 100 cows and were currently at around 80. They are numered, and each one has a collar around its neck with its number on it. Jayme mentioned a couple that they had actually named, and I said, "You haven't named all of them, have you?" She replied, amusingly, with: "Only the ones that deserve it." In one such case, Aaron, the cow had been sickly as a calf, and they spent a lot of extra time taking care of it. Apparently Aaron is now one of their largest-producing dairy cows.

They have only one bull. Eventually we did get to see the bull, one of the few that was solid black, and who yelled a little and walked out into the middle of several of them to kick some dirt.

It was a bit earlier of a day than usual or me. I have historically set my alarm on weekday mornings for 5:15 a.m., but Shobhit noted that I no longer have to clean litter boxes or feed any cat, so suggested I could set it for later. For the past week I've had it set at 5:30, which has actually worked out perfectly for when I typically leave for work around 7:00. This morning, though, I set it for 5:00. And still I was truly only barely ready in time for when Noah came to pick me up. He had already texted me he was on his way, and I was headed down the stairs when he texted that he was here.

He then drove me to Adrienne's house on Beacon Hill, where we all got into her car, and she drove us to the meeting point at the PCC Burien store. Adrienne has been the coordinator of these farm visits—including the Wilcox Farm visit that happened last summer and will happen again next month—as she is the Private Label Manager (actually the position Tracy had between 2020 and 2022, when Adrienne then got the job). This is relevant because, as it happens, our Private Label (PCC branded) milk is actually Organic Valley milk. For reasons I find elusive, they do not want this pointed out on our private label packaging, even though most of our other PL products do say where it comes from. Apparently it's okay, however, to tell a customer if they happen to ask. This has been the policy with the milk for years.

The people from the PCC office staff who joined for the farm visit today included myself, Noah, Adrienne, and then our newest Grocery Merchandiser, Frank—who happily gave me a ride home. He had been coming from a different area in the morning and so could not as easily give me a ride down there, which was why I rode with Noah. He was coming back to Capitol Hill at the end anyway though, so that worked out perfectly.

The rest of the tour group, all of whom met at the Burien PCC to board onto a bus that would take us down to Chehalis, consisted of three Organic Valley representatives; to brokers who are intermediaries between them and us (and who frequently exchange emails with me about promotions); and then a smattering of people from about half the stores. The original ask was for at least one person from each of the 15 stores, but no more, because space was limited: there were extra precautions today because of avian flu concerns. This was why the bus: this would limit the number of tires from vehicles that would come onto the property, thus tracking in potential contaminants. They even gave us all plastic baggies to slip our feet into before we even got off the bus. As you can imagine, those things had no ventilation, which caused a bit of calf-sweat by the end of our visit. When one guy was gathering them from us all at the end of the visit and I even got my own hand wet with my own sweat taking them off, I thought, I sure hope he washes his hands after that.

Anyway, we didn't even completely fill the bus, which was hardly standard sized. I think it sat 22, not counting the driver, with five rows of four seats, two on either side of the aisle. The front row of passenger seating had only two seats on the side opposite where the door for boarding opened. Because Noah and Adrienne had another stop after the Styger Dairy farm, they still rode in Adrienne's car down to Chehalis, only boarding the bus once down there for the farm visit itself. But, for the roughly 90-minute drive from Burien to Chehalis, I think there were only two pairs of seats with people in both of them; every other pair of seats had only one person sitting in it, including Frank in the front row and me right behind him. So, if I am now counting correctly, that would mean the bus had all of 12 passengers down to Chehalis, and then when we added Adrienne and Noah that made 14. With four of us from the office and two of them brokers, that made all of eight people from stores.

The three Organic Valley representatives were waiting at the farm, so that made, I think, 17 people total visiting the farm. No wait—the bus driver eventually put his own plastic booties on and walked around the farm a bit too, so that would have made 18.

There wasn't a huge amount of space to "tour," honestly, as it was a much smaller place than, say, the Wilcox Farm we toured last year. Given the avian flu concerns, I had no expectation that we would touch any of the cows, but we certainly got close enough to get a good look, and a lot of time was spent just standing around in the path alongside the barn and the pasture where the cows were currently out grazing, with plenty of opportunities for us to ask whatever questions we had.

This was when I learned about Aaron, and also about their two dogs, only one of whom was ever put to work helping move the cattle around. She was "retired," though, after getting seriously injured by a car. She was very sprightly, apparently somewhere around 13 years old, and didn't seem to pay any attention to the visible wound on her lower back. Shane told me they had "sunk a lot of money into that dog" and that she'd had two surgeries. The other dog never got into herding the cows at all, apparently, because he got stepped on by one of them as a puppy and that made him permanently skittish with them.

We also, eventually, got to go into small sections of the barn that were not in the same space as the cows. This included one small room where we got to see one of the milking robots in action—the machine has all sorts of readings it can provide, and specific to individual cows, for which it keeps data. We also got to go up a staircase to an upper level of the barn where they have an office, and a space that overlooks all the stalls where cows can come in out of the weather and lay in sawdust, each in their own space. (One person asked if they claim their own stall, but they do not; they just come in and take whatever is availble—but, the separation bars do still eliminate any bully cows trying to invade any space taken by a cow already resting.) Shane told us, and this kind of amazed me, that it tends to be 20 degrees cooler inside the barn than it is outside in the sun. That's a kind of stunning difference, for a structure built only with wood and air ventilation in mind; the outside walls are all just open. Maybe I should rebuild my condo like a barn.

Eventually we all gathered back into the van, then went into town for a lunch that Organic Valley sprung for, at a very charming and delicious place called Once Upon a Thyme. Jayme needed to tend to her little children but Shane caught up with us and had lunch with us. Just by chance, he wound up sitting next to me; Adrienne was across the table from us and when she took a picture I totally thought she was just taking a photo of him. Ha! Side note: he's wearing a T-shirt that reads, I'M YOUR FARMER, which everyone in their family was wearing, including their toddler who was running around all over the place, which was very cute.

I had a "Rustic Italian" sandwich, mostly because it was one of the few vegetarian options that was not also vegan and I could get real cheese on it. It was messy but delicious enough to be worth the mess. Anyone going through Chehalis would not regret stopping to eat there. Shane had never even been there, according to him because it "doesn't look like much" from the outside. He was duly impressed with what he ordered as well, though. (I don't know what he ordered. I didn't take inventory of everyone's order, leave me alone!)

Eventually, several of us got in line to use the single-occupancy bathroom there, and then we boarded the bus and were on our way back. I don't know what it was about being on that bus, but I could not stay awake a lot of the time—both on the way there and on the way back. I noticed one other store staff person asleep on the way back, slouched so far on her seat it looked like just a couple more inches and she might have slid off and onto the floor. We got back to Chehalis, and then Frank gave me a ride the rest of the way home, actually giving us more opportunity to chat than we've really had since he started. I know a bit more about him now.

I got home shortly after 3:00, a bit earlier, I think, than had originally been scheduled—I think we got back to Burien ahead of schedule. I still didn't bother going back to the office for just one hour, though. I had photos to process and upload!

[posted 8:15 pm]