Angela Miller - Hay Fever: How Chasing a Dream on a Vermont Farm Changed My Life

hay fever

HOW CHASING A DREAM
ON A VERMONT FARM
CHANGED MY LIFE

ANGELA MILLER

With RALPH GARDNER JR.

JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC.

Note: The names of some people mentioned in this book have been changed to protect their privacy.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright 2010 by Angela Miller and Ralph Gardner Jr. All rights reserved

Jacket photography: front cover, farm Francesco Tonelli; front cover, city iStockphoto/Xaviarnau; back cover, farm Chris Gray

Interior photography: title page, barn Chris Gray; chapter openers, goat, and recipes opener, cheese Laura Brown

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Interior design by Debbie Glasserman

Illustrations by Rebecca Scherm

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Miller, Angela, 1947-

Hay fever : how chasing a dream on a Vermont farm changed my life / Angela Miller with Ralph Gardner Jr.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-470-39833-3 (cloth)

1. Farm lifeVermont. 2. Country lifeVermont. I. Gardner, Ralph, 1953- II. Title.

S521.5.V5M55 2010

630.92dc22

[B]

2009033735

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dedication

Angela Miller

For my husband, Russell, and my daughter, Samantha

Ralph Gardner Jr.

For my daughters, Lucy and Gracie

from where i stand

ON A JUNE morning in 2009, i ran over to the barn parking lot to greet the cheese inspector, Greg Lockwood. After six years of monthly visits, he's more than a little familiar with the history of our goat farm and its challenges. After chatting a few minutes, I couldn't contain my pride and blurted out, "For the first time, I think I have it under control."

Greg just shook his head.

"It's a farm," he said, chewing his words in a typical Vermont fashion. "Just when you think you've got it down, all hell will break loose and you'll find out just how much you don't know and how little control you actually have."

He's right about that. A cheese farmer is at the total mercy of natureas well as unexpected natural disasters. Healthy goats can suddenly come down with mastitis infections, anemia, bloat, pinkeye, and an array of baffling diseases. Cheese may develop molds you weren't aware grew on this planet. Employees you'd thought were devoted can quit at a moment's notice. The well can run dry, the grain can be tainted, and the cheeses can become ammoniated and virtually worthless to anyone but the pigs.

But this year is an oasis of calm compared to the upheaval of 2008, which I write about in Hay Fever . The entire agricultural yearfrom kidding in April through breeding season in Novemberwas a tumultuous time on Consider Bardwell Farm, though I didn't anticipate that when I set out to write this book. At that point, I simply knew we were trying to double cheese production and turn a profit, or at least break even. And we seemed to be heading in the right direction: We were developing a first-class team of cheese makers, winning awards, and signing up great distributors. But then the economy tanked and with it the public's eagerness to splurge on artisanal cheese, no matter how delicious and well crafted.

Add to those challenges the insanity of my own careeror should I say careers. Most people who come to farming in middle age are intent on making it their second career and have the savvy to retire from their first, hopefully with a handsome little nest egg. Not me. I decided I could do both: run a literary agency in New York City, my vocation for the last twenty-five years, and manage a farm, with which I had zero experience.

I'd never give up the publishing business, and not just because I need the income to help support the farm. I truly enjoy working with my authorseven the difficult ones; they are often the most inspired, creative, and passionate. I love nurturing their careers and developing relationships that often transcend business to become genuine friendships.

I would also never want to escape the city completely. In fact, I live in a crazy cycleswitching between city girl and country girl modes every few days. As much as I love the farm, the goats, and the people who work with me, it also feels great to know I can flee once a week and with it the decisions and the relentless responsibilities. The farm and the landscape are lovely, but there's just so much natural beauty you can take before you long for the intensity of an energized city like New Yorkthe staccato sounds of traffic or seeing a thousand unknown faces on any given day that ignite the imagination. Then again, the frenetic pace of the city makes returning to Vermont all the more precious and also makes me realize it's here in the country, among my goats and feasting on our very own handmade cheeses, where I've found my place. My heart and mind have room for both city and country life, and my time spent in either one helps me better appreciate the other.

But sometimes the insanity of this bipolar existence overwhelms me. On a Thursday night, I may share an exquisite meal with a big name in the food world at the latest restaurant. The next morning, it would not be unusual for me to find myself hauling fifty-pound bales of hay at 5 a.m. to the goats in the barn when it's ten degrees outside, and it occurs to me that I have workers' compensation insurance for everybody on the farm except me. I pause not to appreciate Vermont's breathtaking landscape, but to catalog my aches and pains and feel like a damn fool. Then I remind myself to keep moving because I have to negotiate an author contract and order farm supplies later that morning.