I went to Piedmont Dairy Tuesday afternoon around 3:00. I was really worried that the owner, Corey, would not be receptive to my project. I was wrong! I now have free access to the farm to get my images!
I took a few while I was there and did some video practice. I have a long way to go!
I did not realize how much I miss my cows until I got there. I miss them, but I know it is not practical to have them here especially with my job. I can enjoy the cows in my images and while I am working on the project.
I have reached out to and have received a lot of help from various individuals in Catawba County for this project. It is really, really nice to speak to these people and to be accepted. I think, to some extent, this is what I have been looking for for a long time – to be accepted – maybe even more so than to be appreciated. I was never really accepted as a farmer and I know I was not appreciated and I am glad to be done with that now. As a farmer, my alternative views and insistence on honesty were what did me in. In this job, I cannot express my views – I have to tell the story as it is told to me – I have to be honest. I cannot allow my feelings to come into the story. This is going to be a bit hard for this project because it is so personal to me.
It does my heart good to see my words in print every day and more importantly to see the people whom I wrote about come to the office and buy a stack of papers that contain their story. Much better than selling milk or rabbit.
I came home from the dairy with two gallons of milk. I am thoroughly enjoying that. Hopefully the two goats will kid without issues and they can just feed their kids and I won’t milk them. I so much prefer Jersey milk over goat milk. It is not quite as sweet as the milk my cows produced, but it’s still good. Plus the cream!!
I need to order some prints of my better images and get frames for them and hang them in my office.
Nikon just came out with two new cameras, the D500 which is a DX or crop sensor camera and the D5S (a VERY expensive pro camera, we won’t even talk about that). The D500 is interesting, but I think I’ll stick with my original plan to get the D750 which is a full-frame camera and has the capabilities I need. I very much like the D7200 and it will stay in my camera bag and it will continue to be used, but I wish now I had spent the extra money and got the D750 instead.
Doing chores yesterday was miserable. It was in the teens. That’s bad enough, but doing chores in the teens in the dark makes it that much more miserable. It is going to warm up some and rain over the next couple of days, then back down to the 40’s and low 50’s during the day and 20’s in the mornings. It is January.
Can’t put it off any longer, need to go and get chores done and then get ready to head to the office.
Until later …