Upstate New York

I had no idea there was so much physical beauty in this part of New York, west of the finger lakes all the way to Pennsylvania. This is the land of abundance. You have to see it to understand my astonishment. The farm stands are everywhere. 

The locally grown stuff is explanation enough to illustrate the richness of the soils here. 

Everything is lush and bursting with life. 

The forests produce lumber for the Amish and firewood stands for campers. Help yourself to a roadside bundle of logs, split for your convenience at five bucks apiece. 

The roads are smooth for the most part and wind endlessly up hills and through valleys filled with crops in fields cut out of the forests. 

I was reading the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition and as they came up to the largely treeless prairie filled with game the comment came up by contrast that the East was overfilled with trees! 

During the summer the Sunset View Creamery teaches youngsters about animal husbandry and how to look after calves and how to milk cows, just like Betty: 

Had I children I’d drive them around these hills all summer to see how cows sleep on air beds and are fed a precise diet for the best milk. How they spend their days free to roam inside and out and how they are milked and how cheese is made and ice cream in human sized quantities.

I am not cut out to be a farmer but I appreciate the work that goes into making food.

I suppose it would be unfair to ask would you prefer to eat cheese from these happy cows… if only because most people (including us) don’t have access. And for some people the cost is prohibitive. But the more I age the more I prefer to eat less factory products and more of these types: 

It was a lovely stay, made better by a long chat I had with Mrs Hoffman and we talked for a long time about dogs, the rescue and training there of, the need for tourists to expand the possibilities beyond nearby Watkins Glen, her Italian ancestry, and the richness of the land around her. 

We stopped for lunch in Bath a town that lives in the modern era as you’d expect but in such a way as you can recreate in your own mind what life must have been like in the heady days of revolution. 

Rusty just enjoyed the walk but I had my mind on those people who settled here all those years ago carving homes out of the forest. 

Genesee Fever is now believed to be typhoid or malaria diseases long since eradicated by science so you don’t have to worry about them. However, polio is making a comeback in New York so if you want to see how life evolves without vaccinations you will now have your chance. 

I am really glad our meanderings brought us this way. An area worth exploring.