Wear Clean Draws  (because there’s 5 million ways to kill a ceo)

having just come down from a couple long and trying projects, i decided to take a day of my comp time and devote it to a trip to the Shenandoah Valley/Blueridge Mountain Region in Va. I wanted to be there at the peak of the season (peak in terms of the leaves changing color), check out some local area artisans which I’ve heard much about, do some Christmas shopping, and just chill.

The drive to Charlottesville, which happens to be where Doug Henwood went to grad school, was beautiful and as we approached hillier climes, I was transported back to the hills and valleys of upstate NY, where I grew up. The geography was remarkably similar and I better understand why I’ve heard people connect this area of the south right up through the Appalachian region in upstate NY and New England.

C’ville was awesome and, while I realize that Doug and Seth hate this backwoods college towns, aiy, well, for those of us who actually had to grow up even further out in the woods, places like C’ville and Ithaca were … I don’t know what I’d have done without it!

We spent Friday, walking around C’ville’s downtown area, looking for a decent place to eat, but well after lunch, which meant most places were closed in the lull between end of lunch rush and dinner. I wanted to go to a glass artisan shop where I’d read that you can make your own glass artwork. R didn’t seem to thrilled with the idea. We proceeded to spend way more time than I would have liked looking for a place to stay. Thinking it’d be easy to find a room, ha ha ha, I just wanted to jump in the car and get a place wherever. Turned out it was parents weekend and the rates I’d cruised at places like expedia were about 1/3 what the hotels wanted to charge. I was shocked at the crap they want to pass off as worthy of $150. Not to mention $200!

We’d decided, what the hell, let’s get a room with jaccazzi since, by that time, bones were aching from jostling around in the beast, which doesn’t do well on all those bumpy road, my back was a little roughed up. But all they’d done was turn a regular double room into a “jaccuzzi” room, by removing a bed, placing tub in spot where the bed had been. The room smelled moldy to boot.

After finding all the rooms in other places booked (parents’ weekend), we stopped at a “Red Carpet Inn”. It was dark and I was thinking this was a Red Roof Inn which, memory served, wasn’t a total hellhole. Uh. It was so disgusting — and they wanted $100! It didn’t even have a real cupboard in the bathroom. It was plywood. All the furniture, including sink surround in bath, was made of painted plywood.

Fortunately, we stumbled over a place that was very nice, right on a main drag. The room was a master suite and it was huge. I swear, the place was bigger than the condo we stayed in last year. But it was the first time I’ve ever slept in a King bed. At one point, I woke up in the middle of the night, tried to cuddle up to R, and had to crawl and crawl and crawl and crawl to find him!

We got up really early and hit the breakfast buffet. By 8 we left for the farmer’s market where they were supposed to have various artisans and a festive environment. Unfortunately, it poured and poured and poured. We left for Polyface Farms to go check out the scenery, hoping the rain would stop.

For blog readers who aren’t aware, I’ve been reading Michael Pollan’s work: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Botany of Desire, and In Defense of Food. I did so at the advice of a couple of people at the LBO discussion list. I had lots to say, on list, about the books, but haven’t had a chance to repost it at the blog. Polyface Farms is a “beyond organic” farm and, since it was close, and since I’d been hoping to explore the Shenandoah reagion this fall, we decided to drop in.

More to follow. In the meantime, pics:

In Staunton, the nearest “big” city of about 25,000 people, we saw “I’m voting for the chick” signs. Ha ha.

You can’t see it very well, but this was the I’m Voting for the Chick yard sign I first saw.

On the way to the farm, there were lots of McCain/Palin signs, as the talking heads would predict for the “real Virginia.” However, there were also plenty of Obama/Biden and Vote for Change signs. I’d say about 2 Obama signs for every 3 McCain.

This picture is hard to see b/c it was raining and through the window of the car. The signs are not very legible:

Reading the directions to me, R said that I should take a left at a gravel road. I did. I went up to a field, but seeing as how it wouldn’t have been any big deal to have a farm at the end of a gravel road going into a field where I come from, I didn’t think anything of it. So, I bombed up the hill only to discover it was just a place in the field where a farmer was storing equipment and hay.

This is what Saletin really meant by a gravel road — which far more civilized that I would have gathered:

The entrance to Polyface. It was pouring, so I didn’t get out:

I’m not really sure what these were. There were three of them. They looked like delapidated and no longer used greenhouses to me. But when I looked inside, there were cages and, of course, the 2 foot high pile of manure and sawdust covering the floor:

It didn’t look like anything was normally kept in the sheds. Maybe rabbits used to be there:

The gravel road leading to the Polyfarm sales room was littered with animal bones. I’m not sure why, though perhaps a dog had carted them around, which I could totally picture. I didn’t see dogs around, though I did spy a cat lounging:

A few shots of the Polyface sales room where an intern is filling an order from a guy who’d driven from a ways. He purchased $265 worth of meat — not hard to do when bacon costs $9/lb, almost all the beef $12/lb and up, Chicken $5/lb for whole birds and more for cut up fryers. Eggs were $4/carton.

This is the big walkin cooler / freezer combo where the rest of the meat and eggs are stored. They sell no fresh meat, only frozen:

The intern seemed a little uncomfortable as I took pics. I don’t know why. You’d think that it was pretty normal.

I didn’t get very good shots of the freezer — chest and a couple of uprights — that lined the walls. And, oh yeah, the whole place smelled like a skinning shed. Yes indeedy.

I think Pollan’s secret wish is that everyone visit a farm like this and smell the decaying flesh and decide never to eat meat ag’in. :)

The brochures and books on display:

I wasn’t sure what the shed in front of the cords of wood was for. There was a fire burning. It was too far from house to be a water heater. It didn’t smell like a smoking shed. The trailer to the left is where the farm hands live:

Farm hands’ quarters:

Compared to most farmhouses I’m used to, this one was pretty beat up. Not much effort devoted to repair. There was a chain link fence which, I assume, is a pool, though it looked like it might not be used and in state of disrepair:

Saletin’s house:

View of a neighbor’s farm:

One of the Polyface equipment sheds, looks like:

Another neighbor:

A shed — too rainy for pics:

Leaving Polyface:

Meanwhile, back in C’ville we visited the free speech movement monument, where people felt free to exercise their right to say stupid shit — like Bush is bringing back the Depression of *1940* and “I love Mikey forever!”:

more anon