4/5/08–Greenmarket

At 10am on Saturday, I went to the Greenmarket again. I met up with Sophie and Sam (Lili was sick) and we called Davy. After Davy had met us at the Information booth, he took me to work with another goat farmer named Elly. As we walked over, he told me that Elly lived in Pennsylvania and sold goat cheese, but that she had been having some financial difficulties recently. This made me think about how expensive it must be to run a farm, especially if you’re just one person. It takes a lot of courage and planning. When I got to the stand, it took only a moment for her to start talking. She was quite conversational the whole time, but what she was saying was really interesting. She talked about how she was trying to make her farm entirely self-sustainable using windmills, solar panels, and well water. She talked about all the problems with processed milk and meat, and about the large differences between farmed produce and grocery store bought things. She also told me about a 20 minute documentary she was in, and asked if I would like to borrow a copy. I did because a little earlier, I had asked her if I could interview her next Saturday. She had accepted, so I figured the least I could do was watch the video to get a better sense of what she was talking about. As usual, I left at 1pm that day after planning to interview her at 9am (!) the next Saturday.