Someone notable, whose name I cannot remember, once said that every story should have a beginning, middle, and an end. I strive to do that in these posts by having a central theme for each one. But every now and then I come up with a post that’s like a drunk wandering away from a lamp post—only by the grace of God does it ever get back to the point it started at. This may be one of those posts.The weather here can turn on a dime. Today it was sunny and in the mid-50’s. Tomorrow they are predicting snow flurries. Forty years in Florida did not prepare me for this.
Meredith and I are now official Georgia residents. In a day long orgy of dealing with government bureaucracy, we obtained our Georgia driver’s licenses, registered our vehicles, obtained our Georgia homestead exemption, and placed our land in a ten year conservation agreement, all on a walk-in basis without having made one appointment. I also successfully obtained a new social security card during the course of the day. The fact we were able to accomplish all that in one day may tell you something about that difference between bureaucracy in a small town versus a large urban area.
Like Florida, you can obtain specialty license plates in Georgia. Interestingly, you can obtain a specialty plate that identifies you as a University of Tennessee or Alabama alumnus, but not as an alumnus of the University of Florida. State governments will do just about anything these days to generate additional revenue, but I guess for Georgians, some of those past Gator Bowl defeats really stung.
As an aside, when you walk into the county clerk’s office in Fannin County, there is a copy of the Ten Commandments displayed between the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution in the waiting room. I find that interesting.
As you might expect, there were fees involved in obtaining our driver’s licenses, tags, and homestead exemption. In Georgia these are euphemistically referred to as courtesy fees. The government official who came up with that one should serve time for criminal distortion of the mother tongue. Try as I might, I cannot see how a fee paid to government represents a courtesy to me.
I had to obtain a new social security card to get my Georgia driver’s license. If you want to get depressed about the state of our country, just sit in a Social Security Office waiting room for an hour or so. It seems to be the place to go if you are lame, sick, feeble, elderly, confused, grotesquely overweight, or trying to scam the government for benefits. I am not trying to be harsh or unsympathetic, merely observational. I pray to God that my eventual decline is swift and decisive so I do not have to spend any more time in a Social Security Office waiting room.
In this particular Social Security Office, when you first walk in you have to enter information using a touch screen so that you can receive a stand in line number. The first screen asked in English whether you speak English. I guess if you don’t speak English you’re screwed from the start. Why does that not bother me?
The conservation agreement is pretty neat. If your land is agricultural or wooded and greater than ten acres, you can sign an agreement with the government not to sell or develop it for ten years and receive a substantial property tax break. Since I have no plans to develop the United States of Yacavone, I jumped on that.
Switching gears, I attended my intermediate cheese-making class last Sunday afternoon. In this class we graduated from liquid milk cultures like yogurt and kefir to solid cheeses like ricotta and mozzarella. I intend to continue my education and take the advanced class. Cheddar, here I come.
The instructor was the same large, earthy, disorganized woman who taught the first class. It’s hard to capture her character in words. At first, I thought she may have been the type who once lived in a commune, but having listened to her through two cheese classes, I realize that she would not have put up with all that esoteric hippy bullshit. More than anything I see her as a strong, solid, practical pioneer woman. I don’t believe she’s someone who has adopted an alternative lifestyle in search of inner kharma. There are a lot of those types around here. I think she lives the way she lives because that’s the way she has always lived and she prefers it that way. She is comfortable growing her own vegetables, raising animals for food, and making cheese. Her way of life satisfies her. She is not tempted by the modern urban lifestyle.
During a break in the class when we were waiting for our curds and whey to separate (never thought I’d get to say that), she started talking about how she bred her goats this spring and had an over abundance of young goats, so she slaughtered some of the kids when they reached an appropriate age. She talked about how much meat a baby goat yields and how many meals she could get out of one carcass. She said that a baby goat slaughtered at so many weeks (I forget the number) dresses out at 20 pounds. She kept a couple of the butchered baby goats whole so she can roast them on a spit over an open fire at family gatherings.
I found the whole discussion fascinating. This is part of the reason I moved to rural Georgia—to learn about the old ways of doing things. As she was talking, my mind swirled with thoughts. I realized that for all my interest in and reading about early American life and ways, my knowledge is that of a dilettante or academic. I have no practical knowledge or experience in how to raise, slaughter or butcher a goat or cook one over an open fire. It seems so complicated to me, yet here was this woman casually explaining what she had done like a suburban housewife might explain how she picked up ribs at the supermarket.
It occurred to me that in the 1800’s most Americans would have known and experienced the process of raising, slaughtering and butchering their own meat. Today, at least in an urban areas, I think you’d have to search for someone who can do something like that.
Why is it that I would rather learn how to slaughter, dress and butcher a goat or a hog or a beef than learn how to use the latest clever app on my smart phone? What makes me believe that such knowledge enriches my life and is more valuable than being proficient in the latest technology, knowing who won the Golden Globe awards, and listening to the Doctor Phil Show to understand why little Johnny hates his parents? I’m going to have to work on figuring that out.
With the exception of the irritating Ms. GMO, the cheese class consisted of a whole new cast of characters. Ms. GMO, if you will recall, is the older woman who is takes every opportunity to tell you about how bad processed and genetically modified food is for you.
The instructor asked us to say a little about ourselves at the beginning of the class. Ms. GMO proceeded to tell us—proudly, I might add—that she has spent the last seventeen years living holistically. Maybe it’s me, but I thought that was a little over the top. When it came my turn, I was tempted to say that I had spent my entire life living decadently, but I controlled myself. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to be less critical of others. As you can probably tell, that’s going to be a tough one for me to keep. The fact of the matter is that I stayed as far away of Ms. GMO as I could. Whenever she started to talk about her holistic lifestyle, I retreated to the kitchen, stuck my fingers in my ears, and chanted, “Nah, nah, nah, nah. I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you.” I think a few members of the class thought I was into some eastern religion.
Ms. GMO spent a lot of time talking with another middle aged woman who, I gather, was of a similar mind set, but I’m not sure of that. If living holistically means rejecting deodorant, then this other woman was definitely holistic.
The rest of the class was about as close to normal as you could expect for a group of people who want to learn to make cheese. You can read into that statement anything you want.
For what it’s worth, I learned to make mozzarella, ricotta, and ricotta salata. Ricotta salata is aged ricotta cheese. It tastes like a sharp cheddar or an aged parmesan, and is pretty easy to make. I’ve ordered a cheese press and intend to start pounding out wheels of ricotta salata on a weekly basis. If you happen to visit me in six months or so, be prepared to have some.
Mozzarella is more complicated than I thought. It’s a little tricky kneading the hot balls of mozzarella so they get the proper smoothness and elasticity. The instructor was disappointed in the batch that we made. Referring to our mozzarella balls, she said she was sad that we couldn’t go home with perfect balls. I promptly informed her that I couldn’t speak for the others, but I was going home with perfect balls.
So there you have it: a busy and productive few days in north Georgia by retirement standards.
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