a pennsylvania dairy farm

 

Dairy farms dot the Pennsylvania countryside liberally, at least in the area where I’m spending spring break. I was surprised at first by how close they are together—I expected the hundreds of cows to require hundreds of acres of pasture, like the beef cattle back home. But they keep the milk cows in much closer quarters, on hand and ready to be milked regularly, hay- and corn-fed all year long.

For the record, these Pennsylvania dairy cows produce some rather delicious ice cream. Ritchey’s Chocolate Butter Fudge… mmmmmm!

Okay, so that might have been a lot of cows to scroll through all at once. What can I say, I like farms. :) …. And ice cream!

scenes from a pennsylvania march

 

And I thought Christmas break would be my only hope for seeing snow this year!

a change of scene and society

 

The trees are different here. Totally unlike Florida’s, obviously—too thin and bare and wintry, with far too little underbrush. And also quite unlike Washington’s. We don’t have many deciduous forests in the Evergreen State. I kind of wish we did.

We also lack the picturesque dairy farms—Washington cattle ranches have completely different functions and thus completely different forms. But some things about this place are the same. Like the thick sprinkling of stars in the northern sky, or the pungent springtime scent of thawing cow manure and composting fields—both of which Florida is sadly without.

This is a place of square brick houses and quaint towns set into woodsy hillsides overlooking valleys of cornfields. This is a place where seeing a horse and buggy jogging down the road is no less usual than seeing a car. This is a place where every few miles you cross into a new “township”—a term I didn’t even know existed.

This is Pennsylvania, a place I’m interested in getting to know better. :)