Stonyfield Replaces Cream Top Yogurt with Homogenized Abomination

Note the subtle differences in the packaging of the old "Cream Top" yogurt and the new "Smooth and Creamy yogurt

After finishing the last tub of Stonyfield Cream Top yogurt earlier this week, I opened the first tub of Stonyfield Whole Milk “smooth and creamy” yogurt.  I hadn’t noticed the subtle changes in the packaging when I was at the store earlier this week.  Just like no one expects the Spanish Inquisition, no one expected Stonyfield to change the wonderful yogurt they’d been making for the last 27 years.  The change dawned on me as I pulled off the plastic lid and saw the foil seal that said, “We’ve stirred in the cream ….to make our creamiest, smoothest whole milk yogurt ever.”  And then in big red letters:  “You’re  going to love it.”   Umm.  No.  I’m not.  The inside of the foil goes on with the hard sell of the new formula:   “Ever since we began making yogurts, the debate has raged:  should we let that creamy layer rise to the top or stir it in?  It was always a tossup, but after 27 years of cream on top, we and a bunch of customers tried it the other way.  We were all blown away by how delicious it is.  And you will be too.  Enjoy!”  This note is signed “Gary” [Hirshberg], the CEO of Stonyfield.   Nice sentence structure, by the way.   The changes on the actual tub are subtle:   big letters saying “Cream Top” were gone and replaced with bigger letters that say “Whole Milk”.  There is also a little blurb on the package  that says “tastes Creamier than ever”.    I didn’t notice this at the store.  If I had, I wouldn’t have purchased it.  I look carefully to make sure that I’m buying whole milk yogurt and to be sure that I’m not buying the cloyingly sweet vanilla flavor, but I didn’t think I’d have to watch out for this.  I’d written twice on this very blog last February here and here about my love for the cream top yogurt and my unhappiness on one occasion settling for low-fat when the store was out of whole milk cream top and on the other trying Whole Foods own yogurt when cream top was sold out.  In neither case did I find a winner.

So somehow Stonyfield has been making their yogurt wrong for the better part of three decades?  And they were SELLING it?  And they just realized this now?  Unlikely.  It’s also not so benign as that they are just “stirring in the cream”.  They’re using homogenized milk.  Which I do not want.  I’m guessing Gary saw a bunch of dollar signs either relating to changing suppliers or due to changing their manufacturing process.  However this went down, I’m sure it is more about money than it is about taste or producing a quality product.   Who knows if this taste test really ever took place?  Even if it did, were they really blown away by “how delicious it is”, or did they just figure they could pass off this slop and get by on their name?

Stonyfield’s website (I’m not linking on purpose as it’s easy enough to find) has more of the same hard-sell.  The website encouraged me to leave a comment about the new product.  I did, and this is the disingenuous response that I received:

Hello Ann ,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us. We’re always happy to get
comments and questions from our yogurt lovers and are grateful when someone
takes the time to let us know what they think of our Company and products.

We appreciate your passion for the cream on top and you’re not alone – ever
since we started, we’ve been hearing the debate: should we let that creamy
layer rise to the top or stir it in? It was always a tossup, and after 27
years of cream on top, we’ve decided to stir things up. The cream you love
is still there, only now the yogurt is smoother, creamier, and we think,
even more delicious. We appreciate what an amazingly loyal Stonyfield whole
milk yogurt buyer you are and we’re sorry our new cup disappoints you. We
sincerely hope you’ll continue to give us a try.

Sincerely,

The folks at Stonyfield

First of all, loyalty, my ass!  But I digress.  I’m sure that form letter was crafted before the smooth and creamy abomination ever hit the shelves.  I can’t imagine they didn’t think there would be a backlash.  I just don’t know how big it is, and whether or not they are managing to convince former cream top customers to continue to buy this homogenized and inferior product.  I know that if I hadn’t cared about buying something that was unhomogenized, I wouldn’t have been shelling out Stonyfield sized dollars for an average of a little over a tub of 32 ounce plain yogurt per week.  Do the math.  That adds up to real money if I stop buying their products and thousands of others do the same.   It also looks like they’re pushing coupons harder than ever as well as sponsoring giveaways such as the one on this blog where it isn’t even clear to me that the blogger loves the product and where her content is mostly cribbed from the Stonyfield site.   I don’t know that she was compensated, but this reeks of paid blogging to me.  And I see no disclosure notice.

I do not want this yogurt and I am not alone.  I found this anonymous comment #32 on a thread at wisegeek:

I asked Stonyfield why they discontinued their wonderful plain whole milk yogurt, that had the cream settled on the top. They said, it was debated, and was a toss-up, so they decided to change it. (Why, if it was a toss-up?) I asked how they kept the cream from rising to the top. They said they homogenized it. I will not buy their yogurt anymore.
– anon142926

I also found this thread started by a woman who goes by the screen name of “beaglemommy” over at Mothering.com.  No one who posted on that thread wrote anything like, “The new smooth and creamy yogurt is the most delicious yet!”  Or even expressed the thought that maybe it was o.k., acceptable.  Comments range between disappointment and outrage.  Which is really just angrier disappointment.   With permission, here is her original post:

posted 01/24/2011 

I recently purchased some Stonyfield plain, whole milk yogurt as I have done many times in the past. As I was opening it, I read the label on top (under the plastic lid), “We’ve stirred in the cream …to make our creamiest, smoothest whole-milk yogurt ever. You’re going to love it!”
Um, I’m NOT going to love the only consistently available non-homogenized dairy now homogenized! And in such a sneaky way. I could not read that portion of the label until after I purchased it. The rest of the packaging looks much the same as it always has. Now that I am studying the label, it does not say “cream top” as it used to. Is there any other explanation other than they are now homogenizing it? It doesn’t smell bad, but the top of the yogurt in the container looks bubbly and nasty.
This container will be going back to Kroger. 

Anyone else noticed this?

The observation about the top of the yogurt in the container looking bubbly and nasty is right on.  I’ve already mentioned the VERY subtle differences in the old and new packaging for the old and new products.   While I’m not going to take my yogurt back to Woodman’s as she was going to return hers to Kroger, I will absolutely not be buying any more Stonyfield products.  Stonyfield also has a canned response for those who complain that the yogurt is now homogenized:

“Thanks for contacting us with your concerns about the homogenized milk in
our whole-milk yogurts. Scientific research tells us homogenized milk is no
less healthy than unhomogenized milk. 

In the 1970s, a researcher named Kurt Oster theorized that an increase in
coronary heart disease was caused by homogenized milk, which was introduced
in the 1930s and 1940s. Research done in the 1980s, however, refuted
Oster’s theory. If you’d like to read more about the topic, check out the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the Journal of Dairy Science.

Thanks again for contacting us, and please don’t hesitate to drop us
another line. We’d love to hear from you again.

Sincerely,

The folks at Stonyfield

Get free yogurt and green goods. Sign up at MyStonyfieldRewards.com

Clifford AJ, et al: Homogenized bovine milk xanthine oxidase: a critique of
the hypothesis relating to plasmalogen depletion and cardiovascular
disease. Am J Clin Nutr. 1983 Aug;38(2):327-32.

Deeth HC: Homogenized milk and atherosclerotic disease: a review. J Dairy
Sci. 1983 Jul;66(7):1419-35.”

Wow!  Citations!  Both from 1983 and narrowly focused on cardiovascular disease.  Like there isn’t any other reason to choose a product that is not homogenized over one that is. Color me impressed.  Connecting another couple of dots, 1983 is 28 years ago, so this information was available before Stonyfield even started making yogurt and still they didn’t choose to use homogenized milk until now?  And we’re supposed to believe that this just the result of a coin toss?  That just lacks credibility.   I suppose whether or not homogenized milk is unhealthy is open to debate, but I guess I’d look a little more widely for information than the references to the Clifford and Deeth papers that Stonyfield provided.  To me, it may be a matter of health, but it is also certainly a matter of texture and taste.  As they point out, homogenization has only been with us since the 1930′s or 1940′s.  I believe in eating  foods as close to their natural state as possible and to me homogenization is an unnecessary and therefore undesirable step.

At first I ranted about this on my Facebook wall.  This resulted in a long and entertaining thread that actually mentioned Oreos and Fruity Pebbles more than yogurt.  I figured I might be in for making my own yogurt since I can and do buy unhomogenized milk.  I wasn’t really looking forward to that, but one of my friends also posted this awesome device for controlling the temperature of a slow cooker in order to use it to make yogurt.  I’d do that if I had too.  I almost want to just for the tinkering challenge.  I probably won’t though because on my weekly trip to buy dairy and produce at Willy West I found that they carry two kinds of cream top yogurt:  Brown Cow and Sugar River Dairy.  Neither of these are organic, but neither are the cows treated with hormones.  Someone on the thread at Mothering pointed out that Brown Cow is owned by Stonyfield.  Sugar River’s website says that they use “single source milk”.   They are also local.  While I will finish the Stonyfield that I have,  I will then try Sugar River’s yogurt.  I expect it will be good.  I’m lucky here in Madison.  Beaglemommy says she can’t get any other cream top yogurt locally.  She’s considering planning monthly trips to Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s which are 100 miles away from her.  It’s either that or resorting to making her own yogurt.

Back to the original Stonyfield problem, I’m sure anyone who writes to them to complain can look forward to receiving one of the patronizing responses above.  Apparently the only thing they understand is money.  So vote with yours.  Let their products spoil on the shelves.  Maybe then they will “hear” their (possibly former) customers.

****Recently I wondered why so many people are still reading this post even though it is so old.  I note today (March 30, 2011) that some time between the date of my original post and now, that Stonyfield appears to have removed all mention of Cream Top Yogurt from their website.  It appears to me that their P.R. Campaign to sell this yucky, new homogenized product to former Cream Top customers may not be going so well.  I have no idea if they may be motivated to bring Cream Top back or whether they’ll just drop whole milk yogurts altogether in favor of highly sweetened, higher profit margin products.  If you want Cream Top back, keep writing to them.  At this time, the only mention of the Smooth and Creamy [Homogenized] Yogurt being a new product is this press release dated January 20, 2011.  It’s almost like we live in a world where Stonyfield Cream Top Whole Milk Yogurt never existed.****

The New Year Finds Its Way to Cafe Four

******See note below*****

Last night we had a lovely dinner in Mineral Point at Cafe Four.   Regrettably, no pictures, but I didn’t think to bring a camera and there was no point in the evening when I would have wanted to interrupt dinner by photographing it.

The restaurant served dinner on New Year’s Eve and then closed for most of the month of January, during which they made some improvements to their kitchen.  In January,  they did host only a couple of small, unadvertised dinners and we were lucky enough to attend the one that took place last night.  Including us, there were eight guests.  Last night’s dinner gave them a chance to try out a couple of new menu items, including the appetizer which was  poached egg with spinach over smoked mushroom and sweet potato hash.  It was quite tasty and will be on their new Saturday and Sunday brunch menu.  This was followed by pan-roasted  chicken breast with ricotta gnocchi and seasonal vegetables, which last night turned out to be Brussels sprouts which were very sweet and tasty.  Last night’s dessert, if I understand correctly was sort of an apple tart served with very good house-made bourbon ice cream (both of which I’m planning to reverse engineer) which will also be on the new winter menu when they reopen for regular business on Friday January 28th.

Besides the new winter menu, which I imagine will change frequently, Ted Souder and Friends will be playing on Friday nights at 7:30.

While we won’t often make it to Mineral Point until the weather warms up, we certainly wish Chef Scott Spilger and his staff a belated happy new year.   I think we’re also overdue for making it down that way to try their fish fry.  Hopefully some Friday soon, we’ll get there and have another nice dinner and manage to stay long enough to hear Ted’s music.

*********We were in Mineral Point this past weekend (03/12/2011) and note sadly that it appears that Cafe Four is closed for the time being.  Their website says they are closed for the winter.  If I learn anything new, I will post an update.  Of course we’re hoping for good news.********

******Update June 26th, 2011********  We worked out at the farm yesterday and stopped by Cafe Four which has reopened for the summer.  The staff is mostly different.  Cody was tending bar offered us menus to look at while we waited for a table and drank some sangria.  The pizza menu is much the same as it used to be.  There were about 4-5 other entrees.  I had chicken with sweet potato puree and spinach.  D. had the steak and frites special.  Both dishes were attractively plated and tasty and both preceded by pretty and tasty house salad with mixed greens, golden cherry tomatoes and shaved parmesan with a balsamic vinaigrette.  The service was good.  There was a beets and greens salad on the menu that I would also like to try.  Maybe next week or the week after.

Naming schemes…getting ahead of myself

If you read this blog regularly, or if you talk to me much at all, you know I think about the farm all the time.  And of course I’m getting ahead of myself.  So for my entertainment, and possibly yours….I have naming schemes for barn cats, chickens and goats.

Barn Cats:

Dr. Who:  The boy cat is always Doc no matter how many times he regenerates.  For the girls, we cycle through the names of the Doctor’s companions.  Almost certainly skipping “Donna” since that is my mother-in-law’s name.

Chickens:  There have to be a lot of names.  So flowers:  Lily, Daisy, Poppy, Iris, Rose and so on…  It’s impossible to run out.

Goats:  I’m sure someone is going to frown about this, but the goat names are:  Elda, Myra, Laura and Helen.  O.K., maybe not Helen since some of my best friends named their baby Helen last year, but those are the names of my grandmother and her sisters.  If push comes to shove and I need more names for my tiny milking herd of goats (yes, I want to make cheese) I could tap a couple of other deceased relatives’ names, so Viola and Adele.  Is it respectful to name goats after my mother’s mother and her aunts?    Nope.  Do I find it funny?  Yes.  Would anyone other than my sister know that this is disrespectful?  Again, nope.  So I see nothing here to stop me, when and if these animals take up residence.

The Willy Years

For four years in my late 20′s to early 30′s, I rented a lower flat on Willy St.  At the time, those years felt like a long time.  A friend who I met back in those days recently mentioned and has mentioned before that since she’s moved away from Madison, it just hasn’t been as easy to make friends.

Friday night when I was waiting for the bus, a man waiting for the bus mentioned that I looked familiar but he couldn’t place me.  In fact, I thought he looked familiar too.  He told me his name and I then I said that yes, I’d lived four doors down from him and his wife back in the Willy St. days.  He’d recently run into our former city council person and said she still remembers the neighborhood cleanup that we’d organized nearly thirteen years ago.  The neighborhood had a lot of foot traffic, a great hardware store, some pretty good restaurants, video rental back when that mattered, a couple of coffee shops and of course it was close to the Coop too.

I asked where they had moved and mentioned that I’d moved a couple of times and that I’d gotten married a few years ago.  Like me, they’ve moved to a quieter neighborhood.  Although I’ve now been here longer, I don’t know as many people here.  I walk and ride my bike around here and even though the population here is more stable, I really don’t think I know as many people.  Maybe if we had a dog to walk or if we had kids, but the neighborhood is different too.  It isn’t quite as densely populated and this is a place where there are more back decks than front porches and certainly no shared driveways like we had there.  Here, you cannot possibly hear a conversation from the house next door because the windows are open and the houses are closer together than current building codes allow.  During the four years that I lived there, there were two fatal shootings less than a block away.  The first of these was a shock and though I didn’t hear the shots, I couldn’t miss the crime scene tape all the way around the front of the house when I passed it the following morning on my way to work.  Several friends lived in a three flat a couple doors away from the site of the shooting.  Another couple lived in a house in the center of the block, essentially diagonally behind the crime scene.    It really shook up the neighborhood, in part because there was so much misinformation about whether or not it was a drive-by shooting and whether or not it was drug-related and because the local media trashed the neighborhood.  Besides the obvious fact that this young man’s death was sad for his family, a lot of good came from a meeting closed to the media that took place between neighborhood residents and the police department.  That meeting started community building between neighbors who weren’t already friends.  It facilitated better communication and encouraged the type of organization that filled many trash bags and recycle bags on a Saturday that April.

For part of the time that I lived there, I also worked on the same street, only seven blocks away and I walked that length of the street twice a day and there were weeks that I never left the street.  In a way, I miss my apartment there and I certainly miss the community.  Some of the friends that I made during that time will be my friends all my life.  Others have faded away.  Life has happened to the people who we knew back then.  Some friends have gotten married, some divorced, some have children and almost everyone has moved at least across town if not across the country.   I’m probably happier now than I was then, but I did like my life and at the time and I know I wouldn’t have imagined that I would want the kind of life I have now.

We can’t go back, but we can remember that we lived in a special community at an important time in our lives and that helped shape who we all are today.

Goals that really aren’t resolutions

The stream runs year round

Everyone seems to want to talk about resolutions around this time of year.  I’ve never been one for New Year’s Resolutions, but it seems like a good time to bring up our ongoing goals with the land, especially since we were out there today.   D. worked on deconstructing the collapsed building once we went looking for raccoons and came up empty, lucky for them.  A couple of weeks ago when I was out there by myself, I found a raccoon in the stream near the spring house and then it retreated into the spring house.   The spring house really needs a door.   The temperature today topped out around 22 degrees Fahrenheit.  I spent most of my time walking around.  It was cold enough for D. to wear enough clothing to protect himself from protruding nails and sharp edges of sheet metal and while there isn’t much work for me to do when it is that cold, I was actually able to get past some of the multiflora rose and buckthorn since I was also wearing tougher clothing.  My walk wasn’t just recreational though, I spent a lot of time thinking about what we should do as we have time and the conditions are right.   I followed the trail to the back of the property and then I wound my way into the valley where the stream was down as far as where a fence crosses it separating our land from the neighbors.  The water is clear, but I found moneywort most of the length of the stream.    When it’s warmer, I’ll work my way down the length of the stream with a couple of 5 gallon buckets pulling it.  I think it’ll take years to eradicate this plant.  I also found a plastic bottle in the stream and as cold as it was today, I’ll get it another time.  I found a tractor tire in a field which I guess I’ll roll somewhere else, also on a warmer day as well as a bunch of unidentified metal junk.  I know that on old farms people just dumped things places and left things places, but this still vexes me to no end.  I looked for and found another collapsed building that I thought I’d seen on one of the old aerial photos.  This one is smaller and with the snow and grass around it I couldn’t really tell how big it was, but I found wood, concrete and shingles, so all the hallmarks of a building.  I also looked for dead trees that are down that we should cut up and haul out for firewood.  Dead trees that are standing can stay for the woodpeckers, for the mourning dove and for the crows and hawks.

I passed plenty of wild black raspberry bushes and lots of garlic mustard.  We arrived too late this year to get any use from the black raspberries.  Early in the year, I made pesto with garlic mustard twice with garlic mustard that I pulled along the southwest bike path.  There, I just pulled as much as I thought I would use.  I’m still using this pesto, some of it containing basil and some of it containing spinach when we want something green.  Good thing too, since our basil didn’t do so well this year.  I think I’ll be pulling a lot more garlic mustard this year and I’ll be a lot more invested in it.  I’ll probably also make a lot more garlic mustard pesto, but this year it’ll be more of an exercise in weeding than just making the best of an invasive weed which also happens to be edible.  As I walked around, I also wonder if we’ll find any morels on the property.  This weekend, we also finally started using the black walnuts that D. gathered in November now that many hours have been spent shelling them.  Not my hours…  But I ground up a small quantity of them in the food processor (what a heady aroma) and added them to the crust for a cheesecake for New Year’s Eve.  This morning, I chopped a few of them really small and put them in cranberry pancakes spiced with cardamom, cinnamon and orange peel.  They’re really potent, so a little goes a long way.  I’ll be experimenting with them for a while and would welcome any suggestions as to what we should do with them.

I walked through the orchard and figured that we could have pruned the trees a little more aggressively and I looked at the area that I blocked out for the garden.  We need to figure out what to grow besides the asparagus and rhubarb that are already there and of course, we’ll let Mrs. L.’s hollyhocks continue to re-seed themselves.  Since we don’t have a fence to keep the deer out, we’ll grow things like the garlic that we already planted, onions, leeks, potatoes, maybe squash and herbs other than parsley.  We’ll have to keep the peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, brussels sprouts, beets (because deer will eat the greens) in the home garden.  I suppose we could move the rhubarb and asparagus that we have here out there…  Some day we’ll have to build a fence around the orchard and garden areas.  More immediately, we’ll think about what kind of trees we’d like to put in.  We could put a better wind break on the west side of the orchard and I think that is part of the plan.  We’ve been consulting the Wisconsin DNR site for information on what types of trees are native and would do well as well as Arbor Day as a possible source of trees.

Sometimes, when we talk to D.’s parents, I feel like they think we should have a really organized and linear plan for what we are doing with the land.  We haven’t even been there a year yet and we haven’t seen everything.  Our goals including growing food and making use of wild food resources are constant.  I’m certainly not planning on trying to eat my way through the Peterson Guide to Edible Wild Plants.  We’ll continue working on restoring the native plant communities and eradicating the invasive plants, we’ll garden as we can and make better use of the orchard. We’ll dispose of old trash items  when practical.   We’ll demolish buildings that serve no purpose, improve the useful ones and hopefully build a decent cabin with plumbing in time.   The plan is pretty fluid at this point.  We’ll do what we feel like doing or whatever is demanding immediate attention.  Hopefully we’ll get out there every couple of weeks for the next couple of months.   The snow, while gone for now in many places, is deeply drifted in the shade near the far end of the driveway and we won’t stay overnight until we can park inside the gate.   For now, hopping over the gate and walking the rest of the way in with whatever we can carry is the best we can do.  I think that is how it will be until late March.  Maybe by next winter, we’ll have a solution for snow removal.

2010 meme

2010 was quite a year for us.  I see all sorts of possibilities now that I didn’t see before this year.  I want to do a lot of different things that if you’d asked me before this year, I wouldn’t have found them remotely interesting.   For instance, I’m thinking of taking up deer hunting.   If you do the meme, let me know.
1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?
Bought 38 acres of rural land.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Never make New Year’s resolutions
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes.  And tiny Helen is a joy!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Somebody who was close to me a few years ago died in a small plane crash in February.  Sometimes I still have trouble believing it.

5. What countries did you visit?
none, but the list of places I would like to go is long and varied.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
A start on taking control of the horrible weed problem at our land.

7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Our summer solstice canoe camping trip with really high water and Friday July 16th when we closed on the farm, anniversary trip to Custer Park in South Dakota.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

9. What was your biggest failure?
Failure to outsmart raccoons.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing major, but my second insect sting in two years helped me to determine that my desire to keep bees will not be realized.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

The land.  I think about it daily and think about how to spend more time there.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My husband’s.  His calm tends to smooth things out when I get wound up.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
The governor-elect of Wisconsin and Tea Party voters.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Very possibly the Ace Hardware store in Darlington, after of course the land.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The potential of the land in a good way and its many weed issues, in a bad way.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?
“I and Love and You” by the Avett Brothers

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
a)about the same, but perhaps more hopeful; b) about the same; c) Kind of depends on how you calculate it

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Paddling.  I always want more of that, but the Wisconsin River was so high this year and working at the land ate up most of our warm weather weekends.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
worrying

20. How did you spend Christmas?

At home with D.  We had a nice quiet weekend together after traveling the weekend before for early family Christmas.

21. Did you fall in love in 2010?
Yes, with the dark sky over our land.

22. How many one-night stands?

Zero.  Since this didn’t even happen back in the Club D Wash days,  this question is so stupid, I think it may not make it into next year’s meme.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
The now cancelled, “Better Off Ted”


24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Absolutely.  Raccoons.

25. What was the best book you read?
“The Unsettling of America” by Wendell Berry, closely followed by any of a number of books I’ve read on gardening, orchardry, cider-making and farming.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

27. What did you want and get?
Lots of good opportunities to get outside and a tremendous opportunity to restore some native habitats.

28. What did get, but not want?
Buckthorn, wild parsnips, multiflora rose, burdock, thistles and giant ragweed.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
I don’t think I made it to single movie in the theater this year.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
We spent my 42nd birthday tromping around in the slushy snow and sometimes mud at Governor Dodge State Park.  We saw raccoons sleeping in a dumpster and had dinner at the Grumpy Troll in Mt. Horeb on the way home.  Just to be clear, we weren’t exactly excited to see the raccoons, nor they us, but this was before the raccoon hatred set in.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

If we’d managed to get rid of the house at the farm.  Actually, I guess that’s kind of measurable.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?

Casual and weather appropriate.

33. What kept you sane?
Out door time, my husband’s calm, books and my bike commute.
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I’ve never been one for celebrity crushes.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
The Scott Walker and the High Speed Rail debacle.  Way to piss away a great opportunity.

36. Who did you miss?
I miss my parents now and then.


37. Who was the best new person you met?
Celia’s boyfriend Dave.  Dave has a lot of information in his head that I would like to have in mine.
38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.

Beware the wild parsnip and multiflora rose is the devil.
39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

I don’t believe that there is a song that sums up the year I’ve had.