This day was what Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT, our tour company) calls, "A Day in the Life." We spend the day with some sort of local people making cultural discoveries. In this case, we drove to the Valtellina Valley which is the Alpine region of Italy and very near the Swiss border. We were at an elevation of about 2,500 feet. We passed many vineyards along the way and we made several stops. This was the first stop.

On a side note, we were told that these Alpine mountain villages were formed by many small hamlets. A hamlet was usually 8-10 farmer's houses and a small church. Can you believe that a group of 8-10 families could support a church? Oh well...

A dairy farmer was our first visit. He used to have 70 cows and produce milk. He said that proved problematic, for making money. Now he has 40 cows and produces cheese and butter. He said that this business has a much lower mortality rate for his cows than with the milk cows. He has three types of cows, each for a different product. His cows are Brown Swiss, Black and White, and Red and White (he named them for us). He also produces all the food for his cows which includes grass, hay, corn, etc. He bales hay and makes silage for the winter time.

On another side note, the farmer told us that grapes and wine make more money but climate change has been very hard on grapes in this area, so many farmers have switched to cows.

Here is the farmer with some of his milking equipment. It's actually quite high-tech in terms of how it tracks each cow's production.

This was my favorite room to visit on his farm...the Cheese storage room.

He showed us his cheese and butter making equipment, process, storage, etc. Like most farmers, he also still has some grapes near his house as well as chickens, geese, fruit trees, etc. Here's he's showing and telling us about these grapes.

As this is a farm area and they all seem to do multiple types of farming, I went next door for a bee-hive photo.

This was a first for me. As we walked up to his house for some cheese tasting and other tastings, I couldn't help but notice his mailboxes. If you look at the boxes, the one of the right says "Pane" or bread in Italian. He said his bread gets delivered in this box every day. What a life...