Maid-N-Meadows: Summer 2023 Update

       It seems like updates are becoming fewer and farther apart! I started this blog because I wanted to connect with people. I looked for other families online with lives similar to my own and found some! But I wanted to find more. And because I looked for others, I was hoping that others would look for me!!! I laugh when I write that because "me"/"I" am changing as I walk through the seasons of life. Who I was when I started this blog is not who I am now. And so when I began writing just now, I had to think about "who" am I writing to and why. 

I'm completely drenched from unloading groceries in a downpour. Why didn't I just wait? I'm a nut!

        And today? Today, I am writing to myself, Keely. So, if you found me, today, know that I am in a state of shock and awe...(because how did I get here???) and trying to find my feet. And hoping that others in the same boat are finding success. (Please share your secret path!)

        This year, as my youngest children get bolder and stronger, I too have ventured out of my comfort zone more. I have put enormous amounts of energy and focus on pushing our business forward and raising the bar on our products. We ( the parents) are getting older and we need to decide whether this business will be enough to sustain us in our aging years or if our production limits are going to keep us in a perpetual hand to mouth existence.

         We have reviewed our production practices, business practices, cheesemaking practices, and I think most of all, we have dug deep into our personal values and what farming and animal husbandry means to us. ANNNNNNDDDDDDDD we have come back to the table with a lot of complaints and frustration about everything we are doing. 

       What we keep coming back to is that there isn't enough time and resources to do everything we want to do. In fact, it really seems like there isn't even enough time to do the things that we really have to do to keep this farmstead business going, properly.  And that leaves me feeling like a failure. This business is running me, instead of me running the business, and that has to change. 

•  Shock- Realizing working harder doesn't make one more successful and it isn't sustainable.
•  AWE- Realizing that I am in control of what I do and I can make choices, albeit difficult and sometimes uncomfortable, to work in a way that is wiser. I have a lot of freedom!
•  Shock- There isn't enough time to do everything I want to. I always overestimate how long it will take to do something. I am going to have to cut some things out....there is no way around it. When I am spread this thin, I don't do anything well. 
• AWE- I love doing so many things and I get to do a lot of things, often! How great is that!?!
•  Shock- I have ruined so much product this year. So many mistakes.....like yesterday I let the cheddar get too hot and now it is not cheddar! Or I changed soap oils and now I have to reformulate every recipe. The colors have changed! Sometimes I am in awe that I ever get anything done right because lately it seems to be the norm that something is wrong.
•  AWE- But look at how much I have learned this year! Every mistake reveals an opportunity to learn and improve. Yes....there has been a lot of waste and loss. That loss is the fuel for the journey of improvement and with so much fuel, we are bound to get somewhere!!😂

          All in all, I feel this great sense of destruction, like watching a train wreck in slow motion and just wondering when will it ever end. And yet immensely grateful that I am here, in this moment, right now, with the opportunity to still yet succeed. I am overflowing with dreams and hopes and SUSPENSE! But most of all, I am in awe. Maid-N-Meadows has connected us with so many people who have taken part in making this dream of cows on grass, and real from scratch food, a reality. And so badly I want to pay forward the blessings we have been bestowed. 💓