Instead of giving you a run down of everything that's happened this week--because I imagine that does get a little repetitive after a while--I wanted to write a little on something that struck me last week.
I was home alone here and heat treating milk to make cheese in the cheese plant. As I learned the week before, the temperatures must be exact or the cheese could fail. So I've got my hair net on and I'm heating 20 gallons of milk to exactly 145 degrees and then I have to keep it there for a half hour before I cool down to exactly 82 degrees. I'm focused and trying to nail my temperatures. Outside the weather is overcast and getting pretty windy. I hear goats yelling. When I look out the window, our 4 yearling does have busted out of their pen and are currently stripping down the little pine trees in front of the cheese plant. Bad goats! My milk is only at 100 degrees, so I run outside and turn off the electric fence and get them back in and turn on the electric again. I fix the fence and everything looks fine. I run back to the cheese plant.
Whew! Only 115 degrees. 5 minutes later, they are out again! What the hell? I run outside and wow the wind is really blowing! The greenhouse barn looks like it could take off. I grab some more wooden pallets and attempt to hold down the plastic with their weight. I think the girls are somehow sneaking out through the loose sides of the greenhouse barn. I try to barricade them in with pallets and a random board that Jen was using earlier. I'm on my knees trying to figure out how to keep the girls in and I know it's a loosing battle. Oh crap! The milk. I run back to the cheese plant. 135 degrees. Well the girls can stay out I have to get the temperatures right. So I get the milk into its half hour of heat treating. It's stable at 145 degrees. I rush back outside. Now some of the babies are getting out. Crap! The girls are still out too. I'm grabbing pallets and jamming them into the crawl space that I think they're using to get out. The plastic down the sides of the greenhouse barn has come unrolled and is loose and flapping around a lot in the wind. Okay they are back in their pen. But 5 minutes later...of course they are out again. How aggravating! I can't believe I'm doing this all for cheese!
Well wait a minute...am I doing this all just for some cheese? Sort of, yes. I'm doing all of this--working harder than I ever have in my life--so that at the end of each week I can come to market with a good, delicious, healthy, high quality product that I'm proud to say I helped make. It's all so we can bring good food to our community. It's such a simple goal.
I talked to Scott about it a day or 2 later and he laughed because he knows. I think I'm just starting to understand it...or not understand it. Because it may be a simple goal, but the amount of physical work, stress and attention to detail that it takes to meet that goal can be quite overwhelming. Am I nuts? Is it all worth it? Do I really love cheese that much? And that is when Scott reminds me that it's a life style--not just a job. Over the past few months I've had to break out of the 9 to 5 mentality. Switch it around. It's much more like 5 to 9. The work never ends.
And to answer my questions-- Yes! I am nuts, it is worth it and I do like cheese a lot. It's very satisfying work. I feel like I have a purpose and I'm actually part of something bigger--something important that matters to me and the folks I live with and the community that supports the farm markets. Especially the community that doesn't come out to the farm markets...hopefully they stop by sometime and fall in love with our cheese or the fresh veggies or eggs or meats. I don't really know how else to explain it to people...how to get them to think about the food that they eat and to consider even more the people who worked so hard to bring it to them. Before I moved here I thought I was a very concious consumer. I attended farm markets pretty religiously and would stretch my budget for better quality food. And even knowing I was coming out here to live and work on a farm and make cheese. I still didn't understand how difficult it is. I didn't think about how much work really went into those heirloom tomatoes or the cheese or the butternut squashes. I was very happy to shake the hand that feeds me (thank you colleen for the phrase) but I hadn't put myself entirely in their shoes. Scott and Jen are right--I had the fantasy. Now, I've got some reality to back it up. And there still are moments of fantasy. Especially when I consider what my future might bring. I can still dream up my farming ideas and have a better handle on what is more realistic -- what can I make happen?
