I Am Procrastinating

Ok, I am procrastinating. I shouldn't, but it is COLD outside! And I need to go up to the cheese house and get things ready for the farm market tomorrow. Which, I don't know if I'm really looking forward to going this time. Right now we are at -7. BRRRR... It will be much colder than that by morning.

I'm not even sure if the poor van will even make it up the hill, with all the snow and ice. So, I had my husband move his truck (which was in the way), just in case I have to slide the van backward to get back down the hill.

This staying positive stuff is a hard thing to do in the winter!! Our milk check came today, and I was supposed to get it to the bank by 6 p.m. Of all days, our mail carrier came around 5:30 p.m. (she is supposed to run around 2 p.m.). Al is going to try to make the bank in the morning, if not, we'll have to wait until Tuesday. Crap!!!!

Even though today didn't go as I had hoped/planned, I do want to try to jot down a few Positive things that has happened this past week, since today is Friday:

~ Shipped out some cheese that a few stores ordered.

~May have a new store opening up in New Concord that wants to handle our cheese!

~ We have been healthy (no colds, flu, etc)

~ Cleaned up my crafting room, and managed to do another page in Emily's scrapbook, and made a couple of cards.

~ Emily is really into crafting!

~ Annie (our dog) and Miss Kitty (our housecat) have finally called truce.

~ Have almost all the laundry caught up! This is a first in almost a year!

~ Have managed to make some really creative meals considering no grocery $$$! Gotta be a pretty good cook I guess! Or just really lucky!

~ Got a good start on our tax books (another thing I procrastinate!)

~ Had a nice lunch and visit with our church's youth pastor and wife.

So, it hasn't been a bad week. Could do without a lot that has caused some extra stress, but we're not the only ones that say that, huh?

So, off to the market tomorrow, where I'll probably freeze my "you know what" off. ( I can only hope that may happen literally!) Hoping some customers actually stop in, regardless of the cold temperatures.

Staying Positive

Making sugar cookies!
Rolling out the dough..

Cutting cookies out..

Baking up some cookies! Made the house smell YUMMY!!

Can't wait to decorate them, just eat them plain!

I have to say that my goal of staying positive this year is going to be a challenge. And it's only the beginning of January!

But, I'm still hanging in there! :)

The mistake I made with our business checkbook last week kind of set the tone for the whole week. It was the dumbest mistake (but then, have you ever heard of a smart mistake?) So, the money that I had to use to correct it was my grocery money for the week. Let's just say I'm getting very creative in the kitchen when putting dinner together. Since we have more eggs than we can keep up with, we've been eating a lot of eggs, and we have our own milk and cheese, and I made my own flour tortillas for the first time, very easy and Yummy!! We had those for lunch the other day. Filled them up with scrambled eggs, italian sausage, some cheese and salsa. Not too bad. Had some yummy Golden Delicious apples that I made apple crisp with for dessert. Can you tell that I'm feeling hungry? Can't eat anything at this point in the evening though... Just had some fish for supper so I don't know why my mind is on food!

Packed up some cheese orders to send out tomorrow. My goal is to get my butt up early, help Al start the morning chores (the milk truck goes tonight, so my job is to clean the bulk tank before milking), so that Al can go up with me. We have to stop off somewhere so he can get the paperwork started on a gov't program for dairy farmers. Hoping it is something that will help us out this year.

Went to church yesterday morning, despite the ice on our road. Slid a little bit. Emily is finally starting to sit nicely until junior church is dismissed. She looks so cute marching out to go downstairs, usually holding hands with her friend, Kassie. Someday I have got to get a picture of it. After church we had lunch with the youth pastor and his wife at their place. Enjoyed it very much, and even Emily seemed to enjoy herself. Usually she is bored when it's the grown ups time to chat.

I finally cleaned up my craft room!!!! Yay! So, today I took about an hour and did another page for Emily's scrapbook and made a birthday card. That is something I like to do for some R&R. Emily gets a kick out of crafting too. I give her some stamps and an ink pad (a very small one) and turn her loose with some paper and childrens scissors. Amazing what she can come up with!

I may even start working ( a little bit) on next year's Christmas cards, since I'm still kind of in that Christmas-y mood.

Speaking of Christmas, here are some pictures from our Christmas 2008. I'm a little slow at getting them here.

Monday...sigh..

I usually like Monday's. And even this Monday wasn't the worst in the world...but...

Made a mistake in our check book for our cheese business, so that made the morning hectic getting it taken care of. First time mistake, so I guess I'll be thankful, and learn to be more careful!

While Emily and I were in town, we figured we might as well stop at the library. She loves to go there. Usually we pick up a few videos for her instead of books, since we practically have a library here at home. But, today I let her find two books that she liked. She found a Dinosaur Hide and Seek and a flap book about Fairies. She did say she didn't want to ever take them back, I guess we're still learning about the "borrowing" thing! I found a couple of books for myself too, which is rare when I have Miss Em with me, she's usually more wound than she was today. Whew!

After I came home I called a few of the stores that handles our cheese. Thankfully we had a few orders. January can be a slow month. Hoping to maybe pick up a couple more stores in the near future. Also, got an email from a lady in Columbus doing an article and will be doing an over the phone interview with me on Wednesday!! I'm so excited and nervous. We've been featured several times before, but that was when my Mother-In-Law and Father-In-Law had the business. This will be my first interview. We're excited to have another article feature us.

We were also invited to send a sample of our Gouda for a Domestic Gouda review. I'm planning on doing that too.

So, even though the day started out kind of "eh", it still has been a good one.

My goal this year (well, one of many), is to remain positive about things, or at least try to be more positive than I have been in the past. Try to see the good, even though something stressful is going on.

So, I guess my word for this year will be Positive!

And since we're hoping to have a sibling for little Diva Emily, hoping that word may have another meaning too!!! ;-) Ha!

I managed to update our cheese site. Been needing to do that for a few weeks, but our computer was out of whack with a virus. Thankfully, our virus protection fixed it all. We were ready to pronounce this computer dead.

I'm so excited, we bought a food slicer to slice cheese with. I used it last night for the first time. Slices the cheese so nice! So, now we offer sliced cheese for sale, makes it so much nicer for sandwiches and even to put on top of a casserole to melt. I've been wanting one for about a year now, but just didn't have the $$ for it. Still don't! But figured we might as well get it now or never!! I hope that customers will find this handy.

I'm also brainstorming about putting together a cookbook featuring recipes that can be made with our cheeses. Crazy!! But, again the word for the year is Positive, so I'm moving the business forward and trying new ideas!

Amazingly, ideas seem to come to me in the middle of the night, that's probably why I'm so tired during the day!

That's pretty much been our day here. Hoping that the rest of the week continues on the up side!

Saying Goodbye to 2008

I can't believe that the new year is almost here. Already!!

This past year has gone by so fast, I can still rememeber things from last winter like it was yesterday. We've accomplished quite a bit in the past year, more than I thought we could ever do at the time! We completed our first year as cheesemakers. A huge challenge to say the least! We're hanging on to business, even during a sluggish economy.

Emily turned 3 this year, which has been exciting and exasperating!!! We skipped the so called "terrible 2's". I thought I was getting by pretty good. Yeah...right!!! She just saved up until she turned 3! The things she has learned over this past year have amazed me. She can write her name, most of her letters and numbers, and can spell out about 5 words and recognize a lot of sight words. I KNOW I didn't do that at 3! But...sometimes she's just a little too smart for her own good! Like the time she had a little fuzz ball in her tights at church...she was practically undressing herself during the meet and greet part of services! Oh My!! And then one Sunday she stood up and declared she had a "wedgie". Loud too! This child does not know the meaning of "whisper". Love her to pieces though... couldn't live without those crazy, embarassing moments. Although, I would like to maybe minimize how often they occur..

Our farm has seen it's challenges this year. The grain price soared through the roof, while our milk price stayed ho-hum. Hard to pay for the feed if we don't make anything from the milk. We have had several people call about buying a "family cow", but just don't have enough cows milking right now to part with any. Hoping that next year we'll have a group of about 10 to sell. We may still have some young heifers to sell this spring, depending on how many heifers are born this March and April. Hoping it's not an all bull year, again.

I just finally caught up our herd book. Each month we take samples from each cows milk, and also measure how many pounds she milks (8.6 lbs= 1 gallon). Generally our cows hold pretty steady around 40 lbs. a day during the warm months when they are on grass. We have a few that milk more, and some that milk less (usually our first calf heifers). We run tests on the samples of milk to measure how much fat% and protein% and SNF% (solid non-fat). After those are done, I enter them in a book where we keep detailed records of each cow, including her calving records. I kind of enjoy doing that, but have found that it is hard to keep up with it each month at times! Especially when we were making cheese 2 times a week. Now that it's winter, I can catch up on the book stuff, including our favorite (Just Kidding!) doing the taxes. Ugh! I usually don't mind doing them, in fact I used to get excited to do them, but this year is our first year of including the cheese business and I don't look forward to that challenge.

Getting the stuff organized will be half the battle!! You should see our office! LOL Looks like a bomb went off in here. That may have to be my New Year's resolution... organize!

Now, I'm off to get something done today. I actually don't have to go anywhere, except the cheese house later to wax some cheese, and wipe down the shelves in the walk-in cooler.

Hoping that this coming year is a good year!

Nice, Peaceful Christmas

Christmas has come and gone for this year. It seems sad in a lot of ways.

I didn't get as much done as I had wanted, but it still was good.

I woke up around 4:30 a.m. and went outside to our van to carry the presents in, which was a challenge since our back sidewalk turned to ice overnight! Almost knocked our tree over trying to get into our living room door too. Had to wake Emily up around 6:30. She was afraid to open her presents! haha!! After she got started she didn't want to stop!

Before we opened presents I made some sausage gravy and homemade biscuits for our breakfast, and put a pot of coffee on. The house smelled so yummy!

Emily played with her new stuff all day, we played some games with her and rested!

Then it was time to do the evening milking. That part of farm life doesn't take the day off for any holidays! We like to play Christmas music in the barn. Makes the barn feel pretty cozy.

It was kind of nice to have a quiet Christmas.

Tired!

I am tired! I had hoped to have more done for Christmas by now, but I'm afraid I didn't accomplish as much as I had planned.
I still have a couple of days, I suppose!
It's just been so busy around here. Last Thursday and Friday I worked on cutting up and packaging cheese, and putting gift baskets together to sell as well. Saturday I was pulling out of here by 6:30 a.m. The market was a busy one! And I sold the 3 gift baskets that I took in the first 1/2 hour. I wasn't sure how they would do, so that is all I made up. Next year I plan on doing a little more with that. I did some Christmas shopping while I was there, and picked up some delicious chili seasoning to make some homemade chili this week! YUM! I buy this from these folks every week when they are there. It's the BEST!!! For those interested their website is: www.unclebunks.com They do mail order.
I got home around 2-ish. Al was sitting back watching some of the first college bowl games with our neighbor/hired help. Emily was doing all she could to make sure they didn't get to see the ball game!
Yesterday afternoon I worked on getting some packages ready to UPS for some Christmas orders. Had them all set so I wouldn't have to worry about doing too much this morning except get to the hardware store to ship them out. But..... had a call this morning for a large order and I thought I could have it all ready to go before noon, but it was one of those things where I bit off more than I could chew. Plus I ran low on packaging and the vacuum sealer stopped working. Thank goodness it's working now, but it sure didn't help my day any! I did have to call the customer, and we set it up that I'll drop her order off tomorrow morning. And, I spent this afternoon trying to locate the bags that I needed to get her order done. Our little town doesn't handle that sort of thing. I finally got online and ordered a large order of the bags so I won't run out anytime soon after next week.
Hoping that tomorrow morning goes A LOT smoother than today... Monday, ugh!
Now, I just need to catch up the laundry and clean up the kitchen so that tomorrow I can hopefully get around to making some buckeyes and hard candy... we'll see...
But, first, I'm heading to the barn to hay the cows and make sure the chickens are all tucked in for the night.

Christmas is getting close. Are you ready yet?
I'm almost there. Still have to wrap presents, but have to find a day to do that without a nosy child and husband tagging along. I have the gifts stashed at our cheese house in the back supply room. That is the only way I can keep these two from finding them. It was so easy when Emily was a baby, she didn't know and didn't really care either! As long as her bottle was warm and her diaper was dry, she was content. Now, she is pretty thrilled to see each and every toy commercial on tv.

We have snow on the ground and it looks pretty! I'm happy about the snow today, just as long as the roads are clear this coming Saturday. I have to make it to the farm market. It's the last one before Christmas, and these folks take their cheese pretty seriously! And they already asked me last Saturday if I was going to make it this week. I told them that as long as a blizzard didn't hit, I'd be there... hope I don't end up eating those words! I'm planning on cutting up some extra cheese and make up some gift baskets. Would love to get a slicer so I can sell sliced cheese for sandwiches. That's on my to do list for when I have money! LOL Someday.... I do think it would be something folks would like.

Yesterday was warm and raining, which is why I did all my errand running then. I had 3 orders to UPS out, and one to deliver in person. Love doing that! I fixed her order up real nice in a gift basket, she was thrilled. I ended up getting some yummy chex mix to snack on as a treat from her. Since I don't go to St. Clairsville that often, I figured I was already there making the delivery, I might as well do a little Christmas shopping. Emily stayed home with daddy, so I had the day to myself! That is rare! So, I put it to good use..

Since yesterday was such a good, productive day, of course today has to be the opposite! I accomplished very little today. I did do some laundry, whoopee!! Had some trouble getting my sugar leveled out. Went very low today, and felt miserable after that. So... I rested after I got a bite to eat. Feel somewhat human now, and I'm all geared up to accomplish something, and it's time to go to the barn and do evening chores. What I wouldn't give to get some candy made tonight! There's always tomorrow.

Had a couple more cheese orders called in today. I'm so excited about that! One lady is a return customer from last Christmas. She likes to send her sister cheese as a gift, and she usually orders a little for herself.

That's about it for us around here...just the same old same old.