Well, after four days of grand kids, Jennifer and I are exhausted. It was sure a nice break from the same-old, same-ol’, but we are both happy to be back to our very boring – yet very satisfying – sleep schedules. Annica spent Saturday and Sunday with us. She is quite into all the animals, but is a bit more timid around them than her younger cousin. She is also much easier to keep an eye on … thank goodness. We had two really beautiful days while she was here, cold, but clear. So now it’s back to just me, Jennifer, Zoe and the cows. – PS
Archive for February, 2009
More Grand Kids
Monday, February 9th, 2009Speaking of Visitors
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009Now we hope that none of our wonderful guests from last month take offense … but, we had our first of four-out-of-five days of grand-kid visits. Our grandson Arri has been in town with his mother Michelle … Michelle’s mother had a bit of surgery, so Michelle is helping around the house – and darn-it, she asked us to watch him both today and Friday. So after strapping his car seat in my pickup, and a short trip around town, and then after his nap (which seemed to last forever), we took him out for a spin on the sled Jen bought for both grand kids this last fall. We had not had a chance to try it out yet. So here are the pictures – we know, way too many – but IT’S OUR BLOG. So here they are. Warning … warning … warning – more grand kid pictures to come. Arri is spending Friday with us and then we are watching our grand daughter Annica both Saturday and Sunday. – PS
Jen and Arri in the east pasture.
Ione became interested early on.
She caused a bit of worry for grandma when she came running down behind on the next trip.
So then we moved to the north pasture. Red was just as intrigued. Arri begged for my glasses. Cool!
At this point, the working “girls” became quite interested. So long January … a fine February day!
Oh January, Ugggh!
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009Well, my least favorite month has come and gone … good riddance. Along with our lousy air, three days of freezing rain, more lousy air and all the grim news about almost everything, we did have some great visitors and some exciting news as well.
Early in the month we were visited by Alta, a fellow-foodie and future cheesemonger who hopes to open a cheese shop in Logan sometime soon. Yeah! We also had a chance to meet a wonderful couple from the Park City area. They are planning to open a farmstead goat cheese operation this year. Then, the cheese maker at Utah State University came up for a visit a few weeks ago. And finally, we had a couple from northern Sweden come for a visit. They milk 16 cows and make cheese on their farm.
So the visits alone helped get us through this darkest of months. Then, after thinking about new ways to look at our business, Jen and I approached our city council member that oversees Richmond’s nascent harvest market. We proposed that the city and Rockhill Creamery join forces and hold the market here at our farm along side our farmstand on Saturdays. She discussed it with the council and mayor and all agreed to give it a try. So this summer we will be open as usual on Saturdays, but in addition to our cheese we’ll have vendors from the area selling produce, crafts, etc.
And, it’s also the time of year we really get going on catching up on our book keeping. So with all of the terrible economic news we’re all suffering through these days, we thought it would be appropriate for us to share with everyone a bit of positive economic news. We increased our total sales by almost 10% in 2008. Our sales for December rose by almost 12% over December of last year. Our 4th quarter sales did only come up by 2%, but still, considering what happened to almost everyone else, we feel very fortunate.
So we come out of January looking to the future with some optimism. We hope that all of our great customers begin to see something to look forward to also.
Milking cows does provide some comfort in these troubling times. For one thing, I always know what I’ll be doing tomorrow. And right now, that’s good enough for me. – PS