My Day Off: August 17th and Sustainable Food Systems

I had at least six people ask me this week if I was taking time off for myself.
I spent a few hours this week with a professor of sustainable food systems and a senior business student from the University of Maine at Orono who had a grant from the Mitchell Institute to look at creameries across the state of Maine. Being a business student, his job was to ask questions around financial sustainability. What were some of the challenges I faced and how did I deal with them.
In the end, they asked what advice I might have for new farmer want to be. My advice and challenge to him as well was to figure out what value happiness has when choosing a career option; whether be it a cheese maker/farmer and or business person in a 9-5 job. Knowing and or applying this practice allows for a more realistic evaluation of your business. Happiness does have a value and I left it to this young man to come up with the answer as part of his senior thesis.

My husband has this wonderful statement about how one should measure success, measure them with your own yard stick and not someone else’s. Having said that, who is to say that my time off, be it a few minutes here and there, isn’t as valuable and important as another persons week off. As proof that I do take time for myself, I wanted to share one of my special places that I created this year in my garden. An enclosed room in the greenhouse with a roof covered in vines and gourds suspending from the ceiling. My own oasis.