Last night, after the kids were tucked into their bed, a baby goat in a diaper nestled between them, Matthew and I went back outside to the milk parlor.

You see, our pump, the one that runs the entire pipeline milking system, has been acting up. It works, but something is off…and if for some reason it just decides to stop working we are up a creek without a paddle.

But of course the pump isn’t the only pressing thing in our life, so even something as important as fixing it, is relegated to being worked on at 9 pm at night. We’re back in full cheese production, we still have girls kidding (hence the newborn goat in my house), we’re delivering back in Seattle once a week, buying alfalfa down in Ethel once a week, and still trying to finish our barn. Matthew is also still working shifts in the ER and I’ve even started selling plasma twice a week—all in an effort to pay for the capital improvements we invested in this year and cover the stupid high price of alfalfa.

Our emotions are mainly a mix of stress, anxiety, depression and buyers remorse. Owning a farmstead dairy (farmstead meaning we own the animals we milk) is crazy stupid hard and forces us to question our sanity at least once a day.

So it was a surprise to me when I stood outside of my dairy last night and actually felt something other than existential dread.

I was, it occurred to me, viewing my dairy in its very best light.

You see, normally when I look at my dairy I see a list of unfinished—Just in this picture there is:

The railing on the cheese porch that needs to be painted, but also needs to be dry first (hello PNW).
The screen that needs to be added to the bottom railing of the cheese porch (after it gets painted, of course).
The goat painting I painted this off season that needs to be framed out, but first the board needs to be ripped down to smaller pieces).
The walkway that needs to be swept.
The bat houses that need to be moved because, despite our best efforts to make “Hotel Transylvania” it turns out the bats don’t like being so close to the sound of the milk pump.
The star that needs to be pressure washed.
The empty tubs that need to be planted.
The broken gate that needs to be fixed.
The fence that needs to be fixed.

But last night, under a dark, empty sky, I saw the dairy for everything it already is, not for everything it isn’t. Which is when it hit me. Most of the negative, unproductive emotions Matthew and I are having stem from a place of fear. Fear of failure sure, fear of bankruptcy definitely, but also, fear of waste.

You see…we only get this one life—and as someone who watched their father’s life end tragically short because of cancer, I know…there is no guarantee to our time on this Earth…which is why putting so much of our life energy into this business feels dangerous. There are just SO MANY things we want to do before we die: so many moments we want to share with the parents we have left, so many memories we want to make with our children, so many trails we want to discover with our mountain ponies, so many songs and books to write…it’s easy to get tangled up in the dread of existence, and it’s easy to feel like you’re wasting your time, when all you do is spend money and fix broken things.

But we’re doing more than that.

This is the year we revolutionize what it is to be an efficient but small dairy. It’s expensive yes…but the hustle has never been something we’ve been afraid of. From humble, ignorant, completely misguided beginnings, we have clawed our way through the world of dairying. We’re seven years in and not broke yet (monetarily or emotionally, lol). Also, we’re in the running for a grant with the Pacific Coast Coalition that could be LIFE CHANGING for this farm…we find out in May if we get it so cross your fingers for us please.

We are making a really delicious, ethical, and sustainable product at a price point that is actually affordable for many. Sure there are unfinished projects literally everywhere you turn…and something always needs to be fixed…but the work is work we love. It is a beautiful thing to throw yourself into something so whole-heartedly and at this point in our life, it’s this dairy.

But more importantly, the love that has grown on this farm between us two humans as we navigate what it is to be first generation farmers together…that’s pretty phenomenal, too. Day after day we work together, either in the cheese room or on the farm, and day after day I still feel like the luckiest human in the world to be going through all of this {she gestures wildly around with her arms} with someone who values me as an equal partner in both our marriage and our business…and that’s something I can say regardless of the lighting.

My cup runneth over.

My Best Light