Thursday, March 5, 2009

Am I allowed to miss something?

Ok, I know, I'm in Europe having the time of my life, seeing massive cathedrals, walking where great and powerful kings walked, eating incredible food, and in general being overwhelmed by how wonderful it all is. And I really mean that. I'm having way more fun than I can possibly relay to you.

But there's something I really miss. A lot. And as soon as I say it, you're probably all going to moan and think, "what an ungrateful little wierdo." But here goes: I really miss working.

Newer readers of my blog may not be familiar with what I do, and the short version is that I'm a cheesemaker on a small goat farm. I pasteurize, mould, salt, wrap, sell, deliver (there are too few of us to have division of labor, so we all just do everything) cheese. But the important part is that I LOVE my job. Love it. Absolutely, completely love it. I'm going to risk sounding really strange and tell you that at this point, not only do I miss the early mornings, carrying 3-gallon buckets of milk from the bulk tank to the pasteurizer, standing at markets for hours selling cheese and explaining each type about 300 times to customers, but I even miss cleaning the pasteurizer. I miss getting down on my hands and knees and scraping cheese gunk out of the corners (hey, the stuff gets everywhere). I (gulp) even miss making 300-gallon batches of cheddar and not being able to sit down properly the next few days.

Europe is great. Cheesemaking is amazing. Now if I could only combine the two...

3 comments:

Fiona said...

There's nothing wrong with being a little homesick. Too bad you can't get out to a nice goat cheese farm in France or Germany, though. That might help.

Now I'm going to feel guilty when I ask the Cheese Girl at the Farmer's Market about her wares. I'll think "she's explained this 300 times!" but at least I can remember "but she probably loves it."

meg said...

Believe me, she's probably thrilled to talk about what she knows. I always am.

Anonymous said...

You're allowed!