It’s almost Christmas.
Well no, that’s a lie. But when you’re a soap maker and everything you make has to be planned and prepped 8 weeks in advance to allow for making/cutting/curing/packaging, then Christmas is not far away.
I’ve just let my wholesale clients know that they only have a week until the cut off for Christmas orders, and even then I’m going to be pushing it – I’ve got orders in the works for 20+ varieties of soap right now, and I’m frantically making so everything is cured and ready before the end of November, and also so we don’t run out of stock right as we have our own Christmas rush and markets.
Our studio has been open to the public every Friday and Saturday (where possible), and people are slowly starting to drop in and pick up soap in person. It’s very cool, and I will still admit to being excited every single time we have a car stop.
It’s a chaos time of year, made trickier by a number of Paed appointments, as well as school performances, and various other things my kids absolutely need me in attendance for. Paed appointments wipe me out for 2 days – the combination of physical and mental energy it takes to prepare, then the effort of getting into the city, and then recovery. It’s not my favourite. But we’re slowly sorting out a few issues which needed working on – Amy has a shiny new ADHD diagnosis FINALLY, and she is trialling medication to help.
At this rate, I won’t be hatching any quail until the summer holidays. I’m just not sure how I would actually find the time to look after brooder babies right now. Maybe it will seem calmer in November when I think about setting eggs. Maybe.
We have 8 baby chickens on the ground right now – thankfully being raised by their mothers, and another two hens just went broody and have been given two eggs each. I guess if we end up with a ridiculous amount of poultry we can always sell them like we do with the roosters.
I keep reminding myself that it will all be okay – working steadily will see all the orders ready and curing, and as long as I don’t exhaust myself too badly, it should be okay. It is the end of Term 3 however, and I think we’re all running on empty. One more week until school holidays and sleep ins, but at least we’re not waking up in the dark anymore. The fruit trees are flowering, the sun is (mostly) shining, and if they’re predicting snow to 600m tonight, well. I can always ignore that. (We’re at about 220m).
