Pulled in Many Directions

As much as I like to see winter over so we can get busy selling again and meeting new people again and trying new projects again and being outside again and sustaining last years projects again and, and and….  That is the point, there is so much to do in April and May it is hard to decide minute by minute what needs to be done, let alone day by day or week by week. 

We have a weekly schedule of what we hope to accomplish on any given week throughout the spring.  While we are decently successful at accomplishing our goals there are a lot of things that just plain get in the way of it.  The weather is probably one of the worse.  The best laid plans are scrapped in an instant when it rains too hard or has rained for a couple days and made mud of everything.

It is always helpful to have a Plan B and Plan C.  We try to plan for bad weather so that we can get other projects that can be done in the rain or are done inside during those times, but there are only so many of them at one time.

Another factor is where to expand.  The market requests for what our customers want us to provide is limitless as times.  We evaluate every request, regardless of how small, to see if it meets our vision and business plan.  It either does or it does not.  In rare instances, we suggest it doesn’t but question whether it is important enough to revisit the vision and business plan.

  Our vision and plan is really pretty simple.  We try to make our friends better off by being healthier through a more simplistic lifestyle.  We used to just limit that to food items that are all grown locally, pesticide free and in season, but have expanded to see that there is a need beyond that.

  This season we are expanding with a hand made soap line that is really exciting.  I admit I had no idea how soap was made, what makes it good or bad.  The learning curve on this interesting.  I have quickly learned that the soap market, like the food market is filled with misrepresentations and half truths.  What the ‘big companies’ would have you believe is good for you, usually isn’t.

  We hope to have the earliest soaps and soap products that are all natural (really, not a marketing term) and safe.  Most soaps you find in the stores are not really even soaps, by classic definition.  The products being sold as ‘soap’ is actually detergents. That means that instead of being good for your skin they are really pretty damaging to you. 

  In keeping with the same way we have had to educate about eating locally grown produce, in season that is grown without pesticides, we have to educate about using natural product soaps.

  That is the project of the day, I guess.  Though I suspect that within an hour or so another pressing project will present itself.  Ahhhh, the fun of April and May.