These are all of Ricky’s actual notes on our meadery operation and the mead we make. There might be profanity, usually of the late 19th Century variety. The only redactions are to remove the names of people and businesses when deemed appropriate. Footnotes provided by Jess and Kelly.
10/10
We're trying out a brand new schedule this week and I'm pretty excited. Wednesdays are work from home for me, which means at least I should have other resources with which to mind the children. Kelly might actually get through a meeting without a screaming child interrupting her. Then Friday I come into the building solo.
Today was another tidy day. That old saw about sharpening the saw seems to be true in this case, at least. We were able to pack twice as fast after tidying than before.
10/11
Chiller is on the fritz again. Trying to reprogram once again. At least it's using less power!
10/12
Staying home with the kids actually worked out beautifully. I got half of my new project completed, somehow, plus a lovely meeting with Crown Tap. I don't play favorites with my distributors, but those guys are such a delight to meet with.
And even though it was all made and packaged weeks ago, we had to wait until today to start shipping things from Groennfell Mercantile because the durned labels hadn't gotten here! But look how pretty they are!
I think scheduling effectively is a woefully neglected aspect of being a professional brewer.
10/13
I really appreciate that Jake is giving his teeth to charity, or something, but he's the master labeler and I could really use his help. I bottled 160 bottles of Golden Apple all by my lonesome. The labels are so beautiful that it was sort of nice to get to sit and stare at them all day.
10/14
Rescued a keg for our friends at 14th Star! An old distributor of ours sold me a bunch of kegs from "breweries that had gone out of business." I quickly found out that these were all from very much in business breweries, but he didn't feel like getting in touch with them to get their kegs back to them.
Also, 14th Star had my back with can ends. I hope they work with our machine. It's not a beer vs mead thing, but lid pick question. I'm going to wait until Jake gets back to attempt it.
