16 Jul July 16, 2025

July 16, 2025
Wednesday morning. It is 24 degrees and 73% humidity in the mill this morning. Abby is learning to card multi colour alpaca to be made into a lopi yarn. Sara is working on a flax wool blend single ply lace weight. Amanda is plying, skein winding and in a moment she will be spinning the lopi test before doing the whole batch.

I am sitting here wondering how to sell wool pellets. How to sell yarn. How to optimize the mill to increase efficiency without extracting creativity, quality, and enjoyment.

Lily asked me last night how I cope with anxiety about what is happening to our earth. She is scared that she will die in a climate change related event like the flash floods. She asked me why the people in charge don’t do something about it. I listened and offered the only comfort I know, which is, we are in fact going to die one day and yes what is happening is scary, and I don’t know why can’t we make the changes that are needed.

This is why I have invested in this mill, in farming, in organic vegetable production, and animals on the farm. I want us to have capacity to function as things change in our world. AND yet, it feels like I am some kind of weird person…I mean, who works like this for no money, and for added debt? From a financial point of view it makes no sense what so ever.

What separates a passion project from purpose from what we all need? I believe that we need to have a spinning mill in our reach so we can have material security as a Province. I believe we need to have farms, so we can have food and material security. And medicine security too.

I keep manifesting that it will all work out. Something will occur that will turn the tide on this. Something will occur that our debts will be paid for these belief based decisions and we can just earn a fair living doing the work. I hear the machines running, I see beautiful people working, and I am grateful I haven’t given up. But the reality is, like many manufacturing/processing environments, like many farms, we can’t keep this up. We can’t keep carrying this cost alone.

How do we invite people to establish their values, and then deeply align with them with their actions? OR maybe a more relevant question is how do we invite people to shift their values or even shift preferences because of those values. And how do we relieve the burden so that these manufacturing/processing environments continue to exist and multiply?

If you could please send along the solution I would greatly appreciate it. Until then, we will keep on spinning.

Many thanks!
Patricia