Some days just aren't good for making butter...

My good friend, Nadene Canning, and I scheduled a zoom call to record a podcast this Friday afternoon passed. The power of modern tech allows me to record such calls through a very fine hardware/software configuration. I got everything setup, padding my room with cushions so everything was ‘soft'. I was ready.

What transpired once Nadene came on the line can only be described as a 30-minute exercise in the deepest frustration.

I’ll not go into details - I admit that in the end, I did curse and use bad language - but bottom line is that the tech failed, failed again, again, again and again. We were only planning on recording a 10-min chat for goodness sakes!

I concluded that the Universe was clearly advising us that it was not a good day to make a podcast. We gave up and agreed to reschedule.

It reminded me of a chat I’d had with my friend Allison earlier in the week. She had signed herself up to spend two weeks in the high Swiss alpage living with a farming family. Every summer, farmers take their cows into the mountain pastures, milk them every day, and make cheese which they send back down to the valley.

Alli sent me the first picture below, of the ancient butter churn, and shared that her arms were now jelly having tried unsuccessfully for hours to turn the churn to make butter.

Try as she might, the butter just wouldn’t form. The farmers came to help, but they couldn’t make it happen either.

After some time, they paused and told Alli that it was time to visit “The Farmers’ Almanac.” I don’t know what that is - other than it being a book - but after some review and chin scratching, it was concluded that it was not a good day for making butter. So they stopped.

Next day, Allison proudly sent, with much relief, the second picture. Butter!! Clearly, the next day WAS a good day to make butter and everything had worked as hoped.

I love this wonderful retreat to The Farmers’ Almanac and the trust that there was a wisdom there that deemed, for reasons totally unknown to anyone, that that day was just not a butter making day.

Trust the Universe.

So, when Nadene and I finally concluded that it was not a good day to make a podcast, I shared her Allison’s story and we had a good chuckle.

For sure, we’ve all experienced moments and whole days like that. Where, try as we might, it just won’t work for reasons that are beyond reason, logic or any explanation.

Lacking our own Almanac to guide us, we can get more than a little frustrated at the turn of such events. Yet, Allison’s outstanding success the following day showed that it wasn’t her who was at fault, it wasn’t her that was lacking something, it was just not the right blessed day to make butter.

When you next encounter your own “non-butter-making” day, defer to the Universe and try again the next day. Things will turn out, or should I say, “churn out” and voila, we can progress after an inexplicable pause.