This weekend found me on the packing line, helping out our busy E-Commerce department as we pack thousands of cheese collections to send out across America. As I moved down the line, slowly with my rusty tape-gun skills, I found myself thinking about gifts—‘tis the season, after all, give and receive gifts of all kinds.
Every time I placed an invoice in a box, I smiled, noticing messages of good cheer and love sent from afar. As we built pallets and pallets of identical packages, we merry band of cheese elves, I imagined these gifts arriving on doorsteps and fueling holiday shopping, or feeding families and friends in whatever celebrations feel possible these days. The meditative nature of packing boxes gave me my own little jolt of last-minute treats to send out to loved ones.
And I think of other gifts—of service, of time, of kind words. We need these more than ever, as we head into yet another winter of survival and resilience.
One gift that I’m particularly thankful for this year is one of impact on our business: this next week, we bid a fond farewell to a longtime Cowgirl, Maureen Cunnie. Maureen has been with us since the very beginning, and her influence on the company over the last twenty years can’t be understated. From her own early cheesemaking days in our little production facility in the Barn at Pt Reyes Station to multiple moves and expansions over the past years of growth, Maureen has been with us all along—a gift, indeed.
We’re fond of saying, “Once a Cowgirl, always a Cowgirl” here, and this is especially true with Maureen. We’re wishing her very well as she heads out on a new adventure—a well-deserved break from working, and more time spent with family, after two decades of dedication and hard work (stories of her working the cottage cheese vat just days before she gave birth are infamous around here).
Thank you, Maureen, for everything.
And to everyone in the Cowgirl community, we wish you a happy holiday season, filled with warmth and cheese—and gifts of all kinds-- for all.