As some of you may remember, my family produces maple syrup.

Three years ago, the state of Michigan made grants available to producers of specialty crops - maple syrup is a specialty crop. When DW was in the work force, her job was as a public relations professional. When the specialty crop grants were announced, she put together some ideas for promoting our product, creating awareness, educating new producers, etc.

After she had put her ideas together, but before the grant paperwork was due, we took charge of our second foster child (now adopted as DS1, who is older than DS2, but we had DS2 in our home first) and she became very busy, and has been very busy for the past three years. So her grant ideas were not forgotten, but they were put on the farthest back of back burners, filed away in her computer.

Fast forward to yesterday. It turns out that a member of the Michigan Maple Syrup Association has been working on applying for the same grant, and her basic ideas are very similar to DW's. The lady who has been working on this grant was seeking input from a handful of producers from around the state - for whatever reason, she contacted my dad. My dad asked DW if she could help him out. She said, of course I can.

So, DW and my dad met for a couple hours this morning. DW took her outline, added some details, and they hammered something out. She attached it to an email, sent it to the grant writer, and headed out the door to pick our boys up at the Autism Clinic they've been attending for about a month.

As she was driving, she gave me a call to talk to me about how the morning had gone. While we were talking, we both heard that annoying call waiting pause. When she hung up with me, she checked her voice mail, and called me right back.

The person who had called was the grant writer. And in her voice mail, she said how impressed she was with DW’s ideas, and that she was planning on writing into the grant funding for a ¼ time position to manage the grant, and she was wondering if DW would entertain the idea of managing the grant.

Wow. DW asked me what I thought of the idea. DW is a SAHM. We have four kids. She home-schools the girls, and the boys have special needs. She already keeps herself busy. What we both decided is that she has about two hours a day October through February when our girls are at swim practice (and I have the boys). It might work.

I’m not sure what kind of money ¼ time means – but if you figured a base salary of 32 – 40K we might be talking about 8 – 10K. Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. It sounds intriguing and exciting.

Of course, the grant needs to be funded first. And, DW will need to do her own due diligence to find out if the proposed job can be organized in a way that will work for her. We’ll see, but it sounds kind of neat.