Eight Acres & Bakers

I’m sure most of you have heard through the grapevine that we are selling the baking shed on Chapman St. Yes it is true.

What started out as a shed to house the snowplow and a side kitchen to can in eventually turned into a wonderful baking adventure.

This past New Year brought us rethinking the whole business in the shed. We were raising our own meat birds and would be butchering our own beef soon. Wouldn’t the Chapman St shed be a great place to have our own little store front to sell our meat? I could have a little area to serve customers some of my fresh baked goodies.

The first thing I did was reach out to the Lee County health department to see if this was even possible. The ladies from that department could not have been more helpful! They were cheering me on as I checked off my list of things that needed to happen to begin another path for the shed. Then came the state plumbing inspector. He wasn’t as thrilled with our plans as we were. There were a lot of issues that needed to be addressed to progress. It doesn’t matter that my shop was located in a little town of 650 people, rules are rules no matter the size of your business.

We had to stand back and revaluate our plans. In the end it was a tough decision but we decided not to move forward with a store front or turning the shop into a commercial kitchen. Putting more money into something we weren’t sure our little town could support just didn’t make sense.

Did I really need this big building to continue with my baking business? I have had my cottage food license for over 15 years, and I have baked out of my kitchen for 12 of those years.

Big, hard decisions to make. I love my shed! I have had so many great memories inside there baking ,hosting pasta parties, and all of the family get togethers. But something in my heart was telling me its time to sell.

And when we finally made that decision to put it on the market it was like a huge sigh of relief!

I want to get back to what I really love. I want to spend more time in the garden, with my flowers, with my animals and with my grandkids.

I will continue to bake and stock the little blue shed on Saturday mornings. I deliver to the Farmer Basket on Tuesdays & Fridays, Pfeiffer’s Farm Market on Thursdays. But now instead of getting up at 5:30 a.m. and running over to the shed to get the ovens going, I can throw on my robe and slippers, head into my own kitchen to turn the oven on. Then sit back and enjoy a cup of coffee while the oven heats up or maybe sneak back into bed for a few extra winks of sleep.

It will be nice to be back home and enjoying my beautiful, baking kitchen!