How does it all get done?
Oh hi! I love the chance to share and connect with this community and have been looking for a way to reach out beyond bread ordering emails. And here it is! My baker’s journal, where we can talk about bread, home businesses, local food and daily life. Thanks for being here!
I get asked pretty often what it’s like to run a home baking business, both because of the logistics of commercial work in a small home space and the fact that a three year old lives here too. The short answer to both parts of that question is that it’s always evolving.
When I (officially) started the business two years ago I was baking every loaf and cookie out of my regular sized home oven. About five weeks in I ordered a small scale bread oven - the home oven was doable, but not sustainable. It didn’t arrive for almost a year, but has completely changed the game.
To give some context about scale, I’m only baking about twenty loaves a week right now. In a home that may sound like a lot, but I’ve baked up to forty loaves with no problem and could do more. Most equipment has to be mobile so it’s out of the way for us to use our kitchen like normal people five days a week and we’ve had to get creative about storing hundreds of pounds of flour while meeting cottage food law standards (that’s a topic for another day).
The “how” question of hundreds of pounds of flour, a floor mixer, a bread oven, a small kitchen table and my two hands producing bread at any salable scale is a tricky one, but we’ve worked out a lot of the kinks in two years.
How to have a family, who’s here, in my bakery, is a whole other piece.
WITH HELP. That’s how.
The first year and a half, I did as much of my work as possible at night. Which not only made it hard to have time with my husband but I am staunchly a morning person. About 8pm almost all focus and productivity goes out the window. Even shaping dough and doing any website work at night, I still had so much grandma help. Two days a week my mom or my mother in law would come over to play with my daughter while I worked.
I cannot stress enough that this business would not be happening if not for their help. But even still, a toddler who can see that her mom is just right there in the kitchen isn’t going to be kept away or distracted for long. Last Spring we made the move to a small neighborhood daycare where Eloise plays three days a week. She’s been going there since and it has not only helped me produce more and better work and is a wonderful community for her, but has given me the time and space to take care of myself more than I have since she was born. And she’s only there twelve hours a week! The life changing importance of safe affordable childcare cannot be overstated.
So why am I telling you all of this now? Well this week has been one of those weeks. You know the ones - you have a little too much scheduled and a lot on your plate already but you think “I can do it for one week!” That’s how I felt Sunday night. Then Monday, Eloise came down with a nasty cold and was out of daycare all week (she stayed far away from the bread). Our dog, who was one week post surgery, ripped out some of his sutures and had to go back under sedation and be repaired, and the roof replacement we knew was coming but didn’t have a date for started Tuesday! At one point on Tuesday, in the span of an hour, I picked Bug up from the vet, made a sick kiddo lunch and blew her nose approximately one hundred times and responded to work emails, all while the hammers were working overhead (in comparison, theirs is a much tougher job).
A small part of me considered canceling the bake this week - folks are so understanding, the few times I’ve had to do that. But I decided to push myself and see if I could do it all. And it worked out! The bread was some of the most beautiful I’ve made in weeks. The cookies were delicious (I checked them for quality) and everything went out on time.
And now I’m pretty darn tired. And the other parts of my life still need the same attention- I’m still wiping noses a few times an hour, the dog is still in a cone and taking ten pills a day. Meals need to be cooked, clothes washed, showers taken, and sleep slept.
Looking back over the week, John and I just dealt with each thing as it came up, and had a tremendous amount of support. But the fact that I can take the time to look at a particularly hard week, think about the details and appreciate what I have and how hard I worked, is because I don’t have to do this every week. Because I have family and community and systems that I can rely on.
Running a business out of my home means constantly adjusting and shifting my expectations to deal instead with what’s right in front of me. Today that means helping my family get a lot of rest, letting my husband take care of me instead of doing it all myself and drinking all the tea.
Tea makings and toast leftovers