So, I’ve started a cottage bakery.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, or at this time, but-

I am the owner of a cottage bakery, The Flour Garden.

The one grand thing from the pandemic, is that I was privileged enough to be home, growing a baby, chasing a big one. And stress-baking my days away.

It turns out, I’m not half bad. 

Once my feeezer filled with biscuits and scones, our mouths and bellies unable to keep up with my production, it seemed like an obvious decision.

I should get paid doing what I love.

And the rest is history.

Well, really, the rest is tears, self-doubt, imposter syndrome, my life imploding, more self-doubt, eye rolling, document signing, Maybe I Can’s, more documents, a logo, Okay I’m Going To Do This, copious amounts of flour, several burns on the top of my hand just below my right thumb, Holy Shit I’m Doing It, and batches upon batches of buttermilk biscuits.

So. Many. Biscuits.

And I love it. 

I love the sound of my bench scraper, scraping bits of dough from the counter. I love crimping the edges of hand-pies, and most of all, I love feeding people.

This was always meant to happen someday. I said it around the time Scarlett was born-

Someday, I’m going to post up at a farmers market and feed people.

Okay, so I posted up on a camping table with a table cloth over it, and fed people from my front yard instead. 

XXX

The months following Maddox’s birth left me feeling unraveled and exposed. I felt fully out of control and helpless. The GI issues, the failed formulas, the medicines, the dosing, the crying with my baby while he struggled to eat. I needed to sink my teeth into something. I needed to make and create and occupy my hands in more ways than wiping my tears, anybody’s tears. So I made the decision to pull the trigger on my cottage bakery, sooner rather than later.

And then I separated from my partner, watched my life melt in front of my very eyes, and then I refused to fold.

I’m not folding.

Amongst the tears and a lot of self-doubt, there remained fragments of Yes You Can.

I had to choices in those days.

Fold, even if it was just a temporary fold.

Or fling yourself in so hard that you have to make it work.

I worked and worked and worked and baked quite literally down to the very last minute of my very first bake sale and I sold out in two hours, save for 1.5 biscuits that Scarlett was more than happy to claim. 

218 pieces, my very first bake.

I sold out and I guess I haven’t looked back.