Currently in the Mercantile we have:

• Eggs
• Bread
• 100% Beeswax Candles: Carved eggs, honeybee hives votives, classic votives, 10″ tapers
• Eulah Sourdough Starter
• Marion Milling Flour
• Golden Rule Honey
• Shelti Farms Tea blends
• Shelti Farms Tub Teas
• Fair Share Farm Ferments : pickles, carrot pickles, sauerkraut, hot sauce, elderberry vinegar

*EASTER SPECIAL TODAY 4/1 -SUNDAY4/5! Buy a carved beeswax egg candle, get a dozen eggs 1/2 price. *

What you can expect this year: more of what we produce here on our farm. This includes, bread, eggs, beeswax candles, seasonal produce, lamb, and wool products. Much of this will vary as the season goes on but bread and candles will remain a constant. We do not currently have any lamb available, last year’s lambs still have some growing to do. We want them to have a couple of months on this fast growing green grass before sending them in to be processed. We expect to have fresh lamb by June. For the first time this year we brought our sheep’s wool to a fiber mill! This means in a couple of months we’ll have yarn to sell as well.

This year you will see less local partnerships. I LOVE networking and working with other local producers. However, there is a lot of grey area as to what we are legally allowed to resell within cottage laws. It is my dream to grow to a size where we can have an inspected shop on site and expand what we can sell, but we aren’t there yet and this isn’t the year to expand. We’ll still sell the items that are clearly available to resell like flour and honey, but the others are unlikely to return. So, instead we decided to narrow our scope and continue to refine and grow what we produce right here.

Last winter I completed the MU Extension Master Gardener Course. Which has me very excited for a wonderful garden season. This year I’ll complete the required volunteer hours to become an extension Master Gardener which emphasizes public outreach and education about growing. Though I haven’t put too much in just yet, before we know it, I’ll be in the vegetable garden tending and harvesting daily. My goal for the year is to consistently provide produce to the mercantile and personally to preserve more of our harvests. I’m exploring new shelf stable products that we can produce and sell as well.

This year I will bake the bread daily again. This means 2-3 loaves/day baked with Marion Milling Flour. Finally, mid-summer there will be a little pause to daily bread when the baby arrives. Though he’s technically due the first week of July, the window is wide and I’ll be in touch about the bread sales when he comes. We are all so excited to enjoy a little newborn baby at home again. When our second was born, life was so full and quite honestly stressful. We were in the middle of a whole-home renovation, between off-farm jobs, and all of the life changes for the year’s past caught up to us. The result: a heavy cloud over that time. Call it depression, a dark night of the soul, a rut, or a rebirth, or all of it. It think the shoe fits. I feel so sad that I look back on that time with such a foggy memory of my sweet second baby and hug her extra tight knowing she is resilient and chose me as her mom for a reason. That experience makes this third time extra sweet. Life is more settled, and the whole family is looking forward to gushing over a little one all together. This time, I have already granted myself permission to pause and soak up my baby. Babies just don’t keep, but our memories do and presence is key for that.

The last change (kind of), this year is that I’ll be using social media from my desktop only. As many of you know, I have navigated a conflicting relationship to social media for years, frequently taking months off. Every time I’m reminded how much happier, more productive, more creative, more authentic, and present I am in my daily life when I’m away from it. Last year I stepped away and then panicked when sales dropped. This year, I’m beginning the season off, with the compromise of using it only from my desktop. I find it’s much less addicting and time consuming this way. The limitation is that I suspect the reach isn’t as wide when I post from a desktop as when I post from my phone (interesting… it’s like they want us glued to the phone). But this is the plan!

What does this mean for you? If you are local, I’ll still be using the bread sign daily. When bread is for sale, the bread sign will hang at end of driveway. When it’s gone, it’s down. If you live far, and are traveling for bread or eggs, please just contact me directly. Email, text, or phone call are all great and I’m much more likely to respond in a timely manner to those than to a DM on Instagram or Facebook. If you are traveling far, I want to make sure you can get what you are coming for and I’ll set aside what you want. If you are local and just want to check to see what I have today or if I’ll have what you want, a quick text is perfect. You can find my contact information on the “Visit Us” section of the website. Thank you for understanding.

I’ll continue to send newsletter style updates with what’s available that week or two in the mercantile and continue to write recipes. I wasn’t as consistent with those as I’d intended last year and it’s a goal for this year. It’s so fun to share what we eat at home inspired by the seasons and it is one part of social media I really enjoyed. So, I’ll continue to share that here and push it out to our social pages as well.

I hope this early spring finds you full of hope as it always does me. The joy of seeing my perennial plants rise again, the color returning to the landscape, the birdsong every morning, and the longer days with sun on our skin. Heaven!