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Abutilon 2

Information and tips about Sweetlife Farm products
Things of interest in the garden
Musings about savoring the sweet life....

My mouth waters at the mere thought of a piece of homemade bread right out of the oven, slathered with butter and a generous layer of Sweetlife jam. For years Bob has baked most of our bread. A casual interest was further ignited by a trip to Italy 30-some years ago, where we discovered breads baked in a wood-fired oven, and we built our first wood-fired oven the next year. We built our second wood-fired oven here at Sweetlife Farm about 15 years ago. Heating the mass of the oven takes hours of tending a fire; filled to capacity, this oven can bake as many as 20 loaves of bread at a time. 
Woodfired Oven

Early on we considered selling bread to go with our jams at the farmers’ market, and added baked goods to the list of WSDA-approved Sweetlife products.  Alas, a great idea was staunched by a lack of hours in the day. At some point we began limiting our carbohydrate intake to control expanding waistlines, and bread became a treat rather than a daily staple, baked two loaves at a time in the kitchen oven. The wood-fired oven sits mostly idle, waiting for pizza nights with family and friends.

Enter Hannah: a member of the WWOOF (World Wide Organization of Organic Farmers) community, she arrived in August and quarantined in our tipi awaiting Covid test results before moving into the house, our "social bubble"-and our hearts!-as an adopted Sweetlife family member. Hannah has commercial baking experience, using commercial deck ovens, and shares Bob’s bread baking passion. To add perspective, I will also say that Hannah is a lifelong animal lover/vegetarian, and gently convinced us to try eating a vegan diet as an experiment, which put bread back on the daily menu….

Hannah and Bob

Together, they studied the Tartine Bread Book, absorbing its wisdom about the art and practice of making bread. “A baker reads the weather, the flour, the levain, yesterday’s baked bread before starting to mix. A complex balance of yeast, bacteria, time, temperature, moisture, and fermentation acts on the simplest of ingredients; flour water and salt, to create one of humankind’s most elemental foods. The process is ancient and intuitive. It is craft, science, art, and philosophy.”  Hours were spent around the dining room table with notes, lists and timelines. Lots of specialty flours were purchased, along with a cord of (expensive) hard wood, necessary for creating oven temps up to 800 degrees.

Tartine Bread Book
They re-lit the oven’s coals, spending a month of Wednesdays filling the air with the aroma of fresh-baked goodness. Baking in a wood-fired oven is an all day affair, not worth the effort or the fuel consumption for a couple of loaves of bread. To have an excuse to fire up the oven, they conspired for a hot minute to have “pop-up” bread events to cover the cost of purchasing all that hardwood and a lot of flour. Meanwhile, we put the word out to a dozen friends and neighbors that there would be bread at the end of Wednesdays.

Building a naturally fermented starter for the dough is a daily babysitting task that begins several days before the main event. On bake day, coordinating the timing and rhythm of heating the massive brick oven with the whims of different flours and rise times of the dough is a brain puzzle as challenging as any computer game. The day begins early: Hannah gets up at 4 to feed the starter one last time, and Bob kindles the fire at 6:30, to heat up the mass of bricks that will remain hot for hours after the coals are finally removed. Despite the early start time, bread has not yet emerged from the oven before 5PM. Each week new variables have led to last minute scrambles and lots of learned lessons; friends and neighbors don't seem to mind the imperfections.

Hannah kneading breadBread out of the oven


At the end of a month, we are still (mostly) experimenting with a vegan diet that includes plenty of bread, along with cow’s milk in our latte, sometimes real butter on our bread, and an occasional meal that includes meat (which Hannah declines). On-the-ground requirements for managing Sweetlife Farm production and garden chores requires a shift in focus back to making bread in the kitchen, a couple of delicious loaves at a time….with baking in the woodfired oven an occasional play day for the bakers. Bob and Hannah are already plotting to resume their wood-fired baking experiments this winter, when life slows down and the garden sleeps....

Bobs Bread4

A pandemic, political turmoil and social unrest  have forced us to stop, look, and change. This is tough. And long. 

I will never forget a simple thing my friend Hollis once said to me: "when one door closes there is always another one to walk through."  It's up to us to find and walk through those open doors, to fully experience each moment. 

The holidays are approaching. The only year I ever had all my shopping done and presents wrapped before Thanksgiving was the year our daughter was born, on December 5. She is about to have her 40th birthday, she lives across the country, and this will be the first time she will not be home for Christmas. This sucks. 

Recently, the Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Association of Bainbridge launched a "Save our Stores" campaign, to highlight the fragility of our downtown core of businesses without tourists, and to encourage people to shop locally. Sweetlife Farm and other small island businesses sprinkled around Bainbridge are no less vulnerable than our more visible colleagues downtown, without the advantage of location, walkability and organizational marketing campaigns.

Everything we do at Sweetlife-growing ingredients; creating and producing our own products and packaging; developing and maintaining a website; and marketing-is done in house and depends on us. Our challenge is to explore ways to make our business and products relevant, visible and accessible to you.

For more than 20 years Sweetlife has opened its doors to holiday shoppers the first weekend and Saturdays in December. So many people show up that we need people outside to manage parking and lots of extra volunteer helpers inside; many shoppers arrive with lists in hand, and need help carrying their stuff to the car. This year's Covid reality says it won't be safe to be inside, in a crowded room. Here's what we are working on:

GIFTS: AFFORDABLE, LOCAL, PERSONAL, SUSTAINABLE, UNIQUE

    Nothing hits all these buttons better than Sweetlife Farm products!
    Old favorites, new flavors, creative scents, colors and packaging; watch for new products and old products brought back by popular demand 
    All Sweetlife provisions for food, skin and home are as useful as they are interesting, healthful and healthy.
    We have a gift for everyone on the list-and none will break the piggybank!

SHOP EARLY TO BEAT THE CROWDS

    WE SHIP! Order NOW! We are happy ship immediately or schedule a later shipping date of your choice.
    SHOP IN PRIVATE! We are accepting appointments NOW for up to two people at a time to shop safely in our shop. We will ask you to wear masks and wash your hands upon entering. The earlier you shop the easier it will be to choose your day and time, since so many people will still wait until the last minute! Call or send an email to set up an appointment.
    CONTACT FREE PICK UP! Order online and we will set your order outside the shop under cover with your name on it, to pick up at your convenience.
    We have lots of product ready NOW for shoppers who think ahead. Shopping early offers time to make carefully personalized gift decisions and removes last minute stress.
    We love creating personalized gift boxes, and have made it simple to ADD GIFT PACKAGING to your order. We take the time to create a gift that is a joy to receive and a delight to discover, with little touches such as a charming handmade gift card, recipes to go with the products, description of the ingredients used in our skincare products, and even extra little decorative treats and treasures.
    EARLY shopping ensures the best selection and even allows us to replenish some popular items.

You can read the latest newsletter on the Sweetlife Facebook page about our efforts to make your holiday shopping a breeze.  If you didn't get a personal email of our newsletter, you can sign up at the bottom of any page on this site. 

      We are in this together with you!