It's a Ruff life

Deb Spencer, aka 6635 StudeBaker of “History in the Baking”, is truly to blame.

Last year, just before Thanksgiving, she came to Market with a wild idea – “so Jennifer, wouldn’t it be wonderful if your children took over making the dog biscuits on the Market? I’m happy to share my recipe and cookie cutters?!”

To which I wanted to reply, "Deb, I love ya but you’re crazy – sure they love to bake, but for us! When I bake for our CSA members, their first question when they see me pull out the pizza pans is, “Is this for us or for people?”, knowing they aren’t allowed to help unless it’s something only we are actually eating ;-)

Plus, Deb, remember our oldest is 7, Baby #5 is due this Spring, and with all the general craziness on our farm, there’s only so much Mommy can handle!" Instead of course I told her we’d love to, but let’s see how things go.

Fast forward a few months, and the kids, knowing this was an option, staged an unquestionably rational argument – our (three adorable little) ducks lay more eggs than our chickens, right? So we’ll make Deb’s dog biscuits to sell, we’ll buy more ducks, sell their eggs, and save up to buy sheep!

Now if their logic seems odds, it’d make more sense if you could’ve seen how enthralled they were when we read a series on Laura Ingalls’ great grandmother growing up as a little girl in Scotland, and all the talk about raising the sheep, then shearing, carding, waulking, spinning, dying and weaving the wool (if you ever enjoyed the Little House books and haven’t checked out the more recent series’ on the females going back in Laura’s family, oh my are you missing out! We found them at the Troy and Piqua libraries!)

Now we have some incredible women on the Market who truly know what they’re doing when it comes to working with wool, from raising the sheep (Keba of Innisfree on the Stillwater and Brette of Grumpy Goat Experiment) to spinning the wool (both Keba, and Deb of 6635 StudeBaker) and creating beautiful woolen goods (Lucy of Rosy Toes Designs), and of course the kids know this is a weak spot for both Mommy and Daddy, as we’ve talked about adding sheep to our menagerie since we married.

My husband even built a gorgeous spinning wheel that I keep looking at and telling Keba someday we’ll make time for her to help me cultivate the knack for it (my first efforts were not pretty, folks) – but he also made Lucy, our oldest, a drop spindle for Christmas this last year… a much simpler (at least for me!) concept that still allows us to practice spinning and creating a beautiful yarn. And oh have we had a blast together doing this!

My little farmers have always wanted to be shepherds – they love bringing the cows in from the pasture every day, and who wouldn’t want lambs (especially when one of our girls is Mary)? They’ve even loved when we’ve accompanied my husband when he’s had a sheep shearing job – it is a grueling procedure but fascinating to watch!

And they never tire of collecting eggs – plus the ducks and their inimitable antics have become family favorites, because although all the animals on our farm have a purpose, or a job (down to our excellent cat, the mouser extraordinaire), it’s fun to give the ducks free reign of the farm only to have them hang around all the gardens and flower beds right around the house because they’re so social and love us so much (really they’re probably just looking for food).

The kids also love helping in the kitchen (bring on the practical math applications!) and relished the idea that they would be able to make something to sell on their own. Down to doing the dishes and cleaning the counter (oh, if only the incentive of getting to play in the water would last til they were teenagers)! And we already know we have the perfect number of kitchen helpers for our cozy space – the two youngest sit on the counter, with the older two on chairs beside… hard to picture but it’s our daily routine anyway, and plenty of jobs for all – many hands make light work, right? The more the merrier!

And oh is it “fun” math to both keep track of their ingredient costs and their sales, as well as practice their fractions and measurements! Plus hand-writing practice for neatly writing out the tags. And what kid doesn’t love using cookie cutters? Molly, the two-year old, may be best at snitching samples and enjoying the crunch, but thank goodness I can almost tell myself they’re just crackers – chicken broth, wheat germ, brewer’s yeast, my goodness they’re healthy!

And to think our last name happens to lend itself perfectly to being makers of a tasty dog treat was just too much to overlook – we truly do have a Ruff life, and I mean that in the most wonderful way possible :-) Even if we don’t even own a dog!

So I’m happy to say we again can offer StudeBaker’s famous dog biscuits on the Market!

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