If there is one thing homesteading and running a small farmstand will teach you, it is this: you can make all the plans in the world, but sometimes life has other ideas.
Yesterday, on my way home, I got the news I definitely wasn’t expecting to hear.
The oven wasn’t working.
Normally, an oven breaking would be frustrating enough. But this wasn’t exactly a normal week. We were preparing to open the J & J Homestead Farmstand this weekend after our short summer break, and I had already been making plans, preparing dough, thinking through the menu, and getting ready to jump right back into baking.
And just like that, we were stopped in our tracks.
Preparing to Reopen the Farmstand
I had been looking forward to getting back into the kitchen.
After taking a little time away from the farmstand, I was actually excited about those busy baking days again—the cookies, breads, treats, and organized chaos that come with getting everything ready for our customers.
I had plans.
I had dough.
I had ingredients.
I had a schedule.
What I apparently didn’t have was a functioning oven.
There is probably a lesson about not counting your cookies before they’re baked somewhere in there.
When you run a small farmstand and bake the majority of your products yourself, one appliance can suddenly become a very important part of the entire operation. There isn’t another commercial kitchen waiting in the next room or a second oven sitting on standby.
When the oven goes down, the bakery portion of the farmstand goes down with it.
And that is disappointing.
Sometimes Small Business Plans Change
One of the biggest lessons we’ve learned through running the J & J Homestead Farmstand is that flexibility isn’t optional.
Things happen.
Chickens stop laying.
Vegetables ripen earlier—or later—than expected.
Weather changes your plans.
Ingredients run out.
Equipment breaks.
And sometimes, your oven decides that the exact week you’re planning to reopen the farmstand is the perfect time to stop cooperating.
Running a small homestead business means learning how to adjust rather than allowing one setback to derail everything.
So that’s exactly what we’re doing.
The Farmstand Will Still Have Plenty to Offer!
The good news is that the oven may have temporarily sidelined our baked goods, but it hasn’t sidelined the farmstand.
We will still have jelly, fresh vegetables, and other fun items available at the J & J Homestead Farmstand this weekend.
One of the things I love about our farmstand is that it has grown into much more than baked goods. What is available changes throughout the season depending on what is growing, what we’re making, and what the homestead happens to give us that week.
That’s part of the fun.
You never quite know what you’ll find when you stop by.
So while you won’t see the usual selection of fresh baked goods this weekend, there will still be plenty of reasons to visit.
Hopefully, This Is Just a Short Delay
Fortunately, we already have an oven repair technician scheduled to come out Saturday.
That alone makes this situation much easier to handle.
We’re hopeful that the problem can be identified and repaired quickly so I can get back into the kitchen and start baking again.
And believe me, after preparing dough and mentally planning an entire baking schedule, I am going to be more than ready to turn that oven back on.
If everything goes according to plan, this will simply be a small bump in the road.
But if homesteading has taught us anything, it is that we’ll figure it out either way.
Maybe the Universe Is Trying to Tell Me Something
After the initial disappointment wore off, I started thinking about the timing of all of this.
We intentionally took a short summer break from the farmstand so we could catch up on projects around the homestead, have a little breathing room, and—in my case—get some rest.
Apparently, I may not have been quite finished resting.
Because now, instead of spending the next couple of days baking batch after batch of cookies and breads, I suddenly have a little more time on my hands.
Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.
“You said you were taking a break. Sit down.”
Message received.
Well… sort of.
Anyone who knows me probably realizes that completely sitting still isn’t exactly my specialty.
But there is something valuable in recognizing that not every interruption has to be viewed entirely as a problem. Sometimes the thing that ruins our carefully constructed plan also gives us something we didn’t realize we needed.
In this case, maybe that’s another couple of days of rest.
Homesteading Is an Exercise in Resilience
This little oven adventure is also another reminder of something I write about often: homesteading requires resilience.
Not the dramatic kind.
Most of the time, it’s the everyday kind.
It’s adjusting the plan.
It’s finding another solution.
It’s being disappointed for a minute and then asking, Okay, what can we do instead?
Yesterday, my plan involved an oven full of baked goods.
Today, the plan looks a little different.
And that’s okay.
The farmstand will still open. There will still be vegetables, jelly, and other goodies waiting for our customers. We’ll still get to see the people who have supported this little adventure of ours.
And hopefully, very soon, you’ll smell cookies baking at J & J Homestead again.
Until then, we’re choosing to look at the positive side.
The oven gets a repair.
I get a couple more days of rest.
And the farmstand adventure continues.
Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned around here, it’s that things rarely go exactly according to plan—and sometimes that’s part of the story worth sharing.
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