About Me
How This All Came To Be
Hi, I’m Sarah.
I’m a homemaker, a wife, a mom to four kids, homeschool teacher and now (somehow) owner of a micro bakery! Life in our house is full, a little loud, and when we’re lucky, smells like something baking.
Priest River Porch Bakery started (and still is) in my home kitchen and originally a little stand out in our driveway. Now it’s evolved into a renovated horse trailer we’ve dubbed “the Crusty Wagon“.
At first I was mostly baking sourdough, trying to create the healthiest alternative to store bought breads. One day, a friend recommended a podcast on the topic of milling your own flour. That podcast changed me forever! Once I learned about the disheatening history of commercial flour and all the amazing benefits of freshly milled grain, there was no going back!
Now, everything I bake starts with whole grains that I mill myself right before mixing the dough. That means the flour is as fresh as it gets, and the bread has the kind of flavor and nutrients that are non-existent in store-bought flour.
Most weeks you’ll find sourdough loaves, muffins, cookies, and a few rotating seasonal things depending on what I’m excited about baking. And people can place their orders online weekly and stop by the Crusty Wagon to pick up their goods.
Stepping Outside Of My Comfort Zone
My husband and I spoke a while back about whether I would be interested in teaching classes. At the time, I wasn’t sure. Teaching a class felt like claiming to be an expert and was a bit outside my comfort zone. But that’s where we grow, right?
One day a customer reached out to me and asked me to teach a class to a group of local homesteading women. I agreed, and during that class is when something really clicked for me. Years ago I had the privilege of being a CrossFit coach and as soon as I started teaching this baking class, that same passion for coaching came rushing back in.
I LOVED teaching that class and once word got out that I was teaching fresh milled flour classes, the inquiries kept rolling in on when my next class would be. So, now I am teaching local classes for anyone interested in learning how to bake with freshly milled flour.
Milling your own grain sounds complicated at first, but it’s actually pretty simple once you see how it works! Getting started is the hardest part. If you’d like to learn, I hope you’ll come bake with me in one of my classes!
I Never Set Out To Start A Business
Baking was just my way of trying to be a better homemaker and something I enjoyed as a hobby. Putting a bakery stand out in our neighborhood was truly just for fun and to see if I could really do it! It was a divine blend of things that transformed this bakery into the “business” that it is today. It was the Lord who convicted me to become an advocate for freshly milled flour. It was the city that required me to become a licensed business. And it’s my husband who says we have to charge people, and can’t just give it all away!
Thankfully, he handles all the business, marketing, and technical stuff so that I can focus on doing what I love which is baking for my family, friends, and community, and now teaching others about what I know about milling flour, the health benefits behind it, and how it’s changed my life and hope it will change theirs. Thank you for reading this and for supporting our family and small business!
