Our “Shop House” has been through several incarnations. Years ago it was just another one of our bays we used for wood and equipment. Then part of it got changed to house baby chicks for the first couple months of their lives and then a sink and counter was added when we were milking Nina for a year or so. Last year the shop house became a kitchen – a simple, lovely and functional outdoor kitchen that was used mostly by our apprentices who were here from April until October.

This past winter we knew we were going to need something more substantial. The shoulder seasons were hard in the outdoor kitchen – cold in the morning and evening and no place to just hang out. The apprentices last year migrated to the Barn Kitchen in the fall as a solution. But this year we wanted it to work well for the whole time Ashley (who is back this year to farm) and the new apprentices are here so…..the work began. The roof was extended and walls framed in.

A room for Ashley was created in the bay next to the kitchen; the stack wall having been completed last summer.

Above: Alinka doing some cement work outside the sliding doors. And below: Getting ready to put the kitchen back together.

The wood stove in the “living room”, looking through to the kitchen.

Our beautiful, new and improved shop house!