Holding On While Letting Go

A Decision I Didn’t Take Lightly

This has not been an easy decision.

In fact, I have genuinely struggled with it.

I have decided to purchase a commercial dough mixer.

Even writing that feels like a kind of confession.

Because if you have followed this journey, you know how much I have spoken about the connection…
the feel of the dough in my hands…
the quiet, steady rhythm of mixing by hand.

This process has never just been about bread for me.

It has felt…sacred.

And so, this decision did not come quickly.

Listening to What My Body Is Saying

Over time, something has been changing.

I have developed arthritis in my hands.

It’s not always the pain that gets me.

It’s the fatigue.

The kind that settles in at the end of a long day of mixing, folding, shaping…
the kind that lingers.

And I’ve had to be honest with myself.

This isn’t about pushing through anymore.

It’s about paying attention.

Because the work I’m stepping into is growing.

Close to 200 loaves a week…
on top of everything else I’m preparing for my customers.

And I know, in a very real way, that I cannot sustain that pace by hand alone.

What Will Never Change

There are parts of this process that matter deeply to me.

And they are not going anywhere.

I will still stretch and fold by hand.
Still shape each loaf with intention.
Still score each one, standing at my counter, blade in hand.

Still present.
Still connected.
Still part of every step that gives the bread its life.

That will never change.

The Part I Had to Work Through

What I have had to wrestle with…quietly…is this:

Am I losing something?

Is this, in some small way, stepping away from what made this feel so meaningful?

There was even a moment where the word cheating crossed my mind.

And I sat with that.

Because I needed to understand where that feeling was coming from.

What I’ve Come to Understand

This process has always been about more than how the dough is mixed.

It has been about intention.

About presence.
About care.
About showing up, fully, for what I am creating.

And none of that is changing.

If anything, this decision is what allows me to continue.

To keep baking.
To keep serving.
To keep showing up in the way I feel called to.

Without breaking down my body in the process.

Choosing Sustainability Over Strain

There is a difference between devotion…
and depletion.

And I am learning, slowly, that honoring this work also means honoring the body that allows me to do it.

I researched.
I asked questions.
I listened to other micro bakers who have walked this path before me.

And I have landed on an Estella 30-quart commercial dough mixer.

Not as a replacement for the process…

but as a support to it.

What Remains Sacred

Because at the heart of it, nothing has changed.

The ingredients are the same.
The process still requires patience.
The bread still asks to be tended, not rushed.

And I am still here.

Hands in the dough.
Present in the process.
Grateful for every loaf.

The sacredness was never in doing everything the hardest way possible.

It was in the intention behind it.

An Invitation to Myself

So this is me, letting go of something…
while holding onto what matters most.

Trusting that growth sometimes asks us to adjust.
To adapt.
To make decisions that allow us to continue, rather than quietly burn out.

And reminding myself, gently:

I am not losing the connection.

I am protecting it.

Warmly,
Kathy

Art of The Crumb