Today we’d like to introduce you to Delaine Mitchell.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My husband and I have always been creative souls, whether that involves cooking/baking, building, or pretty much any form of creativity. We lived in a small house in Saginaw and ran out of space in which to let our creative side out. I personally always felt like a country girl stuck in the big city and our dream was always to buy acreage and live out in the country.
We finished remodeling every single room in our old house and decided this was the best opportunity we would have to sell and get out of town. So, we did! After a lot of looking we decided to buy raw land and build. Drew (my husband) has always wanted to build his own home, he helped his grandpa build his house when he was a kid and luckily, he has been everything from a mechanic, HVAC tech, plumber, and contractor. We bought 4.8 acres in unincorporated land outside of city limits so that we could start our dream. While we waited for electricity, water well and septic to be completed we hopped back and forth between local state parks in our travel trailer with 3 dogs, 3 cats, and 2 kids. Honestly it was a super fun time for all involved.
My husband and I got onto the land and got to work. We designed a house and a shop with Mueller metal buildings. All of the materials arrived for us to assemble. With nothing but a few friends/family, a tractor, scissor lift and a hand crank lift we got to work. At the time we both worked full time jobs while building our property so nothing happened quickly. We spent a year in the travel trailer, a year living in the shop, and then we finally got in the house!
Mitchell Creek Farm was in the making. We had no idea what we were in for yet.
Then the magic began when one year went to visit my brother and sister-in-law in San Angelo for Christmas and she gave me a sourdough starter that her family has kept going for longer than I have been alive. And I thought, hmmm this could be fun. I got home and started playing with it. I managed to create my first loaf of bread. It was far from perfect, but it got my creative juices flowing. I knew I had a lot to learn when I managed to kill my starter. I was so embarrassed, it took me a while to admit it to my sister-in-law, but I got a new starter and kept going. I got the process down and started gifting the breads to family and friends. The feedback was fantastic, and it got me thinking. We always planned to make our property as self-sufficient as possible over time and this could be a part of that puzzle. I held my first event at our towns Watermelon Festival in September 2024 and I was hooked from there.
Now we are up to 11 or 12 varieties of sourdough breads: Traditional, Rosemary Garlic, Garlic Parmesan, Jalapeno Cheddar, Tomato Basil, Sun dried tomato mozzarella, Cinnamon Maple Walnut, Pumpkin chocolate chip, Asiago black pepper, Banana chocolate chip and Lemon blueberry. We also make sourdough English Muffins and Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls. There are many other items to come!
We went full LLC in June. Now we have our products in 2 store fronts in Decatur; Wise Roots Farm to Market and The Burlap Barn. Plus we run around to 2-4 events each weekend to sell. We have hired our first employee to do events for us as well!
In additional to the sourdough mania that is our home we breed Nigerian Dwarf Goats. Our herd is up to 12 goats and 6 does have been bred for spring babies. Once we have these wonderful kids born the farm will be offering some for sale to new farms, but we plan to have photo family sessions with the babies, goat yoga, and as the babies grow, we will be selling the goats milk as well.
Our other farm animal in the business is the chickens, particularly Silver Laced Wyandotte chickens. They are gorgeous birds. They are reliable egg layers and large enough to cross as a meat bird though we haven’t done so. We sell the eggs and also hatch chicks to sell from our breeding pairs.
We will hopefully get the vegetable garden in full swing this year and maximize the number of vegetables we can grow to provide for ourselves and sell the extras to the community. We have also experimented with canning our own homemade pasta sauce from our homegrown veggies. That came out amazing and we will pursue that more in the future. Once the home is completed my husband will also get back to his other creative journey as a knife maker and blade sports competitor. The shop has been too hectic of a space to get the forge out quite yet, but we are getting close. Please check out his page as well JAM Custom Knives.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh goodness no! Hahahaha
There have been multiple struggles and times where we looked at one another and wondered what we have gotten ourselves into.
1) The water well- The first well hit water quickly but the underlying soil was so sandy/gravely that it kept collapsing in upon itself and then we had to wait an extra 2-3 months for the bigger rig to do the second well way down the property rather than up by the house so we ended up living at an RV park for much longer than expected and of course that also costed more than expected.
2) Cost in general. As my husband and I planned the financials of this grand plan it was PRE- covid and then we executed MID-covid and the cost of materials just kept going higher and higher and higher. It has taken at least 3-4x the planned finances and the amount of time to get the projects done. We hit some tight times about 2 years into the build, but we buckled down and worked through it. I can only imagine the cost if we didn’t have so many good connections with contractors. The house is completely enough to live comfortably but it is definitely not complete. We still need the “pretty things”, but we have all of the functional spaces/creature comforts. Goodness, I remember when we got the bathtub installed and didn’t have to go the shower in the shop anymore, it was a glorious moment. Yes, building everything ourselves is a time-consuming deal but each project we complete leaves a tremendous sense of pride and accomplishment.
3) COLD!!! We moved into the shop once it was complete. Once winter hit 2 years ago and we had the zero-degree weather hit it was not nearly warm enough in the shop. Luckily the shell of the house was complete and insulated with an old school wood burning stove ready to go. We literally put an air mattress on the ground in the front of the wood burning stove to get through that nasty cold snap. We would take turns waking up every 2-3 hours to fill it with wood to keep burning through the night. After that we got walls started for our bedrooms in the house as soon as possible.
4) City planning- Upon purchasing the property and learning where the building limits where located we hired a company to do dirt work and essentially move the hill back in order to accommodate the building easement. As this was being done one of our local neighbors came up and told us that the town had the property laid out backwards…. So, this meant that we never needed to move the hill. But we had done it already and did not want to pay someone to move the dirt all over again, so we used our tractor and time to re-do the work that had just been done. Because we had to do so much dirt work this also meant that our foundation now needed piers in order to be structurally sound VS if it had still been virgin soil (meaning not disturbed) we would not have needed such a heavily engineered foundation. This goes back to cost again as we spent multiple thousands on the dirt work and then many thousands on top of that to ensure a properly engineered foundation due to the groundwork that was performed.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Mitchell Creek Farm is a cottage bakery located in Alvord, Texas. We specialize in sourdough breads and sourdough related baked goods. We have a wide variety of flavors or more correctly called inclusions. We have traditional, rosemary garlic, garlic parmesan, jalapeno cheddar, tomato basil, sundried tomato mozzarella, cinnamon maple walnut, pumpkin chocolate chip, lemon blueberry, banana chocolate chip and asiago black pepper. For our other sourdough related goods we have sourdough English muffins and sourdough cinnamon rolls.
Some of the items that are in the R&D phased are sourdough pop tarts, sourdough pizza crusts, sourdough muffins, and sourdough lemon bars.
Our non-bread items currently include custom cutting boards and engraved serrated bread knives. Once again there are many items to come but some of the items to watch for in the near future are hand-made beeswax cotton bread bags. We are also about to enter the R&D phase of some infused oils to pair with our breads.
What makes Mitchell Creek Farm different/unique? During our baking process we ensure that we all fresh ingredients and take the time to hand slice/dice everything. Fresh jalapeno’s are de-seeded, and slices, the cheese is hand grated or diced into little cubes, the walnuts are hand chopped to the perfect size. Don’t get me started on the high quality flakes of parmesan… It is really hard not to eat the ingredients as I bake. But, beyond the fresh, high quality ingredients we also have the personal touches. Each and every loaf is hand stenciled with a wide variety of designs before they are baked. It is our unique mark, I have never seen any other baker do this on a regular basis as it is time consuming but so worth it to see our customers reactions when the stencils change for each season. But there is a favorite! Texas! My husband and I are born and raised Texans and no matter what the season we always include our signature Texas stencil in the mix.
Our logo also brings me a great sense of pride. That logo was painstakingly created by my husband and I to show who we are. It starts simple with our red barn in the background with the Texas sign hanging proud. Then you see my husband in front of the open shop door with his anvil, hammering out a knife. Goats are walking around, chickens too, and then me wheeling flakes of hay to the pastures to feed our farm of happy critters. We did not hire someone to create this. We sat down with my husbands contractor software and created it together to be uniquely us.
My husband and I are also very proud to be big supporters of our US military. I grew up a Marine Corps brat. My father Jim Crites was in the Marine Corps for 23 years and my husband Andrew was in the Air Force for 6 years. As our business grows we plan to add in ways to ensure we are supporting our veterans whether that means hiring veterans, supporting veteran groups with our vendor events, and more.
Something for the readers to know about our offerings/services is that even though we are more closely located to Fort Worth, you do not have to live super close in order to purchase from us. Luckily, through some of our partnerships we do offer shipping within the State of Texas at a very reasonable price. Please feel free to reach out about shipping costs but also know that we do plan to travel around the state for vendor events in order to spread the joy of our delicious home-made breads.
What’s next?
Currently we are searching for additional store fronts in which to stock our products. We currently have 2 store fronts in Decatur that we keep stocked but in an ideal world I would like to have at least 2-3 more in other surrounding cities. Once there are more stores to keep stocked, I plan to hire additional staff to attend vendor events in my place. We currently have 1 employee who already attends vendor events when we are already booked for other locations.
In the next 3-5 years my husband and I have dreamed up the idea of an event venue tucked into the woods near our farm with a full commercial bakery/kitchen. This would be an animal friendly venue with large, covered patios to dine and hang out in a peaceful environment.
Pricing:
- Each loaf of bread is only $9-$10!
- Cinnamon Rolls: $15
- English Muffins: $12
- Custom bread knife: $20
- Custom Cutting boards: $30-$120 depending on size and wood selections
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mitchellcreekfarm.com/
- Instagram: @mitchellcreekfarm
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JAMcustomshome/
Image Credits
Captured by Cordova – Darlene Cordova
