Category: Recycle

Small Batch Coffee Roasting

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Our History

In 2009 we started a micro coffee roasting company named Cold Creek Coffee Company, located in Battle Ground, WA. Our beans were used by two coffee shops and we had several repeat customers. We closed our business in 2014, when we moved to Arizona. (The move was complex enought, much less relocating a business.)

Our oldest grandson wearing our previous business .com hat.
Today he’s a teenager!

Fast Forward to 2024:

Our original company name, Cold Creek Coffee, is now used by a company in Canada and another in Ohio. Honestly, that doesn’t matter because we want to rebrand our coffee business under Rustic Country Market as we start roasting again. This time we will specialize in mobile, small batch roasted coffee beans, in addition to selling a variety of rustic decor, coffee mugs, seasonal lavender bunches, dried spice mixes and our nest run eggs.

Local Market Focus

We are going to focus our small business on our local market. At this time, we are not going to sell online. We plan to start participating in a local farmers market, and roast coffee at the market. This way, our customers are getting the freshest roasted coffee beans possible. Our local, repeat coffee customers will be able to reach out to us to order fresh roasted coffee beans outside the farmers market hours. Expanding our market will be subject to demand and profitability.

In addition to attending our local farmers market, we plan to have several Rustic Country Markets at our house. I plan to set up a photo shoot booth so customers can share pics with their friends on social media. In the future, we’d like to invite other local, complimentary product vendors to participate in our Rustic Country Market, which may involve moving to a more central location in our local community. Our Rustic Country Market would be more of an artisan market vs. farmers market.

The pictures below are a sampling of some of the “one of a kind” items we have created for props and to sell. Some are a work in process…

Handcrafted. Reuse. Repurpose. Renovate. Rustic.

Most of what we sell at our Rustic Country Market is handcrafted at our home. We limit our outsourced items to other small business owners whenever possible. We scout for things we can reuse, repurpose, renovate or recycle. I love using my Cricut to design and create rustic country decor and household items. Some of the items we create are made using some materials that were not made in the USA which is (unfortunately) inevitable in today’s world. (IE: ink, vinyl, blank stickers, blank coffee mugs, blank canisters, etc.)

Primitive Bird House

A lot of the materials we use are old. For example, the bird house pictured above. We bought the antique roof tiles on the east coast a few years ago. The wood and handle (perch) were salvaged to create this rustic bird house.

Our Home Base…

My craft room.
His Greenhouse.

Our produce is grown in our greenhouse that Jon built mostly from repurposed materials, and our garden. We primarily use heirloom seeds to start our plants. We try to avoid the use of chemicals on our plants, sticking with organic options and composting. Our spice mixes are produced in our home kitchen (and are not subject to public health inspection under the AZ cottage food program).

Air tight packaging to keep it fresh.

Our Russian Sage is grown in our back, which I will use to create decorative bunches to sell seasonally.

Our 2023 Russian Sage (similar to Lavender) and backyard chicken coop.

We purchase green coffee beans from US based coffee bean importers who source from coffee bean producing countries.

All that to say, our goal is for Rustic Country Market to be as small business, locally sourced as possible.

Until next time…

Inspiring Home Life,

THE RELENTLESS REDECORATOR

My Retirement Reality

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We passed thru the 2019 holiday season, and then got hit by 2020. (20/20: What I hoped represented “Perfect Vision.”)

Perfect Vision?

Amid all the 2020 confusion, I was preparing to retire. People asked, me are you sure you want to retire? Um, YES!!! We house shopped all over AZ (literally) for the perfect retirement area. We ended up purchasing a 1986 home in the White Mountains of Arizona, 5 hours from where we lived. Before I retired, we moved our household belongings into the new house over the weekends. Once our old house was empty, we sold it and briefly lived in our RV until I retired; then we moved into what we considered our rural, retirement retreat.

Our goal was to downsize and start a small, home based business built on Rustic Country Market Living, but we couldn’t find a smaller house. Instead we ended up with 1300 more SF, including a HUGE pantry (like a 3rd car garage). We thought we’d turn some of the extra space into a B&B, but instead, my mother moved in with us in 2021.

Things started to morph…

Our house has a chicken coup, so we got a few chickens. Later we found out we have predators in our area, so we had to take defensive measures. We added gutters and rain barrels to recycle water for our garden, fruit trees, grapevines, herbs and lavender.

We knew there were things that needed to be repaired in our “new” used retirement home, but what we didn’t anticipate was the amount of hidden deferred maintenance it had. Yes, we had a house inspection which turned out useless for us. No, we didn’t get a “home warranty.” The house has turned into a major fixer upper, tapping deeply into our retirement savings and absorbing our time.

A new look for an old house.
Continue reading “My Retirement Reality” →

Decorating on a Budget

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I gotta confess, I’m an HGTV junkie. Several of the shows inspire me to want to redecorate my home over and over again. I can watch the same show again and again, and see something I never noticed before.

Let’s face it, we live in an immediate world, and most of us want what we want now.

There are so many times I’ve wanted a new look in my home, but my budget wouldn’t allow much. That’s when I start looking at what I already have and thinking about what I can do to change it for a fraction of the cost of buying something new.

Simply putting a new pillow cover on an old pillow can add a new splash of color, and with the advent of online shopping, the sky’s the limit on selection!

I was tired of these old, throw pillows. Instead of buying new ones, I bought new pillow covers at a fraction of the cost of new pillows.
Our living room has a cabin theme, so the new pillow covers fit right in. Even my husband likes them.

My next pillow upgrade? Our RV! I love to add my own touches to the RV’s factory decor.

Inspiring Home Life,

THE RELENTLESS REDECORATOR

Meal Time Update…

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WOW! It was a busy, eventful summer! Time flew by. As things wind down, I now have time to share more about our meal time experiences.

After 4 weeks, we decided to let Home Chef go (pause/cancel the service) and try another meal kit service. My goal was to supplement our Sun Basket dinners with some quick lunch and snack items, not replace them.

I will say this about Home Chef…

Home Chef is affordable, and their main dinners taste like average, home cooked meals. Home Chef offers quick salads and smoothies – which initially intrigued me. During the 4th week with the service, we started to notice that the salads pretty much tasted the same for the most part. The smoothies were good, and easy to make.

I didn’t like the amount of extra shipping trash that came with Home Chef. (We haul our own trash to the dump/transfer station bi-weekly.) While the shipping material was biodegradable for the most part, it took up a lot of space in our trash compared to Sun Basket. On top of all that, the food flavor just didn’t compare to Sun Basket. (We are still enjoying Sun Basket.)

Next Meal Kit Experience: Terra’s Kitchen… (Update: They are no longer in business.)

We tried Terra’s Kitchen (TK) for a few weeks.

Love the shipping vessel.

TK ships meals in a reusable, climate controlled, delivery vessel that is return shipped (pre-paid) back to Terra’s Kitchen the following day. Shipping is free with orders of $100 or more or $6.99 (at the time of this writing) for orders under $100.

Everything fits inside neatly.

The vessel is empty and ready for pickup the next day.

The reusable vessel intrigued me, because I don’t like all the extra shipping trash that comes with other of meal kit services.

Ready to eat salads, perfect for lunch.

TK’s ingredients are “pre-prepped” which is supposed to shorten cooking time. The food is prewashed and individually packaged in recyclable containers. They offer meals, snacks, deserts, beverages, salads, meat, etc. They offer a variety of dietary options: Mediterranean, Paleo, gluten free, low cal, and vegetarian. Most products are antibiotic and hormone free, non-GMO and organic when possible. Pricing varies depending on what you order.

TK’s Vegetable and Chicken Couscous Bowl

I sent an email to TK’s customer serviced to find out if they delivered to my area, and they responded quickly with a friendly, yes! I downloaded their app and scheduled our first order.

We didn’t stick with TK very long. We quickly grew bored with their flavors and food selection to choose from. Absolutely loved the shipping vessel because I had minimal trash from the meal kit service; however, the pre-prepped items had a shorter, freshness life expectancy.

UPDATE: Since this post was written, TK is no longer in business.

Sun Basket is Still Our Favorite…

We’ve been with Sun Basket since January, 2018. We never grow tired of their flavorful recipes. We’ve cooked meals inspired by countries we’ve never visited. They save me shopping time, and are healthier and more affordable than going out for dinner at a restaurant. Plus, my husband and I enjoy preparing the meals together.

Inspiring Home Life,

THE RELENTLESS REDECORATOR