The Bakery Wagon

[goodcompanion]

@kevint 18932 wrote:

Hi Erik,
I’ll bring you a clutch kit for the subaru if you need it!

Ha ha! I really punish that car for field days, no joke. Bringing that stove over the Greens last year was pretty foolhardy, I guess. Lucky the car didn’t give out mid-slope and roll backwards all the way to route 7. Maybe someone with a real hauling rig can help me out when the time comes…

[Rod44]

Really, Really great job on the whole project!! Wish I was has handy as you and had your patience.:)

[Jean]

Eric and his Belgian just drove by my house and down a very steep hill headed to Rt 7 with his bakery wagon. Pretty cool. It must have very good brakes, it was a even slow pace going down the hill.

Eric, will you shoe the horse when this gets going in full swing?

Jean

[goodcompanion]

@Jean 18954 wrote:

Eric and his Belgian just drove by my house and down a very steep hill headed to Rt 7 with his bakery wagon. Pretty cool. It must have very good brakes, it was a even slow pace going down the hill.

Eric, will you shoe the horse when this gets going in full swing?

Jean

I wondered if you were home! We just had a terrific first serious outing. We did a circuit from the farm a total of 5.7 (!) miles, with some highway, some dirt road, and some city traffic. Some real hills too, as Jean mentioned. My horse did not like passing parked cars (what the hell are these things?) or walking over manhole covers or, most notably, pedestrian crosswalks. (What the hell are these white stripes? I’m not stepping on that.) Being behind a harley at a stoplight was also unfamiliar and made Bobby a little uneasy, but no real serious problems. Lastly when waiting for the one stoplight on the route, the wagon and horse were not heavy enough to trip the sensor in the road, so the light never turned green for us. Ultimately we had to run a red light. All in all the horse was very well-mannered and did the job with aplomb.

As for shoes, we will probably try horse boots. The belgian will not stand for a farrier, three have given up in disgust so far.

[near horse]

Hi Erik,

Just to give you a sense of what your good craftsmanship might be worth, check out this “Library Wagon” from eBay. Not very common but easily something you have shown you could put together!

BTW- how’s the baking going and when do you find time to do it?!!

#94 – 6945 – 00052 A very unique 1920’s horse drawn library wagon. This wagon was used to travel from town to town on the prairies like the Bookmobile is used in some areas today. This particular unit was on display in Vancouver, B.C., Canada at it’s 1986 World Expo. Very sound wheels as is the whole unit. Priced @ $15,000.00. Call Al @ 206-227-6673

[Andy Carson]

That’s great! I am glad it was a good experience and if your horse is like mine they get over the new sights pretty fast. I have had good experiences on the road (I have to admit I don’t do it all that much anymore). I had expected some rude and impatient people and never met a single one. One issue I had was making left hand turns onto a busier road from a stop sign. During the turn, my horse and cart end up blocking both lanes of traffic for a short time, which prevents traffic from either direction from going around. I look to make sure it’s clear, but sometimes visibility is poor. On many corners, I ended up relying on my hearing as much as my eyes to tell when a car is coming. Try that in a car! Another potential trouble point is that if you really hug the curb, cars often try to pass whether there is room or not. I have seen at least one near head-on collision. So, in areas where passing is not safe (like around corners or when I can see there is oncoming traffic) I move out into the lane so no one can pass. Sometimes I turn around and make eye contact to let the driver know I see them and am not just spacing off. When it’s safe, I pull over to the right side of the lane and wave them by. At the beginning, I felt a little bit like a jerk by pulling out to where they can’t pass, but I haven’t had any complaints and it seems safer this way. My horse, by the way, looks really hard at large rocks on the side of the road but doesn’t care about cars, parked or not. I guess they all have thier quirks…

[near horse]

How about when folks actually slow down or even stop when approaching by car from head on? My horses get more concerned about that behavior than cars “acting normal”. Probably a result of what they’re used to – horses like a predictable world.

[jac]

Your right with that Geoff. Mine get fidgety if a car slows to a crawl either on the approach or when passing. They never bat an eyelid with cars passing at normal speed ??.. Erik full praise on your project. It really is a nice wagon that will be a pleasure to buy bread from. As for your horse and the lack of shoes, he should be ok and if the trims are done properly you should be able to do your road work without boots in about 6 months..sooner if he has never been shod..
John

[goodcompanion]

@near horse 18958 wrote:

Hi Erik,

Just to give you a sense of what your good craftsmanship might be worth, check out this “Library Wagon” from eBay. Not very common but easily something you have shown you could put together!

BTW- how’s the baking going and when do you find time to do it?!!

#94 – 6945 – 00052 A very unique 1920’s horse drawn library wagon. This wagon was used to travel from town to town on the prairies like the Bookmobile is used in some areas today. This particular unit was on display in Vancouver, B.C., Canada at it’s 1986 World Expo. Very sound wheels as is the whole unit. Priced @ $15,000.00. Call Al @ 206-227-6673

I’ve been thinking it over and could probably build a similar wagon from scratch for about $5000. If I were to do it again I would build all new running gear from scratch and not mess around with an antique gear. I just didn’t know enough about running gears and springing first time out. It might be nice winter work.

Currently we bake specifically for markets five days a week. But only two of those days bring me into the bakery for much time. We are doing about 250-300 loaves per week now which is really low by most baker’s standards. But we live pretty close to the ground here so revenue-wise it’s a lot for us.

The bakery wagon is probably going to hit the road in a commercial vein next thursday. By that point the lettering, waste handling kit, and awning should all be in order. Figured out the wagon will hold about $500-700 worth of cargo. If we end up packing it with so much and coming home empty even once I will give myself a nice big pat on the back. I’ve always thought of this more as just a way to get noticed. One thing I’ve learned about small-scale farming: getting noticed and subsequently holding people’s attention is pretty necessary to survival. Kind of ironic in a way since the farmers of old never had to resort to any kind of theatricality, so it seems, looking back.

[Mike Rock]

I just found these folks a few days back. Looks like they have what is needed for a new bakery wagon in terms of running gear and other parts.

http://www.texaswagonworks.com/catologue/cat_buggy_gear_kit.shtml

Mike Rock

[near horse]

Erik,

I don’t know what your baking “days” might be like but my daughter worked for a small local bakery (1 baker) – called Wheatberries – he was in at about 3am getting started each day. He has established a clientele that includes most local coffee shops, sandwhich places and restaraunts as well as a small storefront. But he doesn’t have a wagon !!!

[goodcompanion]

Took another tour through Vergennes along the intended route. So far so good barefoot so I think we are going to keep on this way. The total roadwork is just 10 miles a week, so hopefully this will work out….

We have decided for a simplified schedule, with longer times spent at just one location per day, and two days of use per week. This means less distance traveled overall.

We have added lettering and a graphic on the sides. The design and painting was done by my brother-in-law Adam, and features our working dog Dante and Bobby the Horse, the selfsame one pulling the thing. I think it’s very eye-catching. Helps to have a graphic artist in the family!

Also I took the old foot rail from the old wagon and made it into two handholds for the front corner posts with my forge. I am no metalworker and this was my most ambitious blacksmithing project to date.

The awning and poop bag are the only items yet to be completed. I wonder what I am going to do with my time when there isn’t this to work on…

The glued-up shafts did not hold up so well, and you may notice that they are reinforced in kind of an ugly way in one of the pictures. But my steam bending system is working really well so I hope to make the real-deal-bent-heel-shaft very soon.

I also find myself wishing the springs were stiffer, so that the wagon didn’t swing around quite so much. The platform also is not as high as I’d hoped, and as a result the turning radius is also reduced. This could be remedied with more leaves.

But as with our bread I am the worst critic of my own work, and it is a very functional machine. Unlike our normal service vehicle, the Subaru wagon, every cubic inch of the interior space can be put to maximum advantage. This coming Thursday is our first day to take it into town with cargo.

[Carl Russell]

Awesome….Erik you will not be able to bake bread fast enough to respond to the interest created by this….that’s what you can do with your time!

Carl

[goodcompanion]

Well, the BW has went public with goods yesterday. Mixed results.

We didn’t have a very good hitching post. Our vending situation entailed the wagon and horse parallel parked on main street in vergennes, with the horse’s head tied to a wooden post which was essentially just malleted into the ground. Lots of traffic, semis using their jakes, etc. Bobby the horse behaved himself okay for about an hour into a four-hour market, then started to get a bit restive.

I knew from the start that we needed to practice standing while tied. We could never make the time. Driving in traffic went so well for us I guess I was hoping it would be easy. But no, no such luck, there is no vending out of this wagon for hours at a time without an extensive training regimen. We had to head home after just over an hour.

We’re going to start just hitching him to the cart and tying him various places on the farm where we can keep an eye on things, working towards longer times. Plus lobby for a more secure hitching post arrangement. Also got a nose bag, though this entails feeding grain which I never do, so I have mixed feelings about using it. Any thoughts on training a horse to stand tied for hours in the midst of traffic and noise welcome.

[Andy Carson]

Is there a secure place to tie him if you unhitch? Maybe there is a tree nearby that you could hang a haynet from? Maybe even a couple trees to make a picketline from… i don’t know what your location is like, but four hours seems like a long time to just hang out. I know my horse would get restless too.

[Author]

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