Car Chronicles EP 26: Building A Self-Serve Farm Stand For Cookies

My microphone broke right before recording, so we’re doing this one the scrappy way, on the road, with a real-life update that’s equal parts baking, fitness, and figuring it out as we go. The biggest shift is business: we walked away from a cookie arrangement that looked promising until the margins didn’t justify the work. That decision opened the door to a better path for a home bakery brand, one where we control quality, pricing, and time without a middleman. 

The new plan is a porch bakery style farm stand, a self-serve bake stand set up at the house where neighbors can grab cookies and pay digitally or with cash. I’m building the stand myself using downloadable woodworking blueprints, and the goal is to grow into a small bakery that stays obsessed with consistent quality. We also talk about what it takes to fund the build the right way, including saving for tools, a mini fridge for cheesecake, and cutting out the little spending habits that quietly drain momentum. 

On the personal side, my wife is away prepping for a bodybuilding show, so I’m running a mini cut to keep pace and show up proud at her event. We switched to a new gym with strength testing and a leaderboard, and that competitive environment has pushed my training intensity way up. Add in rough sleep from dog sitting and long workdays, and you get the full picture: progress isn’t perfect, it’s just persistent. 

If you want the farm stand build, the baking journey, and the mindset behind it, hit subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a five-star review. What would you sell from a self-serve porch bakery if you built one?

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Transcript

Road Update And Broken Mic

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Yes, sir. So what that means, back on the road again. Uh been a while. But the bad news is my freaking microphone broke. Found that out today. So I'm using my phone's voice recording software. So you will see how this goes and how this sounds. But, anyways, all the way to one of my old stomach grounds, Cracker Barrel. At this point, I done seen them install a washing machine for washing the dishes in Cracker Barrel. And I've seen them install the freezer flooring. And I wonder what they're gonna be installed or fixing today. Not sure. There was a lot that has happened. Not really. But it feels like a lot. So

Why The Pizzeria Deal Died

SPEAKER_02 1:31

I don't even know if I posted the episode where I talked about the pizzeria and us working together and me selling my cookies out of the pizzeria. But regardless if I did or didn't, that didn't work out. It was going to be a lot of work for only two dollars a cookie. And I sell my cookies for ten dollars at farmers markets. So two dollars a cookie was ultimately, I was like, no, for all the work I would have to do just to make two bucks, can't do it. So that flowed through, which is fine. It was an opportunity, and I followed the threads and it didn't work out.

Porch Bakery Plan And Benefits

SPEAKER_01 2:33

So over the past couple months now, seems like it's been a couple months. I've been getting all these videos of porch bakeries and farm stands, and I'm like, this is a sign. This is a sign.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

I'm going to now follow this thread and see where it takes me. And I've honestly been pretty excited about it. Because if you don't know what a porch bakery is or what a farm stand is, you it's basically like if you've ever been to a farmer's market where they have stalls, and you know you sell your baked goods out of a stall. Well, it's the same concept, except for these are self-serve, and you set them up outside of your house, it will literally be in my driveway, and people will come up, get what they want, and pay cash, vivo, cash app, whatever form of payment that I put out there, and then that's that's that's it. There's no middleman, there's no driving, there's no extra work I have to do, it's all of my time, I can open it whenever I want, for however long I want, for however many days I want, I can close it whenever I want. It's all under my control. Which I wouldn't have mind driving to the pizzeria to drop off cookies and you know, doing all that, I wouldn't have mind that. But this is far more plausible for ultimately what I want to do, and one is to become well known for cookies, a cheesecake, and I don't know why, but I has I have like a new thing, and I just wanna open a nice small bakery, man. A nice small bakery that just focuses purely on quality. That's all that's all I'm gonna do. I want the food, uh the food, I guess it is food, I want the baked goods to have the same quality every time you try it. So I think that would be pretty cool. I had

Etsy Blueprints And Woodworking Entry

SPEAKER_02 5:37

ordered a table, I ordered a tablecloth, and I got the sign, I got the placard for the cookies. I figured out where I was gonna put it. I was gonna put it in the gym, like right underneath the garage, so there'd be shade. Yeah, I was ready. I already have the dough balls frozen, and I was just gonna do cookies at first. But then your boy was on Etsy perusing, and I was like, I wonder if they have like farm stands to sell, like if people have like their little farm stands, or if somebody on here could make a custom one that'd be good. So I typed in farm stand. You know what popped up that excited me even more? You can download, buy and download digital blueprints to create your own farm stand. So they have a model of a farm stand that shows you what it looks like when it's fully completed, and you just buy the blueprints, look at the wood, look at the nails, the screws, whatever you're gonna need, and you build it yourself. And I was like, Yes, this is what I wanna do. I know I posted the episode when I talked about building, creating when you do it with your own two hands, how much more impactful and more powerful it is. Of course, I'm gonna hop on any opportunity to build my own farm stand. Yes, please. Because I've always wanted to get into woodwork, like working with wood. I see these people remodeling their house all the time. Man, I just just having that knowledge at at your fingertips is is so cool because at any moment in time, if you don't like something, you can just knock it down and do what you want to do. And it this is my uh my entry, my my my entry drug, my gateway drug into woodworking, I'll take it. I found the farm stand I want. So I'm gonna download the blueprint, or I'm gonna buy it first. Download it, see how the layout looks, go to Lowe's or Home Depot, ask them to help me with cutting the hood to specific measurements, get the screws and nails and whatever else I'm gonna need. I gotta get an lithium battery for my drill. And me putting this bad boy together.

TikTok Series And Launch Timeline

SPEAKER_01 8:38

I've already started a series on TikTok.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Going from a nobody with no farm stand to a somebody with a farm stand. If you have a TikTok and you want to follow me, it's my first name, my last name. Head on over there and give me a follow. Follow my journey. Actually, I just lied to you. It's Valkyrie's XST underscore bakery. I don't know. My my personal TikTok is my first thing I've seen. That's why. Go follow both. My personal TikTok is more about fitness, tips, and tricks, and things of that sort.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Go follow both. And I just think this is gonna be a grand adventure.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

Unfortunately,

Wife Away And Shared Goals

SPEAKER_02 9:45

my wife is not here to tag along and help me out, which would have been cool. She's TDY in North Carolina right now for 30 days. And that sucks. But I do want to get it up. I I at least want to get the farm stand up and not running. I just want to get it built. Because I do want her to be there when I open up the farm stand for the first day. There's nothing better than having somebody to celebrate your accomplishments with.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Nice to have her there.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

Once I'm done with the farmstead, I will make sure I got all the big goods that I wanna get that I wanna sell out of it. Ready? Wait for her to open it up, see how it goes. And I've sold to a couple people in my neighborhood already. They are well aware of what I'm capable of. But outside of that, she is prepping for her bodybuilding show. And since she is prepping, I figure, hey, I might as well just do a mini cut along with you. Because she days are pretty dull when she's not around. And I was like, well, I I don't have much to look forward to when she's not here. And when I go to her show, I want to be like looking like I'm her husband. I don't want to be, you know, I'm not gonna say fat because I'm not fat. But I'm not trying to look like I've done her husband, if that makes sense. I want to walk in and like they is he is he doing a show too. That's been that's always been one of my my goals is to look like I'm doing a show, but not actually compete. Hopefully, her prep was well. She she's the odd one. She wanted to do it during her school, but she's gonna all figure it out. She took a bunch of the stuff that she normally eats, and that she's gonna be prepping it. Then she has a meal prep company down there that's delivering her meals to her. And you know, she gotta figure it out. There's one thing she's gonna do, she's gonna figure it out. And the biggest issue is she was already so close to her state weight, and that's with just maintaining and doing barely any partio. But now that she's up in her cardio because of the school and the activity in general, she told me the other day they're gonna be walking when they s when they start the civil of civil affairs training, they're gonna be walking 16 holidays. She gonna get her to take a steps in that for sure. And I'm looking forward to seeing her physique. She's been looking at these other competitors that have been doing shows, and it's unfortunate, but just the quality of people on stage nowadays is so low. People are on stage looking like they're 12 and 14 weeks out, and it's like, man. Come on. If I was your coach, ain't no way in hell I would let you step on stage. Looking like that. I told her the same thing. If you come back, and you don't look like you're ready, you ain't doing this show. Cause you ain't about to get up there and embarrass yourself looking like all these other people. But she's a hard worker. I know she'll be ready. She basically poa's herself through her first prep, then won that show. She's more than capable of doing it. Well, that's pretty much what we got going on. Like I said, it's kind of a lot, not really a lot. Nothing crazy.

New Gym Competition And Recovery Toys

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Oh, we switched gyms. I guess that's something else. We were at fitness connection, which is a freaking clown show. And then we moved over, they opened up an EOS. Literally closer than fitness connection. And that gym is nice. And they have this freaking leaderboard system. And they have these mother freaking machines that test your maximal strength on them. And if you obviously get high enough, you can make it to the leaderboard. Bro, there's some mother freaking freaks of mother freaking nature in that gym, bro. One of these dudes have 498 on shoulder press, bro. I was like, my god, how the freak did you get that? That's some crazy people, and there's way more fit people. Out of the three years that we went to fitness connection, I can count on my hands and the amount of fit people I see on both hands. EOS? There's a lot more fit people in that gym. Which is what I like. Because I can actually look around and find some competition, like 498. Mother freaking shoulder press guy. And like, oh yeah. I'm coming for you, bro. I don't care how how impossible the task may seem, it gives me something to work harder for. And my workouts have definitely been far more intense at EOS. I've been bro ever since I lead the board, and it's pissing me off that I can't top it. It has been pushing me to train a lot harder. And my wife is like, oh wow. This EOS has been good for you. Because she knows I've been slacking. Oh my god. So thankfully. We've been doing that. On the EOS. They have so many amenities in there. Red light, red light therapy sauna. They have a dry sauna. A c a Pryro. Cairo. Wow. I'm not sure if I need to say it that right either way. Pryro. Cairo. Holy crap. A cold room.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Gold Punch, jacuzzi, pool. A recovery room. And I got a lot.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

So it's a nice job. And it's and it's not even and it's not even packed. That's the crazy part about it. Because it's small enough in this connection. By a lot. I think it's half the size. And it's never packed in there. I know we go early. Which is when everybody's at work. So it feels good to be in there when it's not packed. Oh, they also have leaderboard systems on the mother freaking bikes. I be on that bike jump. Bust that motherfucker away. So yeah. All in all, it's been it's been a good couple of months. I'm pretty sure it's been a couple of months since the last time. That I hopped on here and said anything. Haven't had any jobs? Well, I like I said, I haven't taken any.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

I'm not trying to do a bunch of bullcrap.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

Outside of that, I don't really have anything else specifically to talk about. Other

No Sleep With The Dog Squad

SPEAKER_02 19:52

than the fact that I'm tired. Bro, my she is gone. I cannot sleep. And then I had Brookie, one of the rover dogs. Little puppy. She's like two months old. And then we had a then I had another rover dog. Saffron, probably Big Bertha. And of course, Kratos, and Hella. And oh my gosh, dude. Between all four of them parking at each other and moving around in their cages the night before. I could not sleep, dude. I was like, oh, I need I need y'all to stop, please. But thankfully Brookie got pok she got picked up today. And then or yesterday. And then I have a big birthday until the 27th. And she is a barker. She has the birth to bark. I can't remember the breed, but she literally just barks. I don't know where she'll just start barking. So my sleep for my last three days has been abysmal. And now I gotta work. Well I'm on the way obviously on the way to work right now. I'll get off till 6. So not only will I have been up for 24 hours, but I have gotten crappy sleep. So we'll see how that goes. I was like,

Funding The Stand And Staying On Plan

SPEAKER_02 21:59

this gonna be money for. The farm stand.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Because for the farm stand, I also have to get a mini fridge so I can put a cheesecake in.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

As many jobs that pop up that I want to do, I'm taking them because I'm gonna get this extra money for this farm stand to make sure I get it the way I want it. Because I know once I start getting to this woodworking and learn how to do it, I know myself. I know I'm gonna buy some tools to start cutting up the wood to make it to customize it to how I want it, it's gonna get out of control. Preparing for it now. Make sure I rate myself in. You better watch out for I'll follow the freak out. Oh my god, that's funny. I'm definitely not as bad as I used to be, man. I'll tell you, back in the day, and my back in the day, I'd be 2017 to 2019 when I was PSD. Oh my freaking guy. You would think I would have infinite amount of money the way I was falling out. Falling out of control. I had a problem. Man, I wish I knew how much money I spent on mother freaking phone games. Dude. I spent so much money on phone games that it's not even funny. Like thousands of dollars worth of phone games. I was bro, I had a problem. Quite literally had a mother freaking problem. And what's crazy? I have I used to have multiple games on my phone. Like three or four games on my phone, I was spit of money on Wall of Now. This new Digimon game just came out. And I thought I'll try it, it's not like Digimon. And it's a it's an idle game. So I don't have to be on it. But I haven't bought anything. Usually, you know they have like a little introduction pack for a dollar 99 or 99 cents to get like a boost. Haven't bought it, haven't bought nothing, haven't spent any money on the game. And then I've been cutting back upon the spontaneous purchases at the gas station. That I would normally do. One because I'm on a diet. On my keto meal plan. And when I'm on my when I'm on a meal plan. Like I take it serious. Because I wanna see that the I wanna see the changes as fast as possible. And so I haven't spent any extra money and I've been trying to save up money for specifically the bakery, so I can make sure I get it the way I want it. And

Saving For Pro Shows And Travel

SPEAKER_02 25:39

saving up for a potential road travel for her pro car. That's either gonna be in Florida or Virginia. Because I have no doubt that she's gonna win. And if she wins, her show's in October. July oh yes, now it's in September. It's in September, and if she wins that show, she wants to go to a pro show. And there's one in October. And there's one in November. So she's trying to go straight for her pro card. And if that's the case, then I wanna make sure we have some extra cash.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

So if we do go on a road trip, we got some spending money. Because it the one is in Virginia and the other one's in Florida.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

Both of those are a mother freaking drive if we do drive. But I don't know how she would do on a road trip be depleted and in stage-ready condition. Especially with driving. She's gonna be exhausted. So we might have to fly. And for that, we're gonna need tickets. And we're gonna have to find somebody to watch the dogs. A lot of money goes into that. Which is why save money. Outside of that. Nothing else. I don't think anything else is in my movement.

unknown 27:42

I think. Well.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

I don't have anything oh.

Coaching A New Client Through Basics

SPEAKER_02 27:56

I do. Sign up a new client. He's from her unit. He's real chill, dude. We just did we just went over his blood work with him. I just went over his blood work with him. Gave him the rundown on everything. You know he just right now he's just in the beginning. He got his supplements in today. I'll get his meal played out to him tomorrow. He'll start to flush. And that's when the real fun begins. But he's ready and eager. Very compliant, you know, military mindset, which is why I love work with the military members. Me being a veteran, understanding how the military works, give us a mission, which is execute. And I'm looking forward to seeing his progress. And hopefully I can change his life. That has been an exciting thing to watch. And it's funny because he found me. He didn't find me. He knew about me because of her. And he saw a couple of my reels that I have put out. About people making excuses about not having enough time. And the one reel that he really got him motivated was what I made about me getting breakfast. How I showed myself reaching into my pantry to grab a banana and protein bar. And it I typed it and it took six seconds.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

And people said they don't have time to eat breakfast. And that's the one that resonated with him the most because he's he was like, Yeah, I've been making excuses.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

And ever since I saw your videos, started eating a little bit better. No, started making sure I don't miss breakfast. And that's hearing that is what keeps me going. Because there's a bunch of times where I just want to delete my entire social media row. But I just don't I can't do it. But then people message me stuff like that, and I'm like, well, I'm helping people, so I can't do it. I can't delete it. If I help one person, that's all it takes for me to keep it going. Because now I feel like I can't give up on. I can't just quit because if I'm helping you, I I don't know if anybody else is. So if I give up on you, I'm gonna feel like a freaking piece of crap. I'll keep it going. And lately I've been far more active on TikTok. And

Why TikTok Keeps Me Posting

SPEAKER_02 30:44

I'm more military focused on TikTok. Because there's a lot of new Gen Z military members. You know they need they need guidance as well. But Instagram is kind of wishy-washy because there's a lot of old disgruntled military members on Instagram. And I don't really give much traction with the military content. Because just the style of content that you need on Instagram, people still bite the short form 7 second videos that do all the flashy keep your attention stuff. You know TikTok, uh I'm just more afraid to talk. And just be natural instead of having highly peditive blue crap. I prefer TikTok over Instagram any day. Which is why I've been far more active on TikTok lately. Like I said, head on over there. Give me a follow. First name, last name on TikTok. And you wanna follow my my baking journey of me building my farm stand and going through the whole process of everything, then it's Valkyrie's ecstasy for my TikTok. Just Google Valkyrie's ecstasy and my Instagram handle will come up. Then just put that same same thing in the TikTok, but if not underscore bakery. For my TikTok bakery page.

Posting Schedule And Final Ask

SPEAKER_02 32:40

And that'll about do it for today. Uh hope you guys enjoyed this update. I will definitely be posting this tomorrow because I've been very, very bad with not posting my episodes in a timely manner. You guys know this. And I'm gonna get better at that. Tomorrow, this will be posted. And then Thursday I'll have another one. Depending on how this voice recorder sounds, I may have to get a new mic, but that's not a priority right now. Hopefully, this quality isn't too bad. We just ran through the software, then you can you guys can hear me because I know when I run it through the software from the mic, you can't even tell that I'm driving. And it probably doesn't even like you guys probably would never expect it that I was actually driving without doing these, but I am actually driving. I know I say it in the beginning, but I'm actually driving. But you can't hear anything, so it doesn't sound like I'm driving. Regardless, I hope that the quality is good enough to where I don't have to pay another 100 bucks to get a mic right now. And with that, hope you guys enjoyed this episode. If you did, don't forget to like, comment, and share. And leave that five star review. And until next time, see ya!