We’re looking forward to introducing you to Genelle Hitchman. Check out our conversation below.
Genelle, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What is a normal day like for you right now?
One of the things I love best about my life right now is that there is NO NORMAL.
My daily process is dictated by the variety of tasks that need to be accomplished for the many different aspects of my business.
My workweek is cyclical – Monday and Tuesday are my ‘weekend’ – for rest, home tasks and chores. Wednesday is a roast-day. Thursday is Sourdough day & grocery shopping. Friday is market prep. Saturday is market. Sunday is a ‘trail stop’ for our food-truck-wagon or on the first Sunday of the month it is ‘open house’ at the homestead.
If we’re headed to the farmers market – I’m up at 4:30 or 5am, brewing coffee for the masses and baking fresh muffins – spending the next eight hours serving up customers and answering questions about coffee origins. Coordinating the ‘ice ballet’ to keep drinks cooled without running out! The afternoon is unloading, cleaning and stocking the farmstand Then a late lunch of market-breakfast leftovers and a nap.
If we’ve got a build going – its a 6am wakeup – to get shop tasks done before the Texas heat kicks in. These are my favorite days because I get to spend the day in the workshop with my husband. Being a second set of hands and eyes, giving input on design and learning.
Delivery days on-the-road are a 6am wakeup – 12 hours of travel for two of three days. Deliver & setup with the client. Then a day of exploring whatever corner of the country we travelled to. Then back on the road home for 12 hours at a go.
I guess you could say that a ‘normal’ day – starts with a pot of coffee, and ends with a sweet tea.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
At Hitchman Homestead – we like to say we are practitioners of the Pioneer Arts.
Build it – Bake it – Grow it- Make it. If the pioneers had to do it in the 180o’s – you’ll likely find it being done, in some form – on our homestead.
Primarily, the ‘day job’ is that we build covered wagons. Yes, really. These are not antique wagons restored for roadside or museum display – they are new builds, with updated features that allow them to be used in all sorts of practical – decidedly modern – ways.
In addition to our wagon creation – we roast coffee. Sell bakery treats and garden produce. Raise chickens. Run our Covered-wagon food truck. I sew. Todd sharpens knives. We participate in our local farmer’s market.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What’s a moment that really shaped how you see the world?
In my early 20’s, I was two years and one and half kids into a challenging marriage. We found ourselves unable to afford traditional housing – and my husband at the time inherited a 100 year old one-room-schoolhouse in Middle of nowhere Kansas.
The schoolhouse was located on a dot of land in the country with no water, and no plumbing. There was an outhouse bathroom. Kitchen water came from portable water jugs filled at the town gas station – and drained straight out the wall into a flowerbed below.
We got the bright idea that we were going to make this schoolhouse into our family home. We had an 18 month old and I was three months pregnant.
The next six months consisted of learning how to live and ‘make do’ with no money, minimal electricity and no plumbing.
Neither my husband or myself had (at the time) ANY construction or ‘pioneer’ skills.
At some point during this period – I happened across a book called ‘the Humanure Handbook’. In short – it was a “how to” manual on using composted human waste to grow food.
Yeah. “ICK”. But to a 21 year old, having to cope with an outhouse and limited resources – the ideas in the book were eye opening. It wasn’t about ‘pooping in a bucket’ – it was about innovation, problem solving and realizing that there are a multitude of ways to accomplish ones ends. In particular – using traditional (forgotten) skills from before ‘there’s an app for that’.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Living in CA, working unsustainable 12 hour days, living an unsustainable lifestyle, trying to raise our 7 kids on a tiny lot in the middle of the city….my husband came home one evening and said ‘he’d had enough’. Enough with 4 hour commutes. Enough with ‘living to work’. Too exhausted on the weekends to do anything other than the bare minimum to keep the household running. Enough with not being able to enjoy our kids while they were young, or participate in their school or activities.
We’d married and had a brief honeymoon a year earlier. The ‘let down’ crash of coming home from a vacation and ‘having to go back to work’ (that we hated) was an eye opener.
Did we REALLY want to do this for another 30 to 40 years?
So we DID give up.
I resigned from my position as a manager at an auto body shop (and helped the owner sell the business). My husband closed out his current building project and shuttered his business. We sold our house.
We moved our family to the Texas Hill Country and committed to take a ‘gap year’.
The change of scene, culture and breathing room allowed us to have an honest conversation about what we really wanted out of life.
What do you want to do? Me: “I want to raise chickens….what do you want to do?” Him: “i want to make art”.
Shortly thereafter – the ‘cluck wagon’ came to be – and launched our new business and our new life.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What do you believe is true but cannot prove?
Matthew 6:26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
God / the Universe will take care of your needs.
I’ve been a believer my entire adult life. I have found that whenever I am in need – if I can be patient, wait quietly and be open to an answer / direction – it will present itself.
The things that I have ‘forced’ or done hastily because “something needs to be done” are the things that don’t quite work out.
Things that I wait for clarity and direction on – are the things that turn out better than I could have imagined.
Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. Could you give everything your best, even if no one ever praised you for it?
Ecc 9:10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might;
You bet! The value in work is the process and the product – not praise.
There is really not much reward in praise. Its a moment of ‘yay, i made whoever happy’ and/or its a foundation for selfish pride to take hold. This is not healthy.
From a young age I have been taught (and found to be true) that you do YOUR OWN best, because you can.
We have all been given different talents/abilities. These are Gifts from God. Using them to the utmost of ones ability is the best way to make use of – and be thankful for – those gifts.
Also – praise is not the measure of how good you ‘did a thing’. You can excel completely without any praise, and you can be praised for unworthy work. I have found myself in both scenarios in my life.
By divorcing the value of my (hard) work from subjective praise – I am able to better appreciate the outcome of whatever I was ‘finding to do with my hands’.
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