I found myself, one rough winter not so long ago, whittling away a great deal of days in the Berliner Staatsbibliothek on Potsdamer Strasse researching the emergence of scientific forestry and the seeds of romantic naturalism in Albrecht Altdorfer’s early 16th century landscape paintings.

One day in the middle of March when the sun came out to shine, the winter broke, and the Mauerpark began to look like a garden of earthy delights, I rode the bike down from Wedding to the Babylon Theatre on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. Die Himmel über Berlin was on, and I wept uncontrollably as I watched Wim Wenders’ guardian angels in their favorite haunt, giving and taking solace in their humans’ earnest search for respite and meaning in that same library’s stacks and carrels.

My own solace amidst the bleary rainswept days spent in the library’s water-park expanse I would find in the lobby––in the air around my locker where I kept my wet raincoat and backpack. Coming around the corner I’d walk right into a stinking cloud of bread emanating from behind the locker door, a loaf or raisin bun tucked away in my backpack inside.

The locker opens like the door to a concert hall when you have arrived too late.

Lunch at last.

——

This year, we changed our name. We’re doing things a little differently too: we’re milling grain now, and opening a bakery. The summers at the lookout tower have come to a close. I looked at the moon on the drive home last night and thought about the endless blessing we must find in being able to start new things––and the interminable curse of never truly being able to finish what we have started. The moon began once, and it sure is a long way from being over.

The baking begins on Saturday November 15th. 11am - 3pm. Location to be announced. I don’t want to be coy about it; there is a slender chance we’ll be set up for you in the new bakery space. More likely it seems we’ll have a few last bread tables out at the lot on Old Las Vegas Highway.

Bread twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, is the plan until we cross our t’s and dot the i’s in the new space.

We’ll have 1 kg bags of freshly milled flour on the table now too: Wrens Abruzzi and Ryman rye from the San Luis Valley in Colorado. White Sonoran and Skagit wheat is on the way from the lower Gila region in Arizona. And a special house blend of wholewheat flours we call the “bread trinity,” we’ve milled for strength, suppleness, and warm spiced grain flavors for any bread you can dream of baking at home.