Our Story

We all have a story. The following is ours. We hope that you enjoy it as much as we enjoy sharing it with you. After you’ve had a chance to get to know us, we’d love to hear your story as well.

Our story begins soon after Wally’s retirement from a local grain milling operation in Hillsdale, Michigan and the fortuitous breaking of Anna’s wooden spoon used for the making her legendary, at least with family and friends, homemade breads. This spoon wasn’t just any spoon, it was her favorite and had been her companion for about as long as Wally had been her companion. After several days of constant reminding that there would be no more bread without a replacement spoon, Wally headed out to the wood pile, chose a particularly good looking cherry log and split off a slab of “wooden clay”.

He then headed to his humble workshop and with Anna’s broken spoon, limited wood carving tools, but a tremendous desire for homemade bread, he began to shape that cherry slab into a mighty stirring instrument!

At first Anna wasn’t very impressed with his initial efforts, nothing was really going to replace her favorite spoon. After several trips between the kitchen and workshop to make the many adjustments required to shape, balance and smooth the spoon, Anna finally proclaimed that all was well and the task was complete. Wally was pleased to have finished this task and once again enjoyed the oven-baked rewards that resulted from his labor.

However, that is only the beginning of the story. Once the bread started coming from Anna’s kitchen again, she began to share the story about her incredible replacement spoon . This lead to requests for a spoon of their own from those that heard the story of Wally’s new skills. Soon after, we attended a local craft show exposing these beautiful spoons to many new friends and customers.

From the original four models, there were requests for many new shapes and sizes as well as other helpful gadgets made from cherry wood for their kitchens.

Since our first show in summer of 1999, we have added over 100 unique cherry wood kitchen products, from spoons to spatulas, tongs, cutting boards, and much, much more.

Currently, we are available to serve you in a variety of ways—the 12-14 annual shows, events and festivals where we take our products on the road, or on the web where “most” of our products are pictured, along with a convenient downloadable order form and in 2001 we opened our showroom to feature all of our kitchen products along with some miscellaneous items including hall trees, music stands and stools. Wally’s always ready to consider a special request!

Please note that we hand-produce all of our products from native Michigan cherry wood that has been claimed from mature trees that were either downed during storms or that were selected for strategic harvesting. We believe in the sustainable stewardship of these beautiful trees that provide us with our base stock. It’s our sincere hope that you enjoy using and gifting our products as much as we enjoy making them for you, your family and your friends. We look forward to meeting you at our showroom or on the road throughout the Midwest .

God Bless,

Wally and Anna