Jen's Adventures and Creative Projects

Dear Friends, So this year, I made Christmas cards.  That’s right, I’ve wanted to do it since last Christmas when I failed to send out cards.  I didn’t finish.  And I just could not figure out what my inspiration would be this year for my letter. So here I am again, sending my letter at the last minute through Facebook.  There’s always next year - just you wait.  I’m going to start the process in July. Nevertheless, thanks to Facebook, I don’t really need to take the time to catch you up on my year too much.  Everything is fairly normal, (we’ll take normal, right?) and the bakery that I worked on for so long finally opened in June.  My sister, Crystal Lukens, owns the business and to no surprise, people are raving about her food.  I own, renovated and designed the building and basically branded it and said, “Go for it, sister.”  I still help with marketing, and if I have time when I’m in there and they’re busy, you might find me washing dishes, busing tables, etc.  Everything we

I've used wood from three regional barns in the bakery renovation:  Hunter Barn, Venable Barn and Fleming/Bogard Barn.  The vanities in the bathrooms are made from the Fleming/Bogard Barn.  Colleen Bogard of Carterville has been one of the best encouragers for the bakery and she was kind enough to write down the history of the barn.  Here it is... The Fleming/Bogard barn was originally built around 1900-1902 as a 30 x 40 foot mortise and tenon hay storage barn.  It was complete with ridge-trolley and pulley and sat on the homestead now referred to as 10699 Fleming Road.  It was one of a three-barn group - hay barn, drive-thru storage barn and a stock and horse barn.  Walter Fleming and his father, John Fleming acquired the property (in Carterville area) in 1941-42 when they were required to move from their family farms located on the present federal prison site as part of WW-II war effort.  The two Flemings found the farm with two houses and three barns a perfect solution for the