Anacortes and Fidalgo, Thursday afternoons.

Who buys flour out there

A bakery on Commercial Avenue takes the largest share, mostly Edison whole with rye on the side for a caraway loaf they have made every week for longer than we have been milling. Two restaurants near the ferry terminal buy rye and Edison for their own bread service, which is a small weight of flour but a standing order that has not changed in four years.

An inn on the west side of the island bakes its own breakfast bread and takes two twenty-five pound bags a fortnight. And there is a loose group of home bakers who meet the truck at a fixed spot on Thursday afternoons and take five-pound bags, which started as a favour to one person and is now eight or nine people and genuinely the nicest half hour of the week.

How the run works

This one goes out after the mill store opens, so the truck leaves around 12:15 and drops between 12:30 and 4:00. Being short and late in the day, it is the flexible route: minimum is fifty pounds rather than a hundred, and if you call before Wednesday noon we can almost always add you or add to you.

We run Thursday on purpose. Friday and Saturday in summer, Highway 20 backs up badly with the San Juans ferry queue, and a truck that should take thirty-five minutes each way can lose an hour and a half sitting still. Thursday it moves.

Collection is easy from out here too, since the mill is on the way to Mount Vernon anyway. Several island accounts collect their own flour on a Thursday morning when they are coming to town regardless, which saves everybody a stop.

Worth knowing

In season we also drop at the Saturday farmers market booth in Anacortes, but that is our own booth rather than a delivery. If you want to look at flour before you buy a sack of it, that is the easiest place to find us outside the store.

The other two runs

• Bellingham, Tuesdays
• Seattle & Ballard, Wednesdays