Blair couple sells sourdough, baked goods at farmers market

Published 2:23 pm Friday, September 4, 2026

Mike and Stephanie Long operate Morning Rise Artisan Bakery, a home-based business in Blair that sells sourdough bread, yeast breads and baked goods at the Blair farmers market. He bakes the breads; she makes muffins, cookies and candy. The business is not an LLC.

Long, who is retired from the Air Force, started baking between jobs. “I had done a lot of other jobs and things, and I was in between jobs and really trying to think what I wanted to do next,” he said. “So I started playing around with bread because I was just bored.”

He began with baguettes, then got a sourdough starter from another market vendor who sells goat milk soap. “As soon as I figured out the real easy way to feed your starter and keep it going, I needed gallon jars,” he said. “And next thing, I had two-gallon jars of it, and I’m baking all this bread, and I’m going, ‘I can’t even give it away fast enough.'”

He said he does not follow the more elaborate methods used by some bakers. “They’re temperaturing it every hour and whatever, checking how it’s doing on the inside,” he said. “Do you know that we brought this over in covered wagons with no refrigeration? It’s not that hard.”

Sourdough is the primary product. Long also bakes a honey wheat yeast bread with organic Nebraska wheat and trades with other vendors for ingredients. “If I can get some wheat and things from Nebraska, barter with my guys, so I’m getting eggs from the other one person, I’m getting honey from another one,” he said.

His previous wheat supplier, a local farmer, lost his crop to drought. Long has arranged to buy from a supplier near Valentine. 

The bakery also makes einkorn sourdough by special order. Einkorn is an ancient grain that has not been hybridized or genetically modified. Stephanie Long, a nurse, said it is lower in gluten and higher in protein than modern wheat, and that some customers who cannot eat gluten can eat it. She said her husband used about $300 worth of einkorn flour before producing a successful loaf. “We’re pretty particular with that one because it’s expensive,” Mike Long said. “It is hard to work with.”

He bakes three days a week and brought 30 loaves of sourdough to a recent market, where he “almost sold out completely.” The bread keeps three to four days at room temperature and about a week longer refrigerated. “If you’re really slow at eating the bread, slice it up, put parchment in it, freeze it,” he said. “Pull out what you need when you need it.”

Building a customer base took time.

Repeat customers developed within about two months of his first season, when the market was held at the American Legion. “They’d pull up right in front of my tent, stop, get out of their car, buy the bread, and go, ‘See you next week,'” he said.

The market’s current location on 10th Street has cut their traffic this year. “That one hurts,” Long said. Stephanie Long said it is one reason he has cut back on specialty items. The couple said they were speaking for their business and not for the farmers market.

Stephanie Long adds fudge, including peppermint and cherry, during the holidays. She also makes jewelry, which she sells from the couple’s home.

Text is the fastest way to reach the business. “I’m very fast at answering texts,” Long said. Customers may also call and leave a message; he screens calls because of spam. “If they leave a message, more than likely I’ll get back to them,” he said. The bakery also takes orders through its Facebook page.

Morning Rise Artisan Bakery: 402-661-4536 (call or text); MorningRiseArtisan@gmail.com.