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Subscribe I stopped in at the little store in town today. It used to have five aisles, but recently they reorganized to bring the feed, seed, and hardware into the main grocery building, and somehow they managed to squish it all together and make it work with aisles of plumbing pipes and nails and chains and chickens feeders next to flour, sugar, and canning jars. I’m not sure how many aisles there are now, but there are a lot–and in the same space. And they still have the deli and fast food kitchen at the back with little tables to sit and shoot the breeze or wait for your hamburger.
Now that I’m farming on my own, I’m in the store more often, usually once a week. I’m the one picking up the feed or whatever else is needed. It’s a full-service little store. You can rent movies, get a hot pizza to order, pick up your milk and bread, find any hardware items you need, get your feed and seed or a bale of straw, and even check your deer if you have one–all in one place. It’s the only store for miles and miles around, and it does it all. In the spring, you can get chicks and bunnies, too.
It’s the kind of place where everybody knows your name, but at first they were surprised when I started coming in to buy the feed because I hadn’t been doing that before. I have to work with them sometimes to get them to understand what I want. Or maybe they have to work with me. I went in there to get some chicken feed the first time and we had a long conversation before I decided which kind to get, trying to figure out what kind I usually got. I didn’t realize they had so many different kinds of everything. I’m still trying to figure out the right dog food. I went in there the other day and asked for a copper block. They were calling back and forth across the store, the clerk and Eddie who carries things from the back out to your car. “She wants a copper block!” “She wants a salt block?” “No, a copper block!” “We don’t have a copper block!” “She says she wants a copper block!” “DOES SHE MEAN A MINERAL BLOCK?”
Well, okay, call it that if you want since that’s what it’s called. I’m figuring out the right words for stuff.
Every time I’m in there lately, I gravitate to the hardware aisles. Not to buy anything, though sometimes I’m tempted. I just walk slowly up and down the aisles and look at everything. I stop and pick stuff up. Read the names of things on the packages, and think, so that’s what a whatzahoozit is. I’m fascinated by all the strange objects and tools and pieces and parts. I want to make stuff and fix stuff. For now, I just look at stuff, let it seep into my brain and tell myself I could use this, I could do something with that, it can’t be more complicated than knitting needles.
In the whole time I lived at Stringtown Rising, I never bought myself any work gloves. I wore the same pair of red gloves I’ve had for a long time. I got them to go with a hat and coat I have. I bought them in the women’s department of a chain store. They’re made of some kind of stretchy velour material with some leather padding on the inside of the palm and fingers. They get wet, and they aren’t all that warm.
The little store had a rack of work gloves at the front of one of the hardware aisles. I picked up a pair of insulated leather work gloves and put them on. I walked up and down the aisles looking at whatzahoozits and thinking about how I didn’t have any work gloves. Every once in a while, I’d put them on, then take them off again, then put them on again, wondering why I’d never bought myself any real work gloves before.
Then after I finished looking at all the whatzahoozits for the day, I walked up to the counter with the gloves and bought them.
I think I never took myself seriously at this farming thing before.
But now I do.
And next time I’m at the little store, I’m going to get a pair for Morgan, too.
Posted by Suzanne McMinn on January 12, 2012
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gloves and your make-up!
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It always does. And he’s the only person I let call me Sweetie, it’s just not offensive when he uses it! I’d take a one of those over a dozen Walmarts!
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And don’t be intimidated by the store guys…they need something to do, make them feel good by letting them help you!
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You said “You can … even check your deer if you have one–all in one place. ”
What does it mean to check your deer?
Julia
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It’s great that you want to make stuff and fix stuff….I know you’re smart enough. You won’t need no man, maybe except for the really heavy duty stuff!
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When we lived in the desert, at first the local drug store also sold clothes and lumber, but enough clothing shops opened, and they stopped that, and then a big hardware store opened, and the drug/everything store folded.
I love the sound of your store and I think your gloves are great!
What did Morgan say or has she seen them?
Judi
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Suzanne, you impress me more and more all the time. I love seeing a woman become strong and independent. Did you ever think when you moved to WV that you would be stretching and growing like this?
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I ALWAYS LOVED TO GET OFF THE BEATEN PATH AND TRY OUT A LOCAL EATERY AND SPEND TIME IN THEIR HARDWARE STORE. I STOPPED AT A HUNTER’S LODGE
IN THE TOP OF MAINE. WHAT AN EXPERIENCE. THEY HAD BEAUTIFUL BRAIDED RUGS ON THE BED SIDE AND YOU FLUSHED BY PULLING A CHAIN. THE NEXT MORNING BREAKFAST WAS SOOOOO GOOD. VACATION SHOULD START THE MOMENT YOU CLOSE YOUR FRONT DOOR. DON’T BE AFRAID OF SEEING THE UNKNOWN.
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I have a love/hate relationship with gloves. I have them to do various things, but end up never wearing ‘em. As a result, I don’t have the smoothest, softest hands, and during gardening season, the lily-whitest of hands either. Something about getting your hands dirty…it doesn’t feel like work unless the hands are dirty!
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What I hated way back when was the local feed store. There would always be 3-4 old men sitting in chairs and when I would walk in,all talking would stop and they would stare at me until I left. I soon found that I knew more about the feed I wanted mixed than the owner and he finally admitted that to me! Made me feel a little smug! Eventually it will all become easy for you….and them. I still need advice now and then on various hardware things. My sweet husband isn’t much of a handyman!
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We have a farm store called Tractor Supply. I love going in there sometimes. I dont farm but live in the country its a handy place to find odd things you cant find at Lowes or Walmart. I like to walk around to see what they have sometimes too.
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But, the very best is our local hardware, Grimble’s. The place has existed since time out of mind. Yes, it has wooden floors! Yes, it has the guy that disappears down that ladder and magically appears with the part you want. Plus advice for how it really won’t work for what you want it for. And it has corks for bottles in all sizes, canning jars, mixing bowls, toy trains at Christmas (right in the store front window). If Hogsmeade had a hardware store, this would be it.
Best of all, it has lye, real lye for soap making. I asked for it and instead of the blank looks I got from the lovely people at the chain hardwares, Magic Guy whipped it off a shelf in seconds. Their
motto is “Grimble’s has got it! and I must say I believe them.
The only downsides are, there are no misogynist men around the woodstove. I’m sure there are misogynist men there, there is just no woodstove. And it is so small it is hard to just browse. You sort of need some reason to be there or they look at you really strangely. Especially if you are a woman in the plumbing section, All By Yourself!
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Oh great, Suzanne, not only do I have farm, barn, land and animal envy now I have to add glove envy, too. Thank God, I have kids. Although a Navy guy, a scholarship student and an athletic farm-hearted girl…Oh, I am so going to
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I love the way a hardware store smells! Especially when spring is coming, and they’ve got all that soil and peat moss in stock, and tomato plants started…
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I think I never took myself seriously at this farming thing before.”
I am so glad you’ve reached this point! Just plain all-around COMPETENCE at a wide variety of things (many of them so-called “man chores”)is one of the things I value most about myself. You can already do so many great things–but I’m happy to see you developing new comfort zones. Congrats!
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I always go by the ayles with whatzahoozits, love to figure out what it is for, even though we do not live on a farm, we live in a village mainly surrounded by small agriculture, so we also have a little store to go along with this.
And again, we don’t have a farm, but when i walt through the store, looking at all they offer I can just imagine farming with them…. so I have a fantasy farm