Monday Muse -- II

This is the poem that is inspiration for this week's Monday Muse:

The Country Store

Far our beyond the city's lights, away from din and roar,
The cricket chirps of summer nights beneath the country store;
The drygoods boxes ricked about afford a welcome seat
For weary tillers of the ground, who here on evenings meet.

A swinging sign of ancient make, and one above the door,
Proclaim that William Henry Blake is owner of the store;
Here everything from jam to tweed, from silks to ginghams bright,
Is spread before the folk who need from early morn till night.

Tea, sugar, coffee (browned or green), molasses, grindstones, tar,
Suspenders, peanuts, navy beans, and homemade vinegar,

Fine combs, wash ringers, rakes, false hair, paints, rice, and looking glasses,
Side saddles, hominy, crockery ware, and seeds for garden grasses.
Lawn mowers, candies, books to read, corn planter, household goods,
Tobacco, salt, and clover seed, horsewhips and knitted hoods,
Canned goods, shoe blacking, lime and nails, straw hats and carpet slippers,
Prunes, buttons, codfish, bridal veils, cranberries, clocks and clippers

Umbrellas, candles, scythes and hats, caps, boots and shoes and bacon,
Thread, nutmegs, pins and Rough on Rats, for cash or produce taken,
Birdseed, face powder, matches, files, ink, onions and many more,
Are found in heaps and stacks and piles within the country store.

--Author Unknown



Growing up, I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little House on the Prairie" books and the TV series, too. This poem reminds me so much of the Olsen's general store. This is where the townfolk went for every day needs, traveling to the larger city only a few times a year perhaps.

I suspect that everyone has known a store like Olsen's or the one in the poem at one time or another. For me, it was O.W. Houts & Son, referred to by those who knew it simply as "Houts", located in State College, Pennsylvania, where I lived while I went to graduate school. This little grocery stocked local produce in the summer, had the best coffee (a blend I swore by called Scandinavian), wonderful fresh meats (cut to order, if you so chose), and little gourmet treasures for the creative cook! The attached store was like an old fashioned mercantile, a veritable treasure trove of the unusual and hard-to-find!

Sad to say, Houts is now closed. I suspect its' demise was linked to the arrival of the Wegmans grocery store chain and others to the area. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Wegmans and make a beeline for it when I go back home to Pennsylvania for a visit. Although I don't get back to State College that often, I was devastated to hear the news. Why couldn't they coexist? It had a very loyal following, or so I thought. Tragic to lose this little gem!

How many other little gems like this have been lost? I think shops like this harken back to a time when communities depended upon themselves and were self-contained. I am very heartened, though, that the slow foods movement seems to be taking hold with the popularity of Barbara Kingsolver's book and others like it. It's wonderful that people are trying to be more frugal and self-sufficient in other aspects of their lives as well. I am all for a resurgence of this type of lifestyle.

I live on a small island five miles offshore, connected to the coast by a causeway and a series of bridges. It is 13 miles to the highway and "civilization", so to speak. However, the mainland is still very rural and has only just begun to be touched by "development" as many areas know it. The nearest "urban sprawl" is an hour away -- and I like it that way.

On our little island, though, we have our own little community of merchants that I try to support on a daily basis. We have a few book stores, a great wine & cheese shop (Hi, Kathy!), a pharmacy, a hardware store, several fishmongers, and so on. Even though I have my own vegetable garden, I am a weekly visitor to our small, but loyal, farmers' market. I can buy fresh Chincoteague oysters from my next door neighbor, who is a waterman. Our little island grocery store is lacking in some areas (like its produce), but this is where I buy most of my meats.

The constraint of geography has made me a more local consumer and I am glad for it. For those of you who live in more urban areas, my message with my Monday Muse is next time you are on your way to a large chain store, search out the little gems in your area instead. Support you local businesses, run by people like you and me who are trying to get through these tough times, too!

Why I Garden

Why do I garden? The answer is easy. I enjoy going out to my garden in the morning, picking what is ripe, and planning my meals around what is in season at the moment. When I moved to Virginia four years ago, one of the first things I did was fence off a portion of the yard in order to plant my vegetable garden. I was lucky in Pennsylvania to have a friend who had a garden. Given that gardeners seem to like to share their bounty, I enjoyed the fresh vegetables from her garden that she sent my way. After looking at the pitiful and often wilted selection of produce at the local market on the island, I knew what I wanted to do!

I already had a little herb garden here on the side of the house, but I knew nothing -- and I mean NOTHING -- about vegetable gardening. I thought of myself primarily as a flower gardener at that point. But, I knew what I liked to eat and that was a start. One huge pile of donkey manure later (a very unattractive feature in my front yard for a few weeks), hauled load by painstaking load to the plot (in the FAR corner of my rather large back yard, I might add!), and I was ready to plant. A book called "The Vegetable Gardener's Bible" by Edward C. Smith truly became my bible that first year. It still is my best reference and one I recommend to anyone, whether they are a novice or a veteran gardener. From these pages, I learned what to plant and when. Most importantly, I learned about the idea of companion planting -- basically, what vegetables were friends and should be planted together, and which need some degree of separation to be more successful.

So, I bought some young plants and seeds, got my hands dirty, and guess what? My garden, if I must say so, was quite impressive for someone who was learning literally by doing. I remember bringing some of the very first vegetables over as a gift to my parents in my great-grandfather's basket (more about that in a later post), artfully arranged within. They were so pleased to see that I was using the basket and also to have the fresh food to eat (FYI: They got to keep the food, but not the basket!!). Nonetheless, one of the most satisfying aspects of gardening for me is sharing my harvest with others!

I suppose the intention of this post is to convey that you don't have to be an expert to start your garden. You don't even have to plant a large plot. Many vegetables do well in pots, if that's all you can do or have the space for. So, just do it! There is a big push now to eat local food. You can't get any more local than your own yard! I can guarantee that once you get the taste of your own vegetables, you will be hooked!