I had plans for spending most of Saturday outside working, but we decided to go shopping instead. I know that doesn't sound like a very good use of my time, but it actually turned out to be a very productive day. Andrea had already decided to to to Richmond or Lexington because she needed to buy some fabric to finish up a quilt she is making someone for Christmas. There were a also couple of places I had been wanting to go in Lancaster, then Friday evening I discovered, via a post on Permies, a farm in Lancaster that I also wanted to visit. I figured it was better to skip a day of working in order to go with her and combine several things into one trip.
Our first stop was the Wonder of Life Farm in Lancaster. A few months ago we had visited the farm for a tour, which I described in Our Visit to Wonder of Life Farm. I had bought a pair of alpaca fiber socks when I was there, and had been wanting to pick up a few more. Through the month of December they have a fantastic deal on their alpaca fiber "footies", so we decided to pick some up. We bought 6 pair, 3 for each of us, for the cost of what 2 pair normally would have cost. I also picked up a pair of gloves, which I thought would make a good pair of driving gloves to keep in the car. We chatted with Maria a bit while there, but didn't stay long because she was preparing for a fair in Berea later in the day.
After leaving the farm we stopped at Napier Brothers Clothing, which seems to have one of the best selections of Carhartt products in the area. I wasn't really needing to buy anything, as I had recently picked up a Carhartt coat at another store, but still wanting to look around. They have a great selection, and the prices really aren't bad. I considered trying on a pair of insulated coveralls, but decided to wait since I'm hoping to lose some weight. I'm sure that we'll be going back in the future.
After Napier Brothers we drove out to the Marksbury Farm Store to get some lunch. I was really looking forward to one of their beer cheese burgers, but unfortunately they weren't serving lunch. We looked around the store, but didn't buy anything. We did, however, notice that Pike Valley Farm, which is the farm we were planning to visit next, is one of their suppliers. After driving back into Lancaster to grab lunch somewhere else, we then headed towards Pike Valley.
Pike Valley Farm sells a wide variety of organically produced products. They offer beef, poultry, pork, eggs, fruits/vegetables, and even herd shares for raw milk. We picked up 10lbs of grass fed ground beef, a beef heart (for Luke and Jack to split), and a dozen eggs. We had also hoped to buy some chicken breast, but they were out of stock. Luckily, though, we were able to pick up a pack at the Good Foods Market. If we lived closer, we would seriously consider purchasing a herd share in order to get raw milk. We can't, however, justify a weekly drive of an hour and a half, each way, to pick up the milk. The time investment and wasted fuel just isn't worth it.
Next we drove on into Lexington, where we made a quick stop at Good Foods. Next week is the quarterly Owner Discount Days, so we'll be going back then, but we needed to pick up some chicken. As mentioned before, we bought a pack of Pike Valley Farm chicken. It was the same price as what we normally buy there. If we like the chicken, we'll likely switch since Pike Valley is local and we like their policies. While at Good Foods we also talked to them about buy rice in bulk. Right now we buy it from their bulk food bins, which is fine for fairly small amounts, but that really isn't enough to last us 3 months. They do offer special orders of 25lb bags, but we missed the cut off for being able to pick up next week. We'll definitely put in an order for the next time we're going, though, especially since they off a discount on special orders.
Our final stop in Lexington was at the fabric store, where Andrea found what she needed to finish up the quilt she's making. We then had a light dinner and headed home, or so we thought. On the drive we decided to stop off in Richmond, to check prices at the home improvement store on some PVC pipe that Andrea needs for a project she's planning. We then decided to stop at the Re-Store in Berea to see if they had any, and check their prices. At $0.25 per foot, their prices were nearly a quarter of what it was going to cost to buy new. we picked up a few pieces, although will definitely need to pick up more before Spring, which is when she'll be doing the project. Don't worry, I'll do a post about it, so readers aren't left in the dark until then.
By the time we got home it was nearly dark. We unloaded the car, then relaxed most of the rest of the evening. It was a fairly tiring, but very productive day. We came home with some new products to try, and a lot of good information.
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