Our Little General Store

The town north of my house has a couple thousand people.  The town south of my house has a few hundred.  While we have basically everything we need around here, I still go to the bigger "city" for medical purposes and some other shopping.  

Anyway, last week my cousin informed me that a new shop had opened up.  Not just any shop.  She sent me a photo, and while I don't think Laura and Mary had a huge lineup of sprinkles in their general store, my first though was Little House on the Prairie.  And, I was in love! 

So, I grabbed my mom, my Chicago-living sister (who was in town) and my nephew, and off we went to find this gem.

Here is what is so neat...it's out in the middle of nowhere.  Not in either of the two surrounding communities, but over seven miles from the smaller one.  What I love most about this little place is the idea of it all...buying staples in bulk, seeing a row of candy jars, having the opportunity to purchase homemade pie fillings, vanilla, honey and treats that aren't in your mainstream grocery stores.

Just take a look...

Look at the bulk jello!

My cousin's sweet girl trying to decide what she wanted to take home...

So, I left the store basically wanting to make maple syrup (kind of), get some chickens, and hitch up a wagon.  Really though, there is so much of that time period that I envy from a distance.  While this little store has candy that I could get most places and flour that isn't any different than the flour at Target, there was just something about buying it here.  Some nostalgia, maybe.  The idea that we can get back to some of the ways of the past that maybe we never should have let go of...namely more simplicity, and less stuff.  I've got some major shifts in thinking to make, but I need it.

And, this little general store, surrounded by a tight-knit farming community served as that reminder yesterday.  How neat would it be if our children got as excited over one piece of candy at Christmas as Laura and Mary did?  How rewarding would it be to teach our children to really savor things? How good would it feel to know that if something happened to the world around us, we could be self-sufficient in order to survive?

That's a lot to take from a little general store, but I like it!