It’s almost time! We re-open for the season on Monday, March 15th.  Our seeds and seed-starting supplies are available now for those of you who want to get a jump start on your garden this year.  And if you just need a shot of Spring, please stop in and see what’s growing in the greenhouses. 

If the snow has melted from your flower beds, I’ll bet there are crocuses and daffodils poking their little green stems throught the soil about now.  Go out and take a look! It always makes me feel hopeful about the season when I see them, don’t they do that for you? 

What a remarkable snowfall!  We have 18 inches and it is still coming down.  Bob has been out plowing the snow (playing in the snow?) all morning and we’re still buried!  No problems with the greenhouses so far, knock-on-wood.  Our staff is happy that we are closed and they don’t have to come to work today!

When you can get outside today, take a broom and gently knock the snow off your evergreens. A snow this wet and heavy can bend them down or even break them. 

Today is February 3rd.  And February 3rd marks the half way point between the beginning of winter and the beginning of spring.  As someone who aches to get out and dig in the dirt, I think that’s great news! We’re on the downward slope of the hill.

We are having our first meeting tomorrow to firm up our choices of what vegetables to grow for you this year.  We went to the Giant Eagle Marketplace again today, and all that luscious produce for sale there made me eager to get started growing my own. 

If you are just starting out growing veggies, we’re here to help.  We have all grown vegetables for many years and we are eager to share what we’ve learned with you!  Think of us as your personal gardening resource.

Well, we bought less at Christmas.  And we’ve tightened our belts to get through the costly heating season.  I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a little belt-loosening.  For me it will coincide with the return of Spring, when I can get some new perennials, plant some seeds in my vegetable garden,

and cut armloads of daffodils from the driveway borders for the kitchen table.

“The return of good times is not wholly a matter of money.  There is a prosperity of living which is quite as important as the pocketbook.” (…from the  October, 1932 issue of Ladies’ Home Journal.) Finding out what really matters.  Seeking the beauty in small things.  Enjoying life’s simple pleasures– feeling the wind on your face, tasting fresh vegetables warm from the sun, watching a cat groom herself as though that is all she has to do that day.

We’ll be seeding down flowers and vegetables soon.  (We’re as impatient for the smell of warm, moist soil as you are.) We can make it until Spring, and so can you! Hang in there!

The Holiday Season has come and gone.  The decade has come and gone.  (What do we call it, that decade between the 90’s and the 10’s or teens or whatever we will decide this one is called.  The “oughts”, as in “twenty-ought-nine?” Or the 0’s, as in …09?) Anyway, Gone.  With the winds of the economy, the winds of change, the winds of the weather.

We are closed for the winter.  We’ll be changing out displays, ordering product, redecorating and getting rejuvenated for the season to come.  If you need a gift or a garden remedy between now and then, please call or stop by.  We’ll be in and out all winter. 

At the end of February we’ll start up the greenhouses again and we’ll seed down the early flowers and vegetables.  We’re in the process of ordering seeds now, tweaking the varieties and the numbers of heirloom vegetables we will have to offer. 

Top Ten reasons to Think Local

Buy Local - Be Local

1.                Buy Local — Support yourself: Several studies have shown that when you buy from an independent, locally owned business, rather than a nationally owned businesses, significantly more of your money is used to make purchases from other local businesses, service providers and farms — continuing to strengthen the economic base of the community. These include case studies showing that locally-owned businesses generate a premium in enhanced economic impact to the community and our tax base.

2.                Support community groups: Non-profit organizations receive an average 250% more support from smaller business owners than they do from large businesses.

3.                Keep our community unique. Where we shop, where we eat and have fun — all of it makes our community home. Our one-of-a-kind businesses are an integral part of the distinctive character of this place. Our tourism businesses also benefit.  “When people go on vacation they generally seek out destinations that offer them the sense of being someplace, not just anyplace.” ~ Richard Moe, President, National Historic Preservation Trust

4.                Reduce environmental impact: Locally owned businesses can make more local purchases requiring less transportation and generally set up shop in town or city centers as opposed to developing on the fringe. This generally means contributing less to sprawl, congestion, habitat loss and pollution.

5.                Create more good jobs: Small local businesses are the largest employer nationally and in our community, provide the most jobs to residents.  

6.                 Get better service: Local businesses often hire people with a better understanding of the products they are selling and take more time to get to know and support their customers. 

7.                 Invest in community: Local businesses are owned by people who live in this community, are less likely to leave, and are more invested in the community’s future.

8.                 Put your taxes to good use: Local businesses in town centers require comparatively little infrastructure investment and make more efficient use of public services as compared to nationally owned stores entering the community.

9.                 Buy what you want, not what someone wants you to buy: A marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term.  A multitude of small businesses, each selecting products based not on a national sales plan but on their own interests and the needs of their local customers, guarantees a much broader range of product choices.

10.            Encourage local prosperity: A growing body of economic research shows that in an increasingly homogenized world, entrepreneurs and skilled workers are more likely to invest and settle in communities that preserve their one-of-a-kind businesses and distinctive character.

Oh the weather outside is frightful…  well it is predicted to be tomorrow at any rate! Sleet, rain, snow, freezing rain, cats and dogs… well I made the last one up, actually, but the rest are in the forecast.  It’s warm and cozy in the gift shop, though, and the lights are bright and the people are friendly, not surly.  (I try to avoid the Mall– are the people there getting surly yet?)

We have some great last-minute-hard-to-buy-for-people gifts.  Candles, poinsettias, gift cards.  (Yes, you can be confident that we’ll still be here next year so your gift card won’t become a worthless piece of plastic…)  And we are taking orders for our beautiful famous fruit baskets now for delivery just before Christmas.

Stop in this week, get warm, share a smile.  We’ll keep the lights on for you…!

The grave blanket price lists were mailed out yesterday, so watch your mail for your copy.  We have kept the prices the same as last year– we know you don’t need any more price increases than you’ve already had to absorb! 

If you have ordered from us in the past year or two and don’t get your price list/order form in the next few days, please give us a call because that probably means we’ve lost your contact information somehow.  (Have you moved in the last year or two?) We will gladly send you a copy by mail or fax, or take your order by phone.  Most of the cemeteries have a rule that we cannot begin placement of blankets until the 15th of November, but we’ll begin making them this weekend and your early order will move you up in the queue. 

Don’t forget, in addition to the standard blankets and pillows with poly flowers and a weatherproof poly bow, we also make a fancier one with silks and a weatherproof velvet bow, in traditional colors or non-traditional colors as available. Your price list/order form will give you the prices for a simple substitution, or you may call for a custom quote.  We have some customers who do a yearly order with dried flowers and additions that make a truly unique and tasteful memorial.  We can work with you to create a  tribute for the outdoorsman or nature lover, for instance, or other special interest designs.

This was the day I had set aside to work outside clearing up my perennial borders.  It rained and was cold and miserable all day.  Moved on to Plan B.

One more day of October? How did that happen? Where did the month go?

November means the beginning of our preparations for the Holiday season.  The greens for our grave blankets will arrive next week, and we’ll begin making blankets and pillows for the weekend of our Holiday Open House on November 14th and 15th.

We’re beginning to change the Gift Shop over from fall to Christmas.  We’ll be in full Holiday mode by the Open House.  Stop in and have a cookie and some punch or coffee, and get a jump start on your decorating and gift shopping.