The Spotted Wattle

Now that our little farm store, The Spotted Wattle,  is all out in the open as far as Big Brother goes I thought I'd tell some of you new followers about the reality of rural retail. (Yup, I was working on that all day) but first I want to remind you about Farmhouse Fridays on The Renegade Farmer. Its a great way to meet and great other bloggers of like minds, or unlike minds or the mindless...

Read all about it here http://www.therenegadefarmer.com/2011/10/renegade-farm-festival-fridays.html  Now start blog hopping!

Some of this is a repeat I know, but we have to think of others sometimes don't we?  Tomorrow I promise to be totally NEW and EXCITING.

So we conceived of the store over a year ago. I blogged about our dream to have one. Then the most marvelous thing happened. One of our regular customers offered to fund the store as an investment. WHAT?!, we were stunned and grateful. A simple contract was signed, we drew it up ourselves, then we went shopping. We found a building and had it delivered. We insulated and painted it. Now we are paying back our investors. Sometimes we pay them cash, sometimes we trade them milk or meat. Once they wanted me to dance in their garden fountain dressed as an Irish Faerie Princess. I had to draw the line at that one.

We liked our store so much we put things in it. Our things, other farmers things, but only things grown or made or designed by individuals. We also stock only produce, eggs, meat and  other foods that are GMO, antibiotic and hormone free. No Walmart crud.

We put prices on the things we put in the store. Not easy to do. Must cover our costs and allow for some profit without being too greedy. We want return customers. So I snoop in other similar stores to check out their prices and comparison shop on the internet as well.

At first we had just 1-2 customers a week, then 1-2 a day and now we average 4-5 each day. We try to stock practical everyday items,

Like laundry soap and really good for your skin bar soap. But since man cannot live on soap alone (except for that one guy who buys like 10 bars at a time every couple of weeks. I'm real happy about the sales and all but I am a little concerned about what he is doing with all that soap. Probably just reselling it at some Chicago Spa for $15 a bar. Gotta love the American way.) we also put meat in the store.

In fact, just a few hours ago, Keith and I put 777 pounds of beef in the store. You know how you hate to put away groceries ? Yeah, imagine 777 pounds. It could've been worse. It could've been 666 pounds. And just so you don't worry. NONE of our meat is tested on animals. I'm pretty sure though that most of it is MADE from animals. Pretty sure.

A brand new item is hand embroidered book marks crafted by my talented sister-in-law Jeanne. They are so pretty and just $10 each (plus $2 S&H for 1-5 of them) Each one is unique but trouble is I am not sure which to keep for myself. I got this new Stephen King book I've been reading...

The inside of our store is simple.

The counter was bought at auction years ago by Keith's dad probably for less than $10. The little desk was left to me by Laura Ingalls Wilder. At least that is what I wrote in ink on the underside of it so it must be true. Because we are not in the store all day we have a self-serve program. Customers take what they need, add it up, write out a sales slip and leave us money.

They trust us and we trust them. The way we figure it, if somone takes a few chops without paying they must be really hungry. We'll make it up by charging that super soap buyer, a little extra.

The G-Man Rings

Farm Store sign hidden in plain view

The thing I hated about NaBloWriMo was posting everyday. It took effort. And it seemed to be too much posting. Was it too much? The thing I loved about NaBloWriMo was posting everyday and it kept me on task and kept you all up to date on crucial items here on South Pork Ranch. It wasn't too much was it?

Case in point. I blogged on Sunday. I meant to blog on Monday and Tuesday but here it is Wed and finally I am blogging. Was I missed? Did you care?

Lets move on. The ads we posted in the Pantagraph (started 11 days ago) and in The Kankakee Leader (started 7 days ago) have proven beneficial. From the Pantagraph we have gotten, as of today, 6 new meat customers, 3 of which bought large carcasses, and 4 new raw milk customers.

The Self Serve Dairy Barn.

Definite return for our money. In the meantime I have heard nothing from any of the G-Men  I contacted regarding the raw milk advertising laws/NASDA survey questions. I thought maybe our ads, which state in the very first line "Raw Milk for Sale," might convince them to pick up the phone.

But the Bat Line to all government offices stayed quiet, until two days ago. I was sitting at my desk minding my own business (I can't mind everyones business all the time. Even I need a break) when the phone rang ominously.  (For those of you who don't know,  an "ominous ring" causes the temperature in the room to drop by 20 degrees and the phone itself to turn black) I looked at the caller ID. It said, and I quote, "blocked call."

Only salesmen, unpopular in-laws, the IRS  and well, any government office will show up as "blocked call." We listened to the message. A gentleman from the Illinois Department of Public Health said "I need to talk to you about your operation."

Yeah, me too, I was sure he wanted to buy some of my all natural soap for his mama for Christmas. So I returned his call.

That's not what he wanted.

He wanted to talk about our store. See, many months ago I applied for a retail store permit from IDPH. I paid the $100 fee. I got back letters that were just goofy about how we needed to have plumbing in the store and a concrete pad under the dumpster. I called IDPH's office and asked for clarification and still I got pure goofiness, so we decided not to pursue the permit in light of the Farmers Market Act that said we had the right to sell our produce without paying for permits.

Cows

This new phone call was just as goofy. 45 minutes of him reading me rules and regs and then me reading him regs and rules. At one point he interrupts me and says "Yeah yeah yeah, I get that you are anti-government" and I replied  I was NOT anti-government because I had a drivers license which was issued by a government office. He was not amused.

He put a end to our little tete a' tete telling me that if we did not have the store inspected he would seek a judge who would send us a court order to "cease and desist."  any farm store sales and I told him I'd give him my decision in 48 hrs. Keith and I talked for about 5 minutes and decided THIS battle was not one we were going to fight since we had an approaching raw milk battle coming up, we were running short on swords and shields and besides they still had my check for $100. I called Mr. IDPH back and told him he was more than welcome to come inspect our store.

There was a odd noise. I think he swallowed his tongue.

He came yesterday. He looked around, he opened drawers, he checked freezers, he punched a few frozen meat packages. He ignored the raw milk sign on the wall and then he...he...
pronounced our Farm Store "Awesome." One of the best little country stores he had ever seen and he printed out our retail store permit on his handy dandy portable printer which I paid for with last years taxes.

When he had packed up all his do-dads, he turned to me and said "Are you still selling raw milk?"
Suddenly the sky turned deep purple and the earth rumbled beneath my feet. I said "we sure are, its legal to sell it you know."

"Oh yeah, I know, but you can't tell me its really better for you." I told him why I thought it was indeed better than pasteurized milk and then he left. But he didn't buy a single thing. Can you believe it ?!?!

Some people