pickwick park - meet rainbow

well the curmudgeons that guard the nation’s bandwidth won’t let us release the full 946 hour blu-ray documentary of “the making of the making of pickwick park” online, so in a paean to the blessings of compromise we will be releasing select portions in small amounts. tonight we introduce you to one of our potential park designers in her own words and while we’ve done the hard work of winnowing this list of finalists from several thousand to several few, we still need your help in interviewing and selecting that remarkably special single individual that will bring their vision to life here in fair rountree. pending, you know, funding. and permitting. and fundamental realities of physics.

 

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wish granted

validation comes in many forms, and while many are more gratifying, few are more useful than the monetary one. which is to say that we’re chuffed all to bits to announce that our little park has received another grant to help it become a reality in a fiscally-responsible way. in addition to our original grant (the Springfield-Greene County Urban Watershed Stewardship Project, Big Urbie 319 Grant through the Department of Natural Resources, for those of you keeping score at home), we’ve now secured an additional grant through the Department of Conservation of the great and local state of Missouri. we’re touched. really.

so, what does that mean? well, it means that the hardscaping part of the project (excavation and permeable paver surface) is fully funded. go team! however, we’ve still got a long way to go, with a pergola, park furnishings, landscaping, permit fees, and more to cover. so, take satisfaction in the knowledge we are moving in the right direction, but please consider making a donation to help us get the fun parts of the park funded and out of the realm of fever-dreams and wild imaginings. please.

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The critics are raving, “Der Sandwich is definitely food!”

What you’ve got here isn’t, by any stretch or contortion of the imagination, your ordinary sandwich in that it isn’t solely comprised of bread and filling. Nay, this sandwich also contains (at no extra charge, of course) hopes, dreams, and that ever desirable condiment known as locally sourced cultural-horizon-expansion. Indeed, this creation is an allusion to that lovely time of the year when EVERYONE, well, most people, errrr, a, quite real, positive integer of human beings throw on their lederhosen, sip their beer of choice, and wear pretzels like jewelry. The Homegrown Food Cultural Advisory Board proudly presents the aptly named “Der Sandwich”. All apologies to our Bavarian brothers and sisters if any offense is taken as none was intended.

customer appreciation

we’re thrilled to report that tomorrow will be our 794th consecutive customer appreciation day. we prefer not to pick random intervals to celebrate you all; we’d rather just try and do it everyday. we don’t really have “sales” because we already sell everything at the best price we can possibly afford all the time. no gimmicky customer loyalty programs or buy this and get that or we need your home phone number (area code first) before you can check out. when we ask you how your day is going its because we are genuinely invested in your answer and not because its some line on a script a customer service consultant drew up. if we suggest you try something, its because we sincerely think you’ll like it (we swear we didn’t know you were allergic to fava beans). we’ll never be cheap and try and make you feel guilty for using a credit card for small purchases because we’re just too busy being grateful for your business. you qualify automatically for everything we can possibly offer because you’re a human being that was nice enough to walk in and say hi. so walk in and say hi on customer appreciation day, which serendipitously, happens to be tomorrow. again.

10 and thank you

its fair to say we’re full of a lot of things around here and ideas are no exception. trouble is, sometimes the ideas just pile up, hung in messy development obstacles like ‘feasibility’ or ‘affordability. or ‘legality’. sometimes, you just need to take an idea you like and believe in and glue on some wings and let it fly. labor day seems like the perfect day for one such scheme to jump off the drawing board. today we’re kicking off our “10 and thank you” project.

As we are certain we could never afford to pay our people anywhere near what they’re worth, we do understand a slightly better wage can go a long way for making life’s more mundane necessities less stressful. thus our new homegrown minimum wage is henceforth 10 dollars an hour. as we are acutely aware, it is difficult to make ends meet in small business but we consider the personal security of our people a shrewd investment. we will be working with other interested local businesses to start a campaign to voluntarily raise wages for all of our valuable people in a way that is sustainable and ensures the long term growth and success of our local economy. we appreciate everyone’s support in shopping with us that makes this decision a less daft possibility. happy labor day!

apples old crop

apple season

We’ve been waiting all year for this, and they’ve finally arrived: beautiful, delicious local apples from A & A Orchards and Sunshine Valley Farm! So many tasty varieties that you can only get when you buy real, local apples.

Right now, we have Honeycrisps, Lura Reds, Jonamacs, William’s Pride, Jonathans, and a few others, with more to be arriving soon!