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small business saturday

today our “interested” friends at american express inform us that this is small business saturday. it could just be that logic class sophmore year talking (the one we possibly slept through), but does this mean that today is small business day and the other 364 are “large business day”? because we think its time to invert that a little bit. i know the big guys need your help too, but imagine for a moment just one year where it was the other way around? 364 days of small business and one “large business day”. all your money going to folks that reinvest it directly in your community, hiring your friends and neighbors and buying goods from your fellow entrepreneurs. paying taxes directly to your local government that maintain all the services our communities depend on and enjoy? think of some of your favorite small businesses and all the amazing things they are already doing then think about what could be possible with 364 small business days?

as always, we thank you each every day for all your support as we all work together to build the sort of place we can feel proud of calling our hometown, native or adopted.

also, we got a fryer today and will be playing with it the remainder of the day. if you’re bold enough for such a thing, join us for fryerioneering

janice

happy thanksgiving

happy thanksgiving everyone; we sure are grateful for you all and the opportunity to be a little part of your lives. and you know who else we’re awfully thankful for? in no particular order: green dirt farm, hammon’s walnuts, middleton farm, ludwig creamery, echigo farm, ozark mountain creamery, urban roots, mountain valley, elle’s, float trip pickles, whispering oaks winery, katiemade, young family farm, robberson orchard, sandhill, big red juice truck, sweet girl, billy goat chip company, three squirrels winery, fassnight creek farm, glen echo, granolove, rocco’s, dove mountain, acme grain, queen city deli, lee farm, raised right meats, arnold farm, quickly produce, a&a orchard, papa johnny, oovda, ozark country kitchen, pleasant valley, PT gardens, bechard family farm, east wind, halbert’s, grouse farm, london farm, color my world, breadsmith, happy mouth foods, askinosie chocolate, baetje farms, date lady, SUAC, sunshine valley farm, artisans oven, mckaskle family farm, mother’s, helen’s, JD farms, maggard tree farm, vang farms, eiker farms, kaz winery, ozarks natural beef, kuhns farm, persimmon hill, red top oven, dinah’s kitchen, eagle farms, florence’s homestyle, GSFM, terrell creek, sandhill farm, T&M, herman farms, providence farm, seedless gardener, springfield paper, brick & mortar, C Hwy Auctions, flower child, caffe to_mo_ca, crown valley, arnold farms, baker creek seeds, mckenna farms, willow mountain mushrooms, copper canyon coffee, tiny harvest, wild bunch, trellis, circle b ranch, messia, meramec bison ranch, dad’s cookies, miller’s produce, bambinos, spriggs, red top oven, sunny lane farm, broken wire, express foods, FMO, millie fern, benissimo, legacy bagelry, homegrown hub, KSMU, nature’s way, morning land, country bee, cap rock canyon, brushy mountain, missouri spirits house, c&b, ozark mountain orchard, parrish, raw shakti, j rae pottery, millsap farms, quaintance farms, blue bird flour, baxter farms, mom’s originals, martin rice company, hickory gardens, my brother’s salsa, copper run distillery, red monkey spices, t bar and bites, frontier, granolove, missouri northerns pecan growers, martin mushrooms, erwin farms, murphy orchards, wheeler farms, brown’s berries, cone chips, reece’s distillery, jeni’s, big red popcorn, five sisters, fresh starts, spring hill dairy, swagbot, naturally yours, and so many more past, present, and especially, future vendors and friends!

a little patient

a man rushes into a doctor’s office, demanding to be seen immediately. “help me! help me! i’m shrinking and its getting worse!” the nurse points to all the other people in line and says “i’m sorry sir, all of these other people are ahead of you. you’re just going to have to be a little patient”

…which is to segue into celebrating the feeling we get around here at times when it seems the store keeps shrinking. in reality, we’re just constantly adding exciting new items to all the old favorites and every time it seems like we can’t find space for anything else, something always opens up. funny, it works the same way with the human heart.

snowy sunday

sometimes its hard to put up with how beautiful one simple sunday afternoon can be but that’ll never stop us from trying to wring a couple more smiles out of a dusting of snow on a favorite tree or the sound of laughter when you overhear a couple old friends bumping into each other over the last loaf of a favorite bread.

poppies

armistice day

Happy Armistice Day, everyone. As Kurt Vonnegut put it so well:

“…November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy all the people of all nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the voice of God.”

When we honor those who have sacrificed so much, let’s not forget to celebrate a peace so dearly won and the hope that inspires.

platitudes

as is well documented, we here at homegrown eschew the casual platitude with a sort of disturbingly audible and dread filled recoil. so it is with a “blargahg” that we wish to point out that whether you care to think about it or not, the world we live together in is actually just a product of this whole humanity thing and our countless tiny individual decisions, passions, fears, hopes, collective past, and all the rest jostling about all over the place. there’s plenty of reasons that some peoples and things in this same world would prefer you forget that and its certainly been made easier to feel otherwise but here’s the thing: good, bad, or indifferent, everything only gets the way it is because somebody or everybody or nobody did something. so six to eight billion thanks to everyone that helps us everyday do the something that we hope helps everyone, everyday.

profound, eh? “blechaghgrr”

also, and of course, a deluxe thank you in this same sense to everyone that has helped us in so many ways with encouraging the birth of a little park

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pumpkin wonderland

evidently the ground outside the store is even more enchanted than we thought. its barely october and we woke up to a magical pumpkin patch. even squash is getting excited about our park.

pickwick parkand speaking of excited, we’re gonna take this opportunity to try and embarrass some of our dear friends at Kaleidoscope who donated a remarkably generous sum for our nascent park. Kaleidoscope, that was TOO much, but thank you and thanks to everyone for their ongoing support. and keep an eye on our website because we’ll be releasing more of our parkitect series each night this week. later, taters.

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!