Harmony Winery gave us a break from the Highway 40 sale

Today was another wet day, though not a total washout. Sher and I decided to visit a local winery in the early afternoon while our son stayed at our setup for the sale.

Tasting room/bar

Inventory racks

 

 

 

 

 

We headed west for about 5 miles to Knightstown, Indiana for a visit to the Harmony Winery. This comfortable and intimate winery is located in an historic building that used to be a chicken hatchery at the turn of the century. The winery has a great selection of wines and we decided to taste a flight of 5.

Tasting the flight

Our host was most helpful in our determination of which five wines to taste. He described not only the making of the wines we tried, but also gave us hints of other uses of wine in different ways. Some of the owners concoctions sounded very interesting. We purchased three bottles before we left and look forward to enjoying our selections each evening after the sale closes. This is the Harmony Winery website.

 

Getting ready for the sale

This shows the beginning of our set up for the Highway 40 yard coming this week. The sale is an annual event and it follows old US 40. Hundreds of folks set up and thousands shop along the route.

We’ll keep you posted as the week goes on. Sher and I always enjoy this event. We missed it last year due to Covid-19.

St Joseph Center in North Little Rock

Original 1910 orphanage

We found a wonderful and historic location in North Little Rock, Arkansas. The St. Joseph Center is a non-profit organization based on a historic building that was once a children’s orphanage run by the Catholic Church.  The impressive structure was built in 1910 and currently there are several Artist’s Studios inside the spacious old building that houses other functions.

Currently the St. Joseph Center is an educational and working farm. The grounds are really beautiful. The first thing Sher and I did was to take a stroll around the main building, enjoying the old statuary and flower beds. We also got our first look at the garden plots. Turns out that there is a large citizen garden space  where locals can come and, for a modest fee, have their own personal garden plot.

Bull, right and cow

Recently sheared sheep

 

 

 

 

 

The Farm Stand, in other words the store, offers locally sourced goods ranging from in season produce to canned veggies, jams and jellies, pickles and cheeses. Local sourced flour, grains, and even meats are for sale. We certainly took advantage of Michelle’s opening the store for us and we made several purchases including pickles, pickled green beans and peppered Colby Cheese.

Raised garden boxes

View of the lovely grounds

 

 

 

 

 

There are quite a few head of livestock on the farm. Steve directed us to pastures and pens where goats, sheep and beef cattle make their homes. The sheep had recently been sheared ready for the hot summer. I enjoyed seeing the good quality cross bred cattle. Several calves were still on their mothers and would have been fall calves. There are also chickens supplying a great supply of free range eggs.

We bought honey. This is where it was made.

Sher and I liked visiting this educational farm. Owner’s Steve and Michelle made our visit to this sustainable operation very enjoyable.   Oh, least we forget, there are two sets of beehives, and we purchased some very, very good honey, produced by the honey bees right there on the St Joseph Center.  Here is the farm website.