Today we visit a unique business: Seeds…
From the website:
“At Baker Creek, our mission is to provide the seeds of a sustainable food supply for everyone and keep heirloom varieties alive for future generations. We believe that farmers, gardeners and communities have the right to save their own seed, and in so doing preserve seed diversity and food security in an age of corporate agriculture and patented, hybridized or genetically modified seeds. All the seeds we sell can be saved, shared and traded, and we encourage people to save their own seed.
“Charitable giving is a foundation of our business. Working with non-profit organizations, a significant portion of our annual profits goes toward providing food, emergency aid, sustainable development and education to people in the U.S. and abroad. We also provide free seeds to hundreds of community and educational groups each year, because we believe that everyone should have access to nutrient-dense, delicious food, season after season.”
Founder Jere Gettle started Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co. in 1998 as a hobby; it has since grown into North America’s largest heirloom seed company.
Baker Creek offers one of the largest selections of 19th century heirloom seeds from Europe and Asia, and our catalogs now feature about 1,000 stunning heirloom varieties.
The headquarters is in Mansfield, Missouri, and it includes trial gardens, greenhouses, a pioneer village and a seed store, all on the homestead where Jere started the business as a teenager. We also operate a seed store in Petaluma, Ca.
It’s about a half hour drive to Baker Creek…
We have arrived…
There are all these old buildings, some utilitarian, some used for their festivals…
They offer Vegan lunches in the restaurant…
This shows you how cold it was (and is today) here…
The seed store…
We learned the history and story of Baker Seed…
Since this entire enterprise is all about plants we all enjoyed a vegan lunch together – it was quite good… So good that I didn’t take any pictures…
But we did take a group photo to sum up our caravan…
After the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company we drove a short distance to the other side of Mansfield, to another old time location…
This is the farm house that Laura and Almanzo built, at the farm they called “Rocky Ridge”…
The house was built over a period of about 30 years, so it is quite a hodge-podge of rooms and features…
But there is another house on Rocky Ridge… We walked along a lovely path for about 3/4 mile to the Rock House…
Their daughter, Rose, a very successful writer and journalist, bought a kit house from the Sears catalog and had it built here, so that her parents could live in a modern house… Laura and Almanzo lived here about seven years; they preferred the old farmhouse, so they moved back… In later years, Rose bought them a house in town so they would be closer to services in their old age. They didn’t like that either… They moved back to the farm house…
We walked back to the Museum and enjoyed looking through the memorabilia… Pa’s fiddle is here, some of Mary’s Braille books are here… (If you don’t know the “Little House” books, none of this makes sense… Sorry…)
After this day of exhibits we returned to the Villa. Happy hours ensued, followed by an Ice Cream Social.
An enjoyable time was had by all…
Adventures in the Villa 