Getting to know Eastern Farm Stand

A friend of mine (who is currently in Isreal at the moment), informed me of her cousins that own The Eastern Farm Stand http://www.easternfarmne.com/ in Ipswich, MA.

According to their website:

“Eastern Farm’s mission is to utilize natural organic ingredients in nature that will support, and maintain the organic cycle, and eco-system for Mother Earth.

We specialize in producing organically grown vegetables & herbs from seed, the way nature intended.  All of the products we use are certified organic.”

Sounds really good right?  I mean it makes me want to visit them just to get fresh produce and organic at that!  If you haven’t been to Ipswich, MA it is a really beautiful location with lots of beaches near by, so you could stop at the farm stand, make a little picnic, and just head to the beach!

Wow, I want to go now!  Anyone with me? 

“Those nots too tight”… a search for shoes

It was unfortunate that the shoes I got at Target didn’t work out. They were canvas slip-ons and I’m trying to encourage my 2.5 year old to get himself dressed. I measured his feet on the mat lying on the floor and as it only had whole sizes, “Size 6″ seemed to fit the best. I looked and looked for some summer shoes in the racks and finally found the size 6 slip-ons. He seemed to like them, although they were tied together and he could only walk to test them out.

The next day, my husband indicated that there might be a problem. “He says that they are too tight.”

Well, today I decided that I was going to go to a real shoe store where we would discover the true size of my son’s feet. While visiting a friend in Gloucester, she suggested I go to Larson’s Shoe Store, a locally-owned business in downtown Gloucester. We dropped by, and besides the good selection they had in the window, there was a sign on the door that said “The Friendly Store.” It looked promising but they were closed (on Sundays.) As a working parent, I didn’t have the luxury of coming back during the week and because I didn’t know of any other stores in the area, off to the mall we went.

We found ourselves at Striderite, where the harried, yet still friendly, sales-lady told me that my son’s shoe size was 6 and a half. We found exactly what I wanted: closed-toed sandals on a sneaker base, and my son ran around and around the store yelling in glee (the hyperactivity had nothing to do with the fact that I woke him up to go into the mall.)

So, friends, as my preference is to shop at locally-owned businesses, are there any other stores on the North Shore that have a good selection of children’s shoes?