Stock Your Shelves and Stuff Your Stockings at The Rogue Carrot

Dawn Bennett at The Rogue Carrot

ALFRED: A small, local business is more community than address. Sometimes it’s an interconnected weave of many families, farms and workshops and it brings income, warmth and nourishment to its village and neighborhood.

            Dawn Bennett is looking forward to her 5^th Christmas at The Rogue Carrot, a small, natural grocery store and artisan outlet on West University Street in Alfred. She hopes you’ll stop in to see her because she offers much more than groceries and to entice you she is hosting a special event on Thursday, December 20. It’s her Stock Up & Stuff your Stockings Sale. It starts at 10 am but some of the best deals coincide with the Alfred Art Walk from 5 to 8 pm that day.

            Bennett said, “When you shop at the Rogue Carrot you support many local people. We have local honey, maple syrup, art, pottery, garlic, eggs, meats, milled flours and baked goods. We even have home baked dog treats in cheddar cheese, chicken, bacon and peanut butter, made just the way elves make them if Santa freed some up to live in Alfred.”

            The Rogue Carrot opens at 10 on December 20. During the day there will be grocery items offered at 20% off. Thursday is always Fish Day and Italian Bread Day as well as restocking day.

            At 5 that evening StoneFlowerPottery will present 25 pieces of pottery priced at $5 each. This is meant to help people on a limited budget find handmade, last minute gifts with a home town touch. Included will be soup or cereal bowls, vases, lace print plates, and other functional items.

            Bennett will serve free hot beverages and cookies from 5 pm until they are scooped up. Enjoy nibbling while choosing from among these stocking stuffers: Dr. Bonner’s soaps, cookies, brownies and other individually wrapped treats, chocolate covered cashews, almonds and/or espresso beans or chocolate candy bars.

            You can find tins of slippery elm lozenges or purchase licorice sticks for 25 cents each. These are not candy strips but sticks from the woody tropical plant that gives us licorice. 
           Other small gifts are mommy vases, small jars of honey and jars of hot chocolate mix. Handmade small items are earrings, many from upcycled materials, as well as bracelets and necklaces.

            If your gift giving aims beyond stocking stuffing, choose mugs or bowls made by any of the local potters represented on the shelves or select an Alfred tote bag or T-shirt (adult or child). To be remembered on laundry day all year long gift someone wool dryer balls to thump their clothing dry or buy some warm flip-top mittens in a bright color.

            Look at your house or a friend’s house for colors and compliment them with a hand woven rug made by an Amish neighbor. Suitable for any décor would be The Power of Goodness edited by Nadine Hoover or a book written and illustrated by Cyan Corwine. You can read, bake or eat while listening to Emma Tyme’s CD.

            Need more enticement? How about some hand blown glass tree ornaments? There’s an ATM onsite to help you enjoy this special sale. It starts on December 20 but some of the groceries and pottery will remain at 20% off until The Rogue Carrot closes at 1 pm on December 24. The store will be closed to give everyone there a break and to allow for the dreaded inventory but you’ll find them open again at 10 am on January 11.

            After you shop, be sure to read the joke at the end of your receipt. Stop by 14 ½ West University, check The Rogue Carrot on Facebook or call (607) 587-8840 and help make this Christmas warm for local businesses.

The Little Gallery's New Space

WELLSVILLE: The Little Gallery is in a new place but the mission is the same, support for the Hart Comfort House in Wellsville. Barb Graves, owner of LaGra Salon and DaySpa started the Little Gallery in November 2015 in order to help a friend. Carol Riggs had a small shop in Cuba but she took off a month to have surgery. The month turned into a year because the surgery turned into a major struggle taking so much time that the business fell away from Riggs but her inventory remained.

                Barb Graves knew, at the time, that the florist in her building was moving to a new location so she had the idea to offer that space in friendship but needed more to fill the area. She asked a member of Allegany Artisans for help and so encouraged, moved forward. The florist was out on a Saturday and the Little Gallery opened on Monday, nameless but determined to work out the details.

                Formally, it is The Little Gallery Arts and Antiques and now it has a front row presence in the LaGra building. You still need to enter through LaGra but instead of walking through the salon, just pass the desk and turn right. The doorway there once led to Curves then became a pop up shop but now it’s The Little Gallery, Wellsville’s giving place for Christmas.

                For all 3 years of this enterprise, Graves has asked for nothing from those selling in her store. She covers the total cost of the area, the utilities and advertising and asks only that a portion of each sale to be donated to the Hart Comfort House.  If you do some of your Christmas shopping there, you can make the total donations made by vendors pass $4000 by the end of this year.

                Rather than listing vendors by name, let me say that you know many of them as Allegany Artisans, Wellsville Art Association members or from their work with the Allegany Arts Association. You’ll find all the names at the store so let’s focus on items. For your home or to gift there are hand-woven kitchen towels, hand sewn dolls or table runners, fabric bowls or wall hangings and handmade pottery and hand painted glassware.  

                Personal adornments include fabric purses and leggings or hand-woven scarves, hand assembled jewelry as well as totally handcrafted upcycled jewelry or the last of a group of handmade plastic pins (you’ve smiled when noticing them on people).  There are ornate, fabric purses and a small collection of music boxes. On the walls are framed photographs and original watercolors or oils or prints of other original paintings or maybe a few things handcrafted anonymously ages ago.

                A beekeeper brings in honey and related products and there is another person who makes soaps and lotions and balms. What else? Antiques. There are some people who have bought and sold antiques but others who have bought and bought now in need of emptying their homes so offer antiques from cast bronze to hand painted china or toys and hand-blown glass.  Occasionally there is furniture and right now there is a lamp with a handcrafted shade and a large cupboard as well as some smaller wooden items.

                There are also items that were purchased for Carol Riggs’ little store in Cuba, the inventory that started the whole idea. The merchandise range is wide and worth a look. The Little Gallery is only open when LaGra Salon is open and that is Tuesday through Saturday opening at 9 am but sometimes sooner. The shop is open till 8 on Thursday but only till 4 on Saturday and till 5 on other days.

                Are you wondering about what will happen to the space behind the salon? Barb Graves, a woman of ideas, will be doing some work to make a large and comfortable gathering area so that wedding parties can eat breakfast and talk as they all get hair and makeup done on that special day.

                Reach LaGra Salon at 585-59301321 or go in person to 21 East State Street in Wellsville. You might check www.lovelagra.com . The Little Gallery is present on the website or a facebook.com/ TheLittleGalleryArtsandAntiques.

                Shop Small. Shop Local. Shop to support The Hart Comfort House.

Earrings by Elaine Hardman