Homegrown Happy Valley

To help kick off Bike to Work Week, which runs tomorrow through May 8th, we asked Jordyn Drayton, co-owner of Freeze Thaw Cycles, a sponsor of the event, how to turn yourself into a greener commuter.

What’s the unexpected upside to biking to work?

Freeze Thaw Cycles is one of the sponsors of Bike to Work Week.

People feel that it has the same effect as your cup of coffee in the morning. It wakes you up, so you’re ready to go and alert.

What about the sweat factor?

This year Appalachian Outdoors is helping me shop with a purpose. From now until May 5th, you can trade a pair of gently used shoes for a 20 percent discount on a new pair of Chaco footwear. Appalachian Outdoors in partnership with Soles4Souls will distribute the donated shoes to those in need. Since 2004 Soles4Souls has donated more than 4 million pairs of shoes worldwide.

Every morning when my kids eat breakfast, we watch an amazing show outside our window. Squirrels fly from tree limbs, flowers sway in the breeze, and birds dart back and forth, working harder than a employee on an assembly line. It’s more interesting than anything I’ve seen on TV and I don’t have to fight Comcast to watch it.

Earth and all it encompasses is free. Hopefully, we celebrate it every day, whether by watching the show out our window or appreciating our surroundings on a walk to work, but today we observe it as a holiday.

The May issue of Country Living magazine echoes what we already knew: Tait Farm carries the best locally made products in the region.

A one-page spread asks Liz Thorpe of the famed Murray’s Cheese in NYC to recommend some artisanal cheddars handcrafted in America. Among her picks is Goot Essa’s Mountain Valley Sharp Cheddar, aged for at least three years. And Tait Farm Foods is listed as the source.

Goot Essa (German for “good food” or “good eating”) is a group of Amish dairy farmers in Howard, Pennsylvania who have been turning their milk into high-quality cheese since 2001. While the rest of the country orders online, we’ll turn down 322 for this block of creamy goodness.

5 Questions for Regina Brannen, co-owner of Spela Children’s Store and Cafe, which opened a few months ago:

1.) Name one product you can’t find at Target. PeaceLoveMom T-shirts. The company advertises to moms who don’t have pregnant bellies. The most popular tee says “Happy Mom.”

2.) What’s your hottest selling item? Resa Design birthday tees (the tiny tees feature a groovy applique of a number, which corresponds with the tot’s age).

3.) How many kids comprise the Spela clan? We have 6 right now; in August we’ll have 7.