I'm feeling smug. A few weeks ago we went on a bike ride. It was called the Crop Hop and it was organized by the Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission. The purpose was to get bike riders out into the beautiful countryside and highlight nearby market farms at the rest stops. Sprawl hasn't yet overtaken our whole county, and it's great to see the thriving farm businesses hanging in there, often with admirable creativity and passion.
At one rest stop, a thoroughbred rescue farm, we city slickers parked our bikes along a fence. A very feisty horsey took a liking to my bicycle, perhaps because I had apples in the pannier. He (or she, I really don't know) reached over the fence, bit or became entangled on my seatpost, and tossed the bike over the fence, thoroughly startling himself (or herself, I don't know) before scarpering off with his (or her) buddies. There was no apparent damage to horsies, apples, fences or bicycles, but we city slickers moved our bikes further from the fence just in case.
At one point we rode past an Alpaca farm, and later we stopped at a farm shop that sold Alpaca socks, presumably from the same farm we had passed. Of course, I couldn't resist. And, of course, the socks are awesome.
Alpaca Farm in Prince George's County Maryland
Since I love my socks so much, I thought to myself, why not give Alpaca socks this year for Christmas presents?
So I Googled "Alpaca socks" and got a torrent of Internet shopping ads from the likes of Amazon and Ebay and big specialty sellers. Nope. I try to avoid those guys, just like I try to avoid the big box discounters. My wife owns a small business that competes directly with Internet sellers that don't charge sales taxes and discount boxes that mar the landscape and exploit their workers. As long as we can afford to do so, we won't shop with tax dodging Internet operations or support big box parking desertification and worker exploitation.
Then I realized -- duh, I don't have to patronize Amazon or order from some distant super-seller to get Alpaca goodness. I can use an old fashioned technology -- the telephone! With a little more Googling, I found the name of the Alpaca farm in my county. After a little more searching I found the phone number.
A very nice woman named Angel, the farm's owner, answered the call. She was in the field and asked if she could call back in a few minutes when she got back to the house. Sure enough, 20 minutes later she returned my call. I asked if she sold her socks by mail, and sure enough, she did, and she could send me 10 pair in various colors and sizes. She took down my credit card info and asked me how I learned about her farm. We had a lovely little conversation and she seemed really happy to get the call, even though it probably interrupted her work.
Today, the package arrived. I'm very pleased, and, yes quite smug. My shopping is all but done. Everybody will get socks -- they're convenient, comfortable, useful, and egalitarian. None of my family need to know how inexpensive they were, or how easy it was to order them, using old-timey telephone technology. They're just exotic enough to seem special, but useful enough to be very practical -- we all need warm socks, right? Even Grandma in Florida.
I even like that she shipped the socks via the good old-fashioned U.S. Postal Service. (I prefer the post office to FedEx and UPS because those guys constantly block the bike lanes on my commuting routes).
I have absolutely no idea if this particular farm has enough inventory or staff to take orders by phone routinely. But if you can afford it, I encourage you to consider patronizing a small business in your area for your Holiday shopping this year. There are plenty of local businesses making awesome crafts or useful products that are very grateful for any business they can get. For a small farmer or artisan or handicrafter, even small orders matter. I know it works that way in the bike business. Twenty extra customers a year can make a big difference.
Socks for the People!