As we make our way down to Florida, we're going to be driving some longer days and some quick stays. That's the perfect for staying at a place like a Harvest Host! Businesses that have space on their property let you park overnight for free and as a gesture of good will, you typically buy something from their store.
While searching for places to stay, Theresa found a site called Grain Bin Commodities. Curious name. What is it? A place that stores and sells grain?
No! It's a bakery! We get to stay at a farm and eat at a bakery!
And now we're crossing one of our earlier tracks. It's a straight shot down Interstate 75 to get to our host site.
Well what should have been a long but easy day turned into an even longer day. Construction, accidents, tree trimming. All of them contributed to putting us over 90 minutes behind schedule. It ended up being a long day of stop and go traffic.
Theresa called ahead to let them know of our delays. Callie met us out front in a golf-cart and led us over to the field where we'll be parking the RV.
And it's not just Callie leading us there. Three of their farm dogs started running behind her and leading us as well. The kids got a big kick out of it.
Hi puppies! This is Macy and Lacy. They are super calm and very sweet.
And right back there is Lucky, Lacy's father. The kids adore animals. This is already a great stop for them.
In the field right next to where we've parked the RV are donkeys and cows.
This is Jack and Jill. They've been rolling around in the prickle bushes, so they're covered in stickers.
Callie said they will eat pretty much anything, so the kids were excited to find something we could feed them. Theresa was willing to give up a few of her carrots.
The kids loved it!
The cows were interested in getting a tasty snack too.
And when we ran out of carrots, the kids started picking grass. They weren't all interested in the grass, seeing as how they've got a whole pasture of it right behind them. But every once in a while, seemingly out of boredom, they would take a bit and eat it.
And there's baby cows too! That's Cookie on the left and Milk Shake on the right.
Cookie came over, but kept a healthy distance from us. Theresa donated some celery stalks, but those aren't like carrots. After Cookie backed away a bit, we tossed her a bit of celery, but she didn't like that at all. You've heard of the cow jumping over the moon. This was Cookie jumping over the Celery.
The next morning, as soon as the kids woke up, they wanted to go out and feed the animals. While Theresa and I packed up the RV, they picked grass to feed to any of the animals that would come over to them.
We arrived too late last night for the bakery, but that will be perfect for breakfast!
We spoke to Craig, Callie's husband and the other owner of Grain Bin Commodities. The Holt Family has been farming here for a long time. They farm over 1000 acres and have a dairy farm too. Craig married into the Holt family, and together he and Callie, using recipes from their mothers and grandmothers, built this bakery.
Inside there's so many delicious treats available. They have ice cream and milk from nearby farms, prepared foods, eggs, and the like. But we're here for something special. The bakery has rave review so we're going to be trying a few things!
The Caramel Crack has received so many comments in their online reviews it's a must try. They gave us samples of it and it was indeed delicious! Gotta get a bag of that.
And there's a whole bunch of cookies! The kids picked a few and Theresa and I picked a few. And while we were there hot Sausage Cheddar balls and Country Ham mini muffins came out of the oven. We've got to get a few of those for breakfast. And with the Sour Dough loaves staring her in the face, Theresa got one of those too.
Goodbye doggies!
That is one content pup.
Back at the RV we're all packed up and ready to go. Goodbye Jack and Jill!
It's a shame we didn't have that much time to explore here. I would have liked to see more of the farm and the barn, but we've got another long travel day in front of us and we've got to hit the road. I hope that on a future visit we can come back here and spend a little more time.
From the bakery we ended up getting (6) Cheddar Sausage balls (75 cents each), (6) Country ham mini muffins (75 cents each).
I'm glad we got both kinds. Alli and Theresa enjoyed the salty ham muffins. Ian and I thought the Sausage Cheddar balls were delicious! I told Ian that I've actually had something like this before and that we could make them ourselves! He was excited for that and wants to have them for breakfast a lot more often.
They also make a large variety of cookies. They are $1 each or 13 for $12.
A few clips from the couple of days. It was the first time many of us had heard a donkey braying.
The recommendations for the cookies were the Salted Oatmeal cookies (no raisins hooray!) and the Peanut Butter cookie. Along with those we're getting a Red Velvet cookie with chocolate chips, a double doozie creme sandwich cookie, an iced lemon cookie, a pecan sandie dipped in chocolate, and a pumpkin cookie with cream cheese frosting.
All four of us shared these while we were driving, and let me tell you, Grain Bin Commodities knows how to make a good cookie. All of these were great with a good texture. Not crunchy or dry, but moist and chewy. So good!
Theresa and Alli thought the Peanut Butter cookie was the best. It was really good, tasting like sweetened peanut butter. Ian like the chocolate chip double doozie creme filled cookie. I loved it too, but my favorite was the Pumpkin cookie with cream cheese. The cookie was so light and fluffy it was almost like a cake. Then the cream cheese on top made it even more delicious.
Finally there was the Sour Dough loaf ($6) and the small bag of Caramel Crack ($5). The Sour Dough loaf was not what we were expecting. We sliced it up, toasted it, and slathered butter on it. It was... sweet? That's not what we were expecting at all. Still good, but not what we'd expected.
The Caramel Crack though. That stuff is delicious! I think we're going to have to try to make that ourselves. Theresa looked up a recipe and it's no surprise it's so good. It's 8 ounces of puffed corn, mixed with 8 ounces of butter, 8 ounces of brown sugar, and 4 ounces of corn syrup.
This was a great stop!
Can't escape traffic, no matter where you drive! That was a fun stop with all those animals (donkey braying, too!)...looks like carrots are the must-have food! Having the bakery made the stop even better...Mmmmm, moist and chewy cookies...looks and sounds delicious. Couple of new recipes to try out in the days ahead :-) EOM
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