Little Willow Mercantile

🥔 Louisiana Sweet Potatoes are IN STOCK! 🍂Stop by and pick some up for your favorite fall recipes, cozy dinners, and homemade treats! We'd love to see y'all!🤎 In case you need some ideas for ways to cook a sweet potato:

Baked
Roasted
Grilled
Air fried
Mashed
Sautéed
Candied
Canned
Casserole
Hasselback
Soup
Pasta
Fries
....I'm sure there are PLENTY more ways to cook a sweet potato but I'm done!😅

🍎🍏 Fresh-picked mountain orchard apples are coming to Little Willow just in time for all that 'everything apple' enthusiasm! 🍏🍎

We’ll be selling them by the pound, so you can bag up as little or as much as you want! Just a couple for lunches, enough for a pie, or a whole heap for the pantry (to can all that apple pie filling)! 😉

We’ll also be making some old-fashioned caramel apples, pressing fresh apple c***r, and, if you’re lucky…...there may just be a few fresh-baked apple pies showing up too.. 🥧🍎

We’ll let you handle the applesauce and all that canning business though..🥴😂

Now we need your help deciding something!

We’re trying to decide whether we should head for the mountains now, or wait about 2 more weeks for the stars of the show - ✨️Pink Lady and GoldRush✨️ to ripen! Those are two varieties we really wanted to bring back with us, but we also know everyone is ready for apple season NOW! 🍂

So tell us…

🍏 GO NOW! We’re ready for apples!
or
🍎 WAIT! We want Pink Lady & GoldRush too!

What do y’all think? 👇

🦥 SLOW SATURDAY

Whatever happened to just...visiting? 🗣

Not planning it three weeks ahead..
Not texting back and forth trying to find a 37-minute window that works for everybody.. 😂 Not rushing around trying to cram every remaining task of the week into ONE day..

Just stopping by! Unannounced!

Pulling up a chair.. Stopping in the yard while they're out trimming the bushes.. Hanging around the store counter longer than you meant to.. Sharing the recipe for your newfound favorite drink.. Catching up on whose garden is doing what, who's getting married, whose baby looks just like their daddy, and whether or not we're actually gonna have a hurricane this year! 🧐

We hear that's how a lot of old general stores used to be..

Sure, folks came in because they needed flour, coffee, a spool of thread or something for supper!

But I have a feeling they also came because people were there, too! Friends, neighbors, familiar faces..

The general store was where you went for what you needed, and where you found out about half the town news while you were at it! 😂

And THAT is another old-fashioned thing I hope we can bring back to Little Willow!

Some of my favorite moments here have nothing at all to do with a sale being made..

They're the conversations across the counter! The familiar faces walking through the door! The stories somebody stops to tell us! The customers who've slowly become friends! And the occasional conversation that goes on so long we forget what either of us was supposed to be doing! 😅

Maybe a good mercantile needs more than full shelves..

Maybe it needs a little visiting, too! 🤎

So come see us today!

You don't even have to be in a hurry.. 😉

Happy Slow Saturday, friends!

Little Willow Mercantile
Downtown DeRidder
Saturday • 10–4

FRIDAY PROVISIONS! 🧺🌿

Anybody else get to Friday and suddenly realize the people in your house are apparently planning to eat ALL weekend?! 😂

Consider this your friendly little reminder to stock the kitchen before Saturday evening rolls around and somebody asks..

"What's for supper?" 👀

Swing by and grab your weekend provisions while you're downtown!

🥛 Raw A2 milk
🥩 Local beef
🧀 Cheese
🍯 Local raw honey
🫙 Jellies, salsas & jarred goods
🌾 Whole grains & fresh-milled flour
☕ Small-batch coffee
🌿 Herbs, teas & spices
🥣 Bulk pantry staples.plus whatever other goodies happen to follow you to the counter.. 💁🏻‍♀️

Shop small. Eat well. And have something good tucked away for your hungry gremlins tomorrow..🤪

We're here until 5 today!
And back tomorrow • 10–4

📍 Little Willow Mercantile
Downtown DeRidder

💭 THURSDAY THOUGHTS

Well, how about it..

Apparently today is National Swap Ideas Day! 😄

And since Thursday happens to be our day for stirring up a little conversation around here, let's swap some GOOD ideas! 💁🏻‍♀️

Tell us a little thing you've discovered that makes everyday life better!

It can be anything!

🌿 A natural remedy you vouch for
🥖 A kitchen or baking trick
👩‍🌾 A gardening secret
🧺 A homemaking hack
🫙 Something you make instead of buy
💰 A clever way you save money
🧵 An old-fashioned trick somebody taught you
🍲 A ridiculously easy supper
💡 Or one of those random "HOW did I not know this?!" discoveries

Here's the rule:

Leave ONE good idea in the comments, then snoop through everybody else's and take one home with you! 😉

Basically, we're building ourselves a little community knowledge bank today..

Alright, smart people..

👇🏼 WHAT'S SOMETHING YOU KNOW THAT THE REST OF US SHOULD KNOW TOO?

🦥 SLOW SATURDAY

Here's your Saturday reminder that you don't have to cram 47 things into the weekend just because you finally have a minute! 😂

Pick ONE good thing and enjoy doing it today!

Put something on the stove that needs a few hours.. Piddle around in the garden.. Bake something just because.. Take the long way home.. Sit on the porch until you get hot.. Wander through the farmers market.. Read a few chapters of that book that's been sitting there.. Call somebody you haven't talked to in awhile.. Or take a nap right smack in the middle of the afternoon.. 💤

Fall is around the corner, and we're heading into that wonderful stretch of the year where everything starts slowing down a little more..
🍂
So maybe today doesn't need to be about getting ahead!

Maybe it's a good day to catch up with your own life!

Do something ordinary.. Do it slowly.. And actually be there for it.. 🤎

What's one GOOD thing you're doing with your Saturday?

✨️FRESH AT THE MERC

Let's see what showed up around here this week! 👀

We've been unpacking, restocking and filling empty spots, and there's a fresh assortment waiting for the weekend..

THIS WEEK:

🧉probiotic rich kombucha sodas are chilling in the coke cooler 🌱organic micro-greens are in the fridge 🍯local honey is sitting in pretty jars 💋the lip balm basket is full 🌾soft white wheat is back in stock 💃🏻new fall linens are hanging on the rack

And if you've been waiting on something we were out of, holler at us below and we'll tell you whether it's back!

FRIDAY • 9–5 SATURDAY • 10–4
109 S. Washington St. • Downtown DeRidder

💭 SITTIN' NEATH THE WILLOW, DREAMIN' OF BYGONE DAYS..

Here's a random one for today..

What's something you remember ALWAYS being at your grandma's house? 👵🏻🤎

Not necessarily anything important or valuable.. Just one of those little things that was so reliably THERE that, in your mind, it simply became part of Grandma's house!

Maybe it was a certain cookie she always kept in the cookie jar, a candy dish on the table, Avon bottles in the bathroom, an old clock ticking away in the living room, that old quilt made from Great-Grandma's dresses tucked perfectly on the spare bed, a jar of random buttons, a marble tower that kept you entertained for hours, her ugly curtains that somehow weren't ugly because they were just so "Grandma".. 😂

It's funny how the tiniest, most ordinary things stick with us..

And sometimes they stick SO well that years later, you catch yourself buying the same thing, making the same food, keeping something in the same place.. and suddenly realize:

Well goodness! I've become Grandma! 💁🏻‍♀️

I'm lucky enough to still have both of my grandmas!

When I was little, I remember one grandma ALWAYS having ice cream sandwiches stowed away in her chest freezer.. To this day, they're still a nostalgic treat for me!

And my other grandma? I'm going to have to say it's the cupboard overflowing with perfume bottles.. 🤭 That's just "Grandma"! and it makes me smile..

Now I'm curious about yours!

What was ALWAYS at your grandma's house?

And even better.. have you caught yourself carrying on the very same little thing?