Many people are desiring more local items than those wholesale products you find in your grocery store these days. Local Farmer's Markets are booming around the United States for consumers to gather those fresh goods to eat or use. Frankly, I love home grown stuff. This past summer I attempted to keep my first garden alive. Even though I felt it was successful, we all know how it ended!

So to get to the point of my post, I needed an idea for an article for our weekly ag publication so our editor and I compiled a list of western decor. At first, I thought this was going to be a large task trying to find someone around our region who creates something fun, interesting, and/or useful decor items. Surprisingly, it wasn't as difficult as I thought.

In my search, I came across this website www.sdlocalfood.org. It's a website directory dedicated to connecting families with South Dakota farms and food producers who are growing fresh, healthy, locally-grown vegetables, eggs, meats, grains, and other items. I can't believe the array of items that these people create so a consumer, like myself, could enjoy the luxury of locally made items.

This is where I found one western decor item, only because it reminded me a lot of home. I found these grainsack pillows. This lady from eastern SD creates these beautiful feather-down pillows.

The reason why these remind me of home is because my grandfather, Marlow has been in the seed business for many and many years. I really don't know how many years its been. But I remember the time that I would help him fill the seed bags up, while he sews and neatly packs them on a pallet. Even though I usually worked with heavy-duty paper bags, I still got to see some pretty cool graphics on the older bags. Now grainsacks have definitely changed over time!

But I thought I would share this interesting find. Also, for my Minnesota family and friends, there is a Minnesota Grown Directory–which identical to the SD Local Coop. I find its best to support these people who provide their goods to local consumers. If I was one, I would truly appreciate the support!