The McDonough General Store

This afternoon I had to take a drive about 7 miles away to our little country store in the neighboring town of McDonough. It was such a beautiful drive, the leaves are turning and are beautiful shades of gold, red, green and brown. There is one farmer on the way there who lives at the top of the hill who farms with horses, and it was my lucky day as he was out there with his two gorgeous horses. I think they are Belgiums, and they are just so majestic with their harness on and hitched up to his wagon. What I especially like is that when you go past, it is so quiet, just the gentle rattle of the harness every now and then.

McDonough is one of those little towns that most people just drive through to get somewhere else. This town has many homes that are little farms with a big variety of farm animals. Most being horses and chickens, some pigs, many goats and a few with miniature horses and even a donkey or two. There are a few houses with the eggs for sale signs out front.

The McDonough General Store is the typical Mom & Pop type store with Mr. and Mrs. Gorman being the Mom & Pop. The store seems to be pretty busy when we go there. It has become our favorite place to go for what we call "fast food", which just means that I don't have to prepare and cook it. They have a nice deli and sell various sub sandwiches, we buy a couple pounds of lunch meat so we can make sandwiches at home. Also they have a old-fashioned ice cream parlor. The customers that come in there all seem to know one another and probably have all their lives. If you are new though, they will welcome you warmly and include you in their conversations.

The McDonough General Store looks as if it should have a pot belly stove right in the middle of it, and maybe one day it did. Now it is filled with a good selection of groceries that you are most likely to run out of. Except for gas and kerosene. Right now it has a sign out front on the gas pumps "Sorry, Out Of Gas". Too much money to fill it up. Besides most people probably only buy a little to get to the next big town to fill up, so there is really no profit there. Now the ice cream freezer is probably one of their best sellers! When we go there, we usually pick up a half gallon of Hershey's Moose Tracks ice cream........our favorite!

During the summer and holidays it gets alot of traffic from Bowman State Park which is very close by. The Fingerlakes Trail isn't much further than that so hikers usually end up picking up supplies there also. Many people from NYC and NJ come here to get away from the city as we aren't too far from there. So you never know who you'll meet there.

So if you ever get out this way, make sure you stop in there and say hi.

Have a good day!

katlupe