If you are driving up Route 1 in Old Lyme, CT and take a left just before Rogers Lake onto Town Woods Road, you will come upon a remarkable place: High Hopes Therapeutic Riding. High Hopes is a facility devoted to serving people with physical, emotional and developmental disabilities. They have been accredited by the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association since 1979. Every year in November they hold a Hoedown and Holiday Market which features dozens of vendors of local foods and crafts, family games and activities, live music and horse-drawn carriage rides. A couple of months back, our friend Chip Dahlke of Ashlawn Farm Coffee mentioned this event to me. I know from experience that when Chip suggests that we might want to take part in an event, such as for the Lyme Midsummer Festival, that's probably a good idea. So we signed up. This morning we packed up lots of granola, Granola Lace (tm) and gift baskets, and headed out to Old Lyme. Today was a beautiful mild fall day, with hazy sunshine and temperatures in the 60s. I spent the day in my Nate's Naturals T-shirt, a rare treat for late November!

The Holiday Market was extremely well-organized and was held inside their main riding arena which is a space the size of a respectable hocky arena. I was delighted that my wife Joanna and our daughter LiLi joined me today. Our greyhounds Liam and Maddie stayed home. The only human member of our family missing was my daughter Laurel who, being in her senior year at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, was unable to attend in person. We met lots of new people and introduced them to our fabulous granola and chocolate granola treats.

There was a lot a great food to be had. We treated ourselves to some excellent burgers and a hot dog for LiLi from Four Mile River Farm, an excellent chocolate Whoopie Pie and some frosted pumpkin cookies from Coffee's Country Market in Old Lyme, and of course a couple of cups of delicious Ashlawn coffee.

LiLi, who is not yet 3 years old, was a champ. She helped us with granola sales and kept us entertained. LiLi and I walked around the beautiful grounds, went down to the duck pond and threw some pebbles in the pond. We visited the horses and ponies who were staying in the stalls in the main arena area, and particularly enjoyed meeting the ponies Kera, Al and Smoky. We also walked down to the other end of the arena, with LiLi on my shoulders, to catch some of the tunes from Silver Hammer, an energetic and talented rock band consisting entirely of high school students. Towards 4 p.m. as things wound down, LiLi wanted to see the horses again and we found the stalls in our building empty. We walked outside in the fading afternoon light, down to the nearby paddocks. There we found Kera, Smoky and Al together in one of the paddocks, nickering and whinnying to each other, and chasing around as fast as their stubby little legs would carry them.

See more photos right here in the gallery I posted to our Facebook page,

Nate's Naturals joined the Old Greenwich Farmers' Market late this season. Organized and led by Dana, Amy and Leslie (pictured here L-R), the Old Greenwich Farmers' Market is held every Wednesday in the parking lot of the Presbyterian Church of Old Greenwich, which space PCOG graciously donates to help promote local growers, makers and artisans in Old Greenwich. Last Wednesday was an opportunity for me to take an afternoon off from my day job and join Joanna at Old Greenwich. We were even able to bring our daughter LiLi to round out our team. It was a mild, beautiful late fall day, with the afternoon sun shining in at a sharp angle through the trees. I managed to check in with our old friends Four Mile River Farm and Sugar Maple Farms, and met a number of new vendors/artisans too. A pretty successful afternoon -- Jo and I introduced a lot of new customers to Nate's Granola. And LiLi had a great time playing on the church playground which featured her favorite thing -- the slide. Once the sun went down the afternoon quickly grew chilly but sales kept up until we wrapped up in the semi-dark at 5 p.m. You can see more photos in the album I added to our Facebook page.

See you at Old Greenwich again on November 23, the day before Thanksgiving!

We are delighted to be part of The Local Beet, a great natural food coop in Chester, Ct. Back in September I attended the Chester Land Trust fair, held outside the historic Chester Meeting House. While I was there I met Kim Kellogg, founder of The Local Beet and found that our friend Chip Dahlke (of Ashlawn Farm Coffee and the Lyme Farmers' Market) had been already been singing the praises of Nate's granola to her for a while! Kim invited me to come and do a demo at The Local Beet on October 2nd, which was the last day of the 2011 Chester Farmers' Market. Sunday October 2nd was a beautiful fall day and hundreds of people came to the Farmers' Market and The Local Beet during the day. I set up my table outside the Local Beet and gave out lots of samples of our five fabulous granolas plus Cocoa Orchard and Yankee Lace, our two chocolate-covered granola treats. During the day, we sold almost half of what I brought for the shelves of the Local Beet! We're looking forward to a long and crunchy relationship with the Local Beet. The town of Chester is just beautiful, and if you have never visited you really should. And while you're there, you can enjoy the many great natural offerings of the Local Beet, including Luc's Juice Joint. And pick up some excellent granola, too. Tell them Nate sent you. I took a number of photos at the Local Beet and the Chester Farmer's Market -- see the gallery at our Facebook page.

The hotly-anticipated Elm City Market's grand opening is November 2nd and Nate's Naturals is already on the shelf! This picture was borrowed from the market's wall photos on Facebook. We got a sneak peek inside the market last week and it's fabulous. This food co-op will be an amazing place to shop, even better if you're a member-owner like us. We plan to be there for the grand opening, so come by 777 Chapel Street to visit us, try some samples and check out the beautiful new Elm City Market!!!

Back in the spring Nate's Naturals got invited to attend the Chester Land Trust Fair in beautiful Chester, CT. This is an annual event that raises money for the Chester Land Trust, preserving land and waterways in and around Chester. It is a day-long event that brings a number of local artisans and organizations together on the lawn in front of the historic Chester Meeting House.Originally planned for June 4, it was rescheduled for September 17 and was worth the wait. We were given a prime location up on the patio of the Meeting House and from there we were able to introduce a lot of people to the joys of Nate's Naturals granola all day long. It was a lovely day, in a lovely spot in a lovely town. I enjoyed meeting and talking with some of the volunteer organizers like Errol Horner and Martha Clark.

In between granola sales, I managed to get around and meet a few of the other participants of the Fair. My apologies to the many people I didn't meet and who go unmentioned here. Some of my personal highlights were:

• "Wild Bill" Taylor, local painter and printmaker. He paints local scenes and was selling cards based on those paintings. I bought a really nice card featuring the endangered Chester-Hadlyme Ferry.
  
• Herster Barnes, founder of Reforest the Tropics, Inc. which seeks to mitigate climate change by promoting tropical farm forests. At his table he had photos of a number of pilot projects in Costa Rica.
  
• Bill Vollers of Chester Americana, who deals in antiques but also creates art out of antique objects and natural found objects.
  
• Eileen Clark of Odonata Seaglass Creations, who makes beautiful jewelry with seaglass. I asked whether seaglass can be made 'artificially' by tumbling, and she said she relies exclusively on real found seaglass. It's impossible to reproduce the texture variations in the surface of seaglass with a mechanical tumbling process.
  
• Kim Kellogg, founder of Chester coop The Local Beet, and her husband who runs Hale Hill Biofuel.
  
• Robin and Russ of Robin's Rockin' Roadhouse, mobile eatery which stayed parked at the Fair all day. I got an excellent Chorizo Dog for lunch, and I heard that the Cheesesteak subs were really good too.
  
• The Chester Meeting House itself. See the image above -- that's the interior of the Meeting House, with tables set for a sold-out Harvest Dinner.
  

I managed to shoot a small photo gallery with my iPhone. You can find it under the Nate's Naturals Facebook page using this link.

I've been going to Bishop's Orchards since I graduated from college, a very long time ago. Would have gone while I was still in school, if I'd had a car. Over the years I've gotten very used to great pick-your-own and a really nice farm store with capable, friendly staff. They just seem to know how to take care of their customers. Around Christmas 2008, the brand-new Nate's Naturals presented Randy, a senior manager at Bishop's, with samples of our granola. Randy shared it with other staff members and they quickly offered to carry our granola in the Farm Store. Randy made a couple of suggestions about packaging, which led to the heat-sealed, resealable packages with the "enjoy by" date stamp that we use for all of granolas. Once our granola was in the farm store, other Bishop's customers quickly caught on to the great flavor of our granolas, and Bishop's is now our biggest retailer. In the two and a half years of our relationship with them, we've discovered just how supportive Bishop's is of small suppliers like Nate's. Their philosophy is summed up in what one of their managers told me: " We want you to be successful too".

This philosophy of treating vendors like family is one of the many factors that has kept Bishop's Orchards thriving for 140 years. We were delighted to be invited to take part in the 140th anniversary celebration that happened back on June 11. My daughter Laurel (speaking of family businesses) came with me to help bring Nate's granola to the people. Between 10 and 4 we sampled lots of granola to lots of people and also got to sample other amazing food ourselves: hot dogs, cheeses, popcorn, grilled steak tips, Bishop's pies. Yum. Laurel and I met some adorable donkeys, there to provide rides for children, and petted some goats and llamas. It was nice to meet some of our existing 'fans' and make some new friends too. I also made a couple of good business connections. The weather was not all that inviting -- cool with occasional bouts of rain -- but that didn't keep too many people away.

Keith Bishop himself, CEO and winemaker of Bishop's Orchards, also made a point of greeting all the vendors who came out for the celebration. I was honored to have a handshake and a little conversation with Keith.

Here's to another 140 years of Bishop's Orchards, and a long happy relationship with Nate's Naturals!

See some photos! Laurel and I took some pictures and posted them as an album on our Facebook page.

Warm weather and sunshine finally prevailed at Wooster Square Market on 2011 Opening Day: Saturday, May 7. We brave, few, foolhardy vendors had shivered through markets every two weeks in the winter months and then the unexpectedly nastily cold March. ( T.S. Eliot was wrong this year: March was the cruelest month.) May 7 made it all the suffering worth it. We had a full complement of vendors, throngs of visitors and the traditional Tossing of the Lettuce to officially open the market. Pictured here: Christine Eppstein Tang, Director of the New Haven Office of Sustainability, and New Haven Mayor John DeStefano tossing the lettuce fo CitySeed volunteers in full vegetable and bovine drag.

It was great to share our awesome granola, granola bars and chocolate-granola treat Cocoa Orchard with customers, without needing a jacket! We also reconnected with friends we hadn't seen since the fall.

Photo Gallery: See the full photo gallery on our Facebook page.

This Saturday marks the return of Nate's granola bars to New Haven farmers' markets, and the world debut of the Dec Bar. We're making lots of granola bars to fuel the riders of Rock to Rock on Earth Day, and we're making sure to have plenty of bars for our market customers too. The Dec Bar is brand-new. Made with Declaration granola, it's a hearty, malty delight. If you've never tried Declaration before, now's your chance. And if you already know and love Declaration, here's more for you. Come and get yours this Saturday -- the Dec bar is $2, or three for $5.

Rock to Rock is New Haven's annual Earth Day celebration of the environment, New Haven's natural beauty, and bicycles. Hundreds of riders travel between West Rock and East Rock, experience great food and great music, and ride the Farmington Canal trail and official city bike lanes. Pledges raised by riders support the organizing partners who make Rock to Rock run: Common Ground, Solar Youth, The Urban Resources Initiative, New Haven-Leon Sister City Project, CitySeed, Inc., and the nature centers run by the New Haven Parks Department.

Nate's Naturals is proud to be a supporter of Rock to Rock. This year we are supplying our fabulous granola bars to fuel the riders at the Edgewood Park rest stop. If you're riding be sure to grab a granola bar when you stop at Edgewood Park!

Read more about the event on the Rock To Rock website. Last year nearly 300 riders took part; this year there were already 150 riders registered as of the first week of April! If you can't go on the ride, you can pledge online to support a rider or any of the organizations receiving support from Rock to Rock.

We've done it. We have devised a way to combine the crunchy, aromatic excellence of Toasted Orchard with Belgian dark chocolate, and the result is called Cocoa Orchard. "Don't do it", they said, "it's too dangerous." True, the first experiments were a failure. The reaction was unstable. Trying to combine that much incredible deliciousness in an enclosed space was simply too much. It's been all over the papers -- the explosion at the Nate's Research Facility, our Crunch Level 4 laboratory destroyed, our beautiful assistant Olga -- poor, poor Olga -- gone missing. But we had to move on. We knew that Olga would have wanted us to complete the product. So we revised our process, increased the containment field, and -- voila! Success at last! Buwahaha! The reaction of our clinical trial subjects -- whoops, sorry, customers -- has been encouraging. They all exhibit a sort of shiny-eyed enthusiasm for Cocoa Orchard, and prefer it over other food, drink and shelter. They also show up at our house at all hours wondering if we have just a little bit more for them. That's what we call building brand loyalty! So try some at the New Haven farmer's markets -- both Edgewood and Wooster Square markets are open through the winter on alternating weeks -- or at any of our retailers. Resistance is futile.

For the first time, the Edgwood Farmers' Market is open through the winte this year, alternating weekends with Wooster Square. Seven ambitious vendors, including Nate's Naturals, are braving the elements to bring excellent natural foods to Westville. This last Sunday, January 9th was opening day and we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful winter day. Granola sales were in excellent hands with Peter Sparks manning the Nate's Naturals table, so Joanna and I were able to come down with our greyhounds and our adorable 2-year-old daughter, LiLi to just visit and enjoy the day.

It was an intimate scene. With fewer vendors than the regular season we were all able to fit into the West Rock Avenue parking lot, and there were lots of opportunities to chat with vendors and customers who also happen to be our Westville neighbors.

Melinda Tuhus from the New Haven Independent was also there, interviewing and photographing for her own article: Hundreds Visit Farmers Market--In the Snow.

While you're at it, take a look at my own photo gallery from last Sunday. Above: the view of the farmers' market from West Rock Avenue.

[Pictured: Nate and Okera Eversley, Wooster Square, New Haven, November 2010]
Happy Thanksgiving! I have a great story to share with you: For a couple of years now, Maggie Dolan (of Dolan Bros. Seafood) and I have been mutual fans. Every week Joanna and I go home from the Wooster Square Farmers' Market with some excellent topneck or littleneck clams from Dolan Bros, and Maggie takes home some Nate''s Naturals granola to enjoy. A couple of weeks ago Maggie told me "You have to meet this friend of mine who loves your granola. He's a runner and he practically lives on it". She was talking about Okera Eversley, who I had the honor of meeting last week. Okera is a young Trinidadian sprinter, in training for the Trinidadian national team. Maggie met him four years ago when she was teaching in West Haven, and they have been friends ever since. Recently Maggie introduced Okera to Nate's Naturals, and that was that. He loved the taste and the crunch, and of course our granola has the perfect balance of carbohydrates, protein and fiber for a serious athlete.

We all benefit from a diet that includes Nate's Naturals granola. However, I would caution our readers that it might not be a good idea to emulate Okera and eat an entire bag in a day unless you, too are doing enough running to burn around 10,000 calories a day!

Okera will keep us posted on his competition progress. We'll let you know how he's doing, and keep him supplied with the world's best granola in the meantime.

Nate's Naturals was honored to be invited to the tenth annual CT NOFA Taste! Organic Connecticut Festival , held at Manchester Community College this year on September 19th. Connecticut NOFa (http://ctnofa.org ) is, of course, the Connecticut chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association, a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening ecologically sound farming practices. The NOFA folks were happy to have us attend even though we are not entirely organic. The Taste! Organic Connecticut Festival is a celebration of sustainable, natural food, crafts and lifestyle, and Nate's Naturals is a perfect fit for that.

Spending the day at Taste! Organic CT was a bit of a challenge for me. I was still jetlagged from our return from China just six days before. (More about that adventure soon.) However, it helped that things were so well organized. When I pulled into MCC about an hour before the beginning things got going, I was met by the energetic and friendly Doug Rankin of CT NOFA, who . I had the good fortune to have my booth located right between Joy Newton and The Bean and Leaf, so I had both excellent coffee and excellent company. Of course I was also there to sell the most excellent granola on the planet, and I certainly did lots of that, introducing a lot of new people to the joys of Nate's Naturals.

It was a hot, sunny day, full of not only granola sales but excellent food, great music and FREE ICE CREAM. Yes, that's right. The Farmer's Cow was there, giving away pints of their amazing new ice cream to promote their new product line. I split a pint three ways with Joy Newton and with Hugh and Patty from The Bean and Leaf.

I took a good number of pictures. Picture above: Nate with Annie Reynolds, wife of Doug Rankin. See the full photo gallery here.

Every year at the end of July, Lyme, CT holds a Midsummer Festival that includes great food, art, music, shopping, dog show, you name it. This year, thanks to Chip Dahlke of Ashlawn Farm Coffee, Nate's Naturals were invited to be part of the Market En Plein Air at the beautiful Florence Griswold Museum. It was a spectacular success. The day was beautiful, hot and sunny. We reconnected with old friends like Dagmar from Dagmar's Desserts, Jason and Eileen from Old Lyme Ice Cream Shoppe and David from Starlight Garden Farms. The beautiful day brought shoppers in droves -- some with adorable dogs -- and we introduced over a hundred people to the joys of Nate's Naturals granola. Nate was helped out by Joanna and daughter Laurel, both of whom also contributed to our photo gallery from the event. You can see the amazing setting -- we looked down to the beautiful Lieutenant River, which inspired the landscape artists such as Childe Hassam who started the Lyme Art Colony at the home of Miss Florence Griswold.

See our Photo Gallery here!

On Saturday, May 8, Nate's Naturals was delighted to be part of the Holmberg Orchards Blossoms and Bottles Wine Festival at the beautiful Holmberg Orchard in Gales Ferry, Ct. Those of you in Connecticut on that day recall that weather went from grey to drizzle to Biblical downpour that morning. But the rain pretty much rained itself out by about 12:30, so by the time things got going at 1:00 we were headed for blue skies. There were at least half a dozen Connecticut winemakers present, including Holmberg Orchards themselves (pictured: Christine and Erica) who make some delightful fruit wines. Excellent blues and good-time acoustic guitar music was provided by Dan Stevens and Chris D'Amato. I had a really nice time -- met lots of great people, sold lots of great granola, listened to some great live music, tasted significant quantities of wine (all in small quantities, over many hours, so no problem driving home)! There were more wines and other vendors of all sorts of goodies than I can mention, but some of the highlights for me were

• Truffles from our friend Carol Monnerat
• Jones Farm Ripton Red wine
• Taylor Brooke Summer Peach white wine
• Jonathan Edwards Winery Stone Table Red wine
• got a beautiful pendant from Art Salad Studio for Joanna

Full photo gallery can be found here!
I really enjoyed meeting the extended Holmberg family. Lovely people. Gotta come back for fruit-picking season,and I recommend that you do the same. And pick up some wine while you're there.

The official opening day of the Wooster Square Farmers' Market 2010 could have been the first day of summer, such was the beauty and warmth of the day. The place was packed. Vendors and customers loved being out in the beautiful weather. Lots of vendors who weren't with us during the winter market are now back every Saturday. I had some really nice reunions with friends I hadn't seen in a while.
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