Some time I might write about the old Wanberg Popcorn Company building on the eastern edge of Middlebury. You can still see the silos at the bend in the road on County Road 16, headed east towards Shipshewana. There’s a new shop called Joyfully Said in there now, and a farmers’ market outside on Saturday mornings in the summer.
There also used to be a shop that sold a lot of bird feeders
and bird food, but they’ve moved down the road a bit and are now in a newly
built store called “The Country Barn” (above). It has become my favorite stop for bird-feeding supplies for our fancy
backyard setup.
Sue had always wanted to own a store that stocked unique and
hard-to-find items. When her husband
built the new store building, they decided to use the space to fulfill both
their dreams. So—the left side of the
shop has all the bird-feeding supplies you would ever need (and a lot more
animal-related stuff). And the right
side of the shop has all kinds of hard-to-find and useful gift items for the
home.
I asked Lavern how he ended up in the bird business. He said his background is in farming, but he
always loved nature. A few years back he
helped and advised the original owner of the bird feed shop in the old Wanberg
building—so when the owner decided to sell out, Lavern decided to take over the
business. It wasn’t long before his
plans outstripped his floor space in the Wanberg building, and so he moved down
the road.
More info here: