Each Spring since 2008, my sister Tracy and I go on a Sister’s Getaway Weekend out in Lancaster County, PA. Our kids and pesky jobs really put a cramp in our picking style. So, we take a break every now and then for a change of scenery and to get away from it all. It’s a blissful weekend, just the two of us, doing our favorite thing together…junking. We usually leave for our trip early Friday morning and return Sunday afternoon. Tracy comes to my house in the morning, we load the car with our overnight bags and our big red granny shopping cart (you know the kind with the wheels). We even have a picking mascot, Kas.
Kas is named after our 104-year-old grandmother Kathryn, rest her soul, who could be a bit spicy at times. She earned that right, being alive for that long, I guess. Kas, the little folk art doll is a quirky, ill-tempered, little girl handmade by pocomedio of Etsy. The tag attached to her when she arrived in the mail said, “She will punch you in the forehead….she likes to get her way and can punch like a grown man….she’s impulsive and violent.”
Now, the real-life Kas was not violent at all (just look at her sweet face). That is, however, unless the hospital happens to give her codeine for kidney stone pain, then all bets are OFF…true story that I care not to tell. The doll, however, definitely has a permanent attitude problem. She loathes being dragged from shop to shop and she’s always swearing at us because she gets squished in the shopping cart when we buy too much crap. Ahhh, Kas. We love your curmudgeonous ways, we truly do. Here, you can see her trying to hide from us, not willing to go to ONE. MORE. ANTIQUE. SHOP.
We always stayed at the Living Spring Farm Bed & Breakfast until it was sold. It’s still in business but we didn’t go back…it just wasn’t the same without Deb, the Innkeeper that we grew to know and love. It’s back in operation under a new owner and is still just as charming. It’s a 200-year-old stone farmhouse with a little cottage, a barn & silo, a pond, and lots of farm animals, of course!
There were horses, chickens, a rooster, ducks, and we can’t forget about Tiger, the friendly farm cat.
There’s nothing that says farm livin’ like a rooster waking you up each morning. Luckily, he likes to sleep in longer than my kids do.
Doc, the horse, passed away but we have fond memories of him and Sammy, the mini horse with his short stubby legs. He liked to eat sweet treats, so we snuck him a couple of sugar cookies from the cottage.
For many years, Tracy and I stayed in the main house in the Rose Room, which was more like a suite than a room. You enter the door and just beyond the small foyer, there is a spacious bathroom that boasts double sinks and a claw foot bathtub. Up a short flight of stairs lies the remainder of the suite, nestled at the very top of the house. The bedroom area is spacious, with side tables, and chairs to place our luggage. The bed is covered in an antique quilt and the whole suite is decorated in beautiful rose tones accented with lovely shades of green. There’s also a gas burning stove in the corner for cool spring nights, and a sitting area with an ample supply of Country Living and Cottage Living Magazines to peruse…one of Tracy’s favorite things.
One year, we stayed in the cottage which is set further back into the property, nestled between the pond and the silo. 
The interior is impeccably decorated and made us feel like we were up in the mountains somewhere, staying for the long winter, living off the land…well, that last part I made up. Still. It had a log-cabin sort of feel. Tiger the “outside cat” kept sneaking past our feet as we entered our cottage, making himself awfully comfortable on the bed. I was in my glory when one night after dinner, he snuck in and promptly snuggled up in bed between us and purred in my ear as I pet him. Outside cat, my a$$!
The B&B was run by innkeeper Deb and her husband, who we fondly call Mr. Deb. We didn’t actually meet him in person until many years after we started staying there. We usually just saw him tending to the horses or mowing the lawn. Looking out of our window, we’d say, “Oh look, there’s Mr. Deb. He’s bringing Sammy in from the pasture.” We now know his name is Bob, but I think we continued to call him Mr. Deb for kicks.
