Quiet Pine Market, a new roadside stand selling a variety of homegrown and homemade products, will have a grand opening this Saturday at 1805 Potato Neck Road in Port Haywood. Hours will be 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
The market will have eggs, produce, baked goods, jams, jellies, dry goods and floral arrangements of locally-grown cut flowers for sale. Beef, tallow and other goods from co-op partners will be available, and those stopping by will be able to meet the partners/suppliers and talk to them about their products.
The family-oriented event will include music, games, farm animal feedings, and children’s activities, and the Hometown Deli on Wheels food truck will be on-site.
Market owners Kayla and Bill Scott said they opened a small shop at their rural home last September and the response was so great that they decided to expand, and they built a brand-new market stand to showcase their wares.
“We had a ‘grand vision’ that we dreamed up quickly to create a place to come for an experience,” said Bill.
With pigs, baby goats, lambs, ducks, turkeys and around 600 chickens on-site, the couple said they’re in the first stages of establishing a roadside market that will include a picnic area, petting zoo, gardens, orchards with pick-your-own fruits and possibly a ‘collect-your-own-eggs’ experience.
The farm has been built over the four years of the young couple’s marriage. Kayla is a Mathews native who was raised in the house the couple now lives in, spending her childhood playing in the surrounding woods. After graduating from Mathews High School, she moved to Florida, where she had extended family, and she eventually met Bill, a Fort Lauderdale native, through mutual friends. After they married and started talking about putting down roots, Kayla suggested they visit her childhood home, which had been empty for several years. Bill was ready to leave Florida, and when he saw the house, “I saw a blank canvas,” he said.
“I had just travelled national parks all across the country,” he said, “but I had never experienced the silence of the night and the stars in the sky like here.”
They decided to buy the house and its small patch of land from Kayla’s parents “and live out our dream.” Over the past four years, they’ve added on acreage until they’re now up to around 25 acres for their enterprise.
Although they’ll be farming, the couple said that none of the lambs or goats or other animals will end up on the Scott dinner table. Bill said, “Nothing here is food aside from the eggs and produce.”