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Today I am sharing more information from our recent trip to Poland.  We spent a lot of time visiting markets throughout the small towns in Southern Poland.  It was amazing to see the variety and quantity of items offered. 

Almost every town has a market at least one day a week and the larger towns have a market every day.  The market in Kryz's hometown of Nowy Sacz is everyday, and we visited multiple times during our trip. 

Similar to a farmer's market in America, there is a large section with fresh produce.  However, the variety of produce available in May was much larger than what we are seeing now in Illinois.  This is because there are many greenhouses throughout the countryside that allow tomatoes and cucumbers to be grown in cooler months.  And of course, some of the items are imported, as they are labeled. The culture in Poland is still practices shopping locally for food multiple times a week instead of large shopping trips to supermarkets.

I also love this section of the market.  These tables are set up for anyone to use.  If you have some extra produce you want to sell, you just lay it out on the table and offer it for sale.  Many people will use these tables to make a little extra money off the surplus items they grow and raise for themselves.  In addition to produce, we saw many people selling eggs, cheese and even chickens!

There are also many booths selling goods as well.  People in Poland have a tradition of frequenting markets for their shopping.  Many people still don't have or use a car regularly, and with the new large supermarkets being located on the outskirts of town, these markets in the town center are used for many purchases.  We loved these booths which featured goods made in Poland.  From novelty, to decorative to functional, Poland has a so many products to offer!

I've got lots more to share with you in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!  Next up I will share about two other large markets we visited!

We are back from our new product scouting trip to Poland!  It was a wonderful trip meeting with our suppliers and seeking out new products to offer.  I can't wait to share our adventures with you!  In the meantime, we are all caught up with orders and back on track with our typical 1-2 day shipping processing time.  Now if we could just recover from the jet lag!

We did a lot on this trip, so I'm going to break up a recap over multiple blog posts.  Today I'm going to start with some more personal updates before getting into the business side of things. 

This trip was very important to our family as it is the first time that our daughters were able to visit Kryz's hometown of Nowy Sacz, Poland.  It was a special opportunity to meet many of their dad's family members for the first time.  We also explored the region visiting many popular tourist sites to break up the business meetings and make it more fun for a 6 year old and 18 month old!

While traveling throughout the area, we crossed over the Kamienica several times.  It was great to see the "Stone Creek" that gave our business it's name.  And just like our logo, the Kamienica wiggles its way through the region, meaning we crossed back and forth over it many, many times!

We enjoyed visiting many of the popular tourist sites in Poland.  The salt mines in Wieliczka are so unique and beautiful.  This cathedral is over 100 meters underground and completely carved from salt!

Of course, we also had to visit Wawel Castle in Krakow.  This amazing complex of structures surrounds a courtyard.  And of course, we had to explore the cave below where the legendary Smok dragon lived!

I hope you enjoy this little glimpse into the fun side of our trip.  Keep an eye on the blog for more of the business related aspects of our trip coming soon!

We know that in this day and age everyone expects fast shipping.  As a "mom and pop internet shop" we do our best to keep our processing time to 1-2 business days, even during our busiest months.  But because we are committed to giving you the highest quality products, packed in the best way possible, we choose to keep all shipping in house.  That means when we need to be away to take care of other aspects of the business, we occasionally need to have longer order processing times. 

We will be taking a short break to check in with our suppliers to make sure the products they make are up to our quality standards.  In addition, we will be looking for more natural products to add to our website.  We would love to hear what items you would like to see at Stone Creek Trading .  Send an email to emily@stonecreektrading.com with your suggestions and we will see what we can find!

If you have an urgent need for something from Stone Creek Trading, be sure to place your order before midnight on Tuesday, May 10 to ensure it ships before we temporarily halt shipping.  We will begin shipping orders again on Sunday, May 22.  You can still place your order at any time, but we will hold all orders until the 22nd to begin shipping in the order they were received.   Customer service will continue during this time, but response times may be a little slower.

To make up for this temporary shipping delay, we are offering a free Wood Mushroom Nutcracker ($10 value) to all orders placed between Wednesday May 11 through Saturday May 21.  No code needed, we'll add them to all orders once we begin shipping again.  Thanks again for your support as we grow our business!

Out with the old and in with the new!  Boleslawiec has recently been updating the design of their classic fermenting crocks.  They are incorporating new technology to make a smoother, more uniform finish on their fermenting crocks.  We already introduced the new design for the 10L Olive Green Fermenting Crocks, and now we are happy to offer the traditional brown 5L Fermenting Crocks in this new design as well!

Boleslawiec has been listening to our customers feedback and made some changes to the design of their 5L Fermenting Crocks.  The primary change is to use a smoother clay that results in a more even finish.  This clay is lighter in color and weight, meaning the crocks don't weigh as much and are easier to move around. 

They have also improved the glazing process to result in a more uniform surface.  In addition, the rim of the crock is now completely glazed! 

Finally, the shape of the lid for the 5L Fermenting Crocks has changed to be a higher dome shape, as you can see in the above photo.  The lid on the left is the previous design, and the lid on the right is the new version. 

As always, you can purchase the 5L Fermenting Crocks on their own, or in our 5L Beginner's Fermenting Kits.

We are excited to hear what our customers think about these new changes.  As always, if you have any questions, just email me - emily@stonecreektrading.com!

Who's looking for some new decorative fermenting crocks? We've added 4 new designs in 2 different sizes of Artisan Fermenting Crocks by a new small Polish ceramic studio.  Check out these beautiful crocks in the following motifs - Leaves, Mushroom, Lavender and Grapes.

Artisan Fermenting Crock, Leaves 2.5L or 5L

These colorful crocks feature a cream colored base glaze.  The exterior of the crock then has an additional translucent brown hand applied glaze on the exterior.  The designs on the crock are both carved into the ceramic and hand painted.  As always, the glaze is lead and cadmium free.

Artisan Fermenting Crock, Mushroom 2.5L or 5L

We currently offer these Decorative Fermenting Crocks 2 different sizes - 2.5 liter and 5 liter!  The 2.5L crock is great for small batches and experimentation.  They are a wonderful size for display as well.  Unfortunately, due to the small size of the 2.5L crocks, we don't have weights to fit in them, and therefore weights are not included with the 2.5L crocks. 

Artisan Fermenting Crock, Lavender 2.5L or 5L

The 5L Artisan Fermenting Crocks are the standard size for a fermenting vessel.  The are perfect for most fermenters, from beginning to advanced.  The 5L size will be easy to move around and fit on your kitchen countertop, but big enough to produce a lot of fermented goods!  The 5L Artisan Fermenting Crocks come with our 6.5" Luna Glass Crock Weights included.

Artisan Fermenting Crock, Grapes 2.5L or 5L

So head on over to the website to check out these unique, new Artisan Fermenting Crocks.  We hope you like them as much as we do!

It's officially Spring!  The days are longer, the sun is brighter and the weather is warming up.  We are starting to plant our garden and looking forward to spending long days outside. 

As spring takes it's full effect, we've got a few fun products that will help you truly enjoy this season.  Of course, as you spend more time in your yard or garden, you may want to add a little decoration with one of our garden lanterns.

We have several different designs that help to add a unique touch to your outdoor space.

We are also preparing for another right of spring - April Showers!  Be sure to grab one of our beautiful umbrellas to help brighten up those rainy days.  We have 3 designs that will add some color and flair to your rain gear.

Add a few of these fun Stone Creek Trading products to your order today and start celebrating Spring!

You may have noticed that many of our products are now back in stock!  For the first time since we started importing 3 years ago, our shipment actually arrived on time.  In the past, shipments have been delayed by up to 6 weeks, so we try to be conservative when giving estimates of when items will be back in stock.  So we were very surprised when this latest container actually arrived on the estimated delivery date!

We scrambled this weekend to get the container unloaded and organized so that we can be ready to start shipping out the newly arrived products right away.  That means you can now purchase our popular 10L and 5L Boleslawiec crocks, both alone and in our 5L Beginner's Fermenting Kits and 10L Beginner's Fermenting Kits.  We also restocked our Extra Large Cabbage Shredders and the 8.5" (10L) Luna Glass Crock Weights!

We still have a few more items that aren't posted yet on the site, and that's because we have a little more background work to do before they are available.  The Olive Green Crocks have a new design by Boleslawiec, so before we can post those we need to take new photographs and update the description.  We hope to get that done in the next few weeks.

The Rustic Crocks are also temporarily out of stock while we update their listing to now come with our patent pending Luna Glass Crock Weights.  We've had many customers request to upgrade their  to include the Luna Glass Crock Weights, so we decided to go ahead and change the listing to always include them!

Thanks to everyone who has been waiting for us to restock these popular items!