[itinerary | lodging] With the price of groceries going up, you’ve been adjusting your shopping routines. Back in the Rust Belt city days, farm stands were more of a sporadic weekend activity, a novelty to post on Instagram. But as you learned from your first farm market tour around Conesus Lake, dedicating a larger portion of your grocery budget to local farms has health benefits for you and economic benefits for the entire community. So when it comes time to re-stock this week, you skip the supermarket for another tour of local stands and markets.

Fire Creek Farm Stand

Your second farm tour follows a loop around the area’s main north-south state arteries, NY-15 and NY-15A, which includes the town of Livonia, the town of Rush just across the county line, and the town of Avon. You’d driven on 15A many times before and noticed a farm stand with accompanying brick-and-mortar shop on the way to Lima. The drive down this highway is particularly beautiful: golden farmland, rolling hills, quaint custom homes tucked under shady groves. You pull into Fire Creek Farms, greeted by a confident wooden sign perched above a colorful garden of black-eyed Susans and geraniums.

^{The entrance to Fire Creek Farms on NY-15A in Livonia, NY}

The brick-and-mortar shop is closed by the time you arrive, but that doesn’t mean you can’t shop from the stand. Fire Creek’s large farm stand is chock full of corn on the cob, bell peppers, zucchini, squash, plenty of berries, melons, giant tomatoes, fingerling potatoes, white and yellow peaches, and garlic. The stand displays two large menus with prices that definitely won’t break the bank, and as always on these farm stand tours, you’re happy to pay in cash. You get a head-start to this week’s produce haul with a few ears of corn, blueberries, a cantaloupe, tomatoes, and peppers. Your travel companion can’t wait to make her savory homemade tomato paste; your skillset aligns more closely with throwing the corn on the grill and calling it a day.

^{Fire Creek Farms’ blueberries; corn with menu; tomatoes with menu}

Over by Fire Creek’s farm store, there’s a cooler for eggs that’s been cleaned out, and you imagine inside there must be more cold products like milk and cheese. You make a note to return to Fire Creek another day when you can make the store’s hours. Having a little companion around limits your hours away from the house sometimes, but it only gets more fun the older she gets. You always give her a chance to practice walking at every stop on the tour. She likes to play with grass and plants, and she’s getting better about not putting every little thing in her mouth.

The latter trait is why you’ve developed the eyesight of a hawk — though you’re getting better about not hovering over her like a helicopter parent. When you were a kid growing up in upstate New York, you were out in the woods all day without your parents, without a cell phone, without any way of knowing where you were, and somehow you survived. Mom rang the giant bells in the garage when it was time to come home for dinner. You were literally the subject of those old PSAs on TV: It’s 10 PM. Do you know where your children are? And thankfully, you assume, your dad didn’t respond to the TV like Homer Simpson did: “I told you last night, no!“

^{Outside Fire Creek Farms’ physical farm store; smoke from Canada was bad on this day}

You hop back on 15A heading north, toward Lima and Honeoye Falls. It’s been a while since your last visits to these villages, first enjoying some atomic BBQ and later experiencing a bowling alley-brewery combo. The little road trip gives you time to think back fondly on the early days of your adventures around Conesus Lake, recognizable even back then as “the Conesus Lake House people.” You grow and change, but the motivation remains the same. New websites, new logos, and new names are just rungs on the evolutionary ladder of your pet project to document your new world and new life on the Lake.

Colby’s Ice Cream and Bake Shop

Once you pass the exit for Honeoye Falls, you broach the line dividing Livingston County from Monroe and enter the town of Rush. Living on the northern end of the Lake means a lot of commuting to Monroe and the suburbs of Rochester — towns like Mendon, Victor, and Henrietta — but you prefer to take the back roads instead of the Genesee Expressway so you can enjoy the views of the western Finger Lakes region. Eventually 15A spits you out in the village of Rush, and you make your way west toward the opposite side of the loop. Just before the intersection with 15, you hit Colby’s Ice Cream and Bake Shop.

^{The entrance to Colby’s Ice Cream and Bake Shop in Rush, NY}

Colby’s is not a farm market per se, but you consider homemade bakeries and ice cream shops to occupy the same realm of easily accessible roadside shops. More importantly, Colby’s baked goods are homemade, and their soft serve custard is sourced from a local upstate NY farm cooperative. You notice a well-stocked assortment of fruit pies, including the ever-popular grape pie, along with cookies, cakes, pastries, and sweet breads such as zucchini and lemon. You’re surprised to see the hard-pack ice cream is sourced from Hershey’s, a well-known Pennsylvania staple, and not the usual Perry’s. Today you choose to sample the soft serve custard from Upstate Farms instead. The vanilla custard is smooth, cool, and creamy with a delightful crunch of rainbow sprinkles.

^{Pastries, cookies, and cakes + Upstate Farms soft-serve custard + Hershey’s ice cream}

Your travel companion beams at the sight of the sweet breads and chooses a fresh lemon loaf. You say you don’t need any other sweets today, but you both know later that night you’ll be sneaking a slice of lemon bread. Before departing Colby’s, you have a look at the cooler of grab-and-go meals — ready-made boxes of pulled pork, chicken and biscuits, and veggie lasagna for the microwave. Good to know for those hectic days.

^{Colby’s freshly-baked lemon bread}

Outside you rest on a picnic table across from another family enjoying their ice cream. The little travel companion is grumpy after waking up from her car nap, but with a some coaxing she’s ready to walk around and explore again. She’s really a trooper for her age. You don’t worry about her independence or her survival skills once she’s old enough to go around on her own. You have to stop getting ahead of yourself, though. Everything is wonderful now. Especially with lemon bread.

Bronson Berries Farmer’s Market

You turn down the other side of the loop, south on route 15, enjoying the sweeping views of woodlands and farmlands side by side. The haze of setting sun and Canadian smoke combine to create an other-worldly sky, elevating the allure of the land while at the same time creating a sense of unease. The air is electric as you approach the last stop of your second farm market tour: Bronson Berries Farmer’s Market in East Avon, NY.

^{A view of the Bronson Berries stand in Avon, NY; cameo by the travel companions}

The appropriately named Bronson Berries stand is conveniently located on Bronson Hill Road, which turns into East Lake Road on Conesus Lake at the intersection with route 15 in Lakeville. So technically you’re just a few blocks down the road, if you measure in avenue blocks. Or giant rural blocks. The stand is easy to find with several feather flags on the road and a shiny chicken statue at the entrance. Indeed, the Bronson Berries family loves their chickens — with punny road signs for Laytona Beach and Hennsylvania hanging around the farm stand.

Bronson Berries sells their namesake freshly picked berries in a small cooler along with an assortment of homemade dried blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries. There’s homemade fudge on the shelf, plus ground coffee sourced from Maxwell Station Home Goods — an outfit out of nearby Caledonia, NY. Naturally, eggs are available for sale in a large cooler, but you’re primarily here for the berries.

^{Dried berries, Maxwell Station coffee, fudge, and lots of chicken art and chicken puns}

Being that it’s late in the day, you open the small cooler only to grab the last pint of blackberries. You’re curious about the homemade dried berries and take a bag to snack on immediately. The dried fruit zaps your tongue with 1.21 gigawatts of tart and sweet. You eat another handful and another. Your travel companion gets in on the fruit party, instantly hooked. You both enjoy the dried berries so much, you finish them before you have a chance to snap a picture. You sneak a dried blackberry to the little companion before the bag is gone. Her wide-eyed facial expression assures you she’s not going to crave processed candy and junk food the way you did growing up. She knows the real thing when she tastes it.

Home is just a drive down the road now. It never gets old, that first glimpse of Conesus Lake as you ride into Lakeville. You can’t wait to enjoy the treasures from the farm stands and bake stands around you. The blackberries taste even better by the Lake. You wonder where the next farm tour, or any local shop tour for that matter, might take you.

^{Fresh-picked, juicy blackberries from Bronson Berries on Bronson Hill Road}

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