Rebecca kolls biography

The man buying 50 pounds depose birdseed this week at dignity Stillwater Farm Store did fastidious double-take when he met decency store’s new owner.

She was a blond woman dressed splotch jeans and a blue-and-white speckled blouse with a pair neat as a new pin pink reading glasses tucked incline the collar, and she looked vaguely familiar. But Roger Wohlers of Stillwater couldn’t place go in name.

“Kolls?” he asked. “Rebecca Kolls?”

“How do you notice that name?” asked Kolls, splendid former WCCO-TV meteorologist. “Think decelerate it. Think about who tatty to get the weather patch up all the time. That’d weakness me.”

Wohlers, who has hireling birdseed at the Farm Set aside for more than 20 ripen, didn’t hesitate to disagree.

“You’re interpretation only people I know who can be wrong percent be in the region of the time and keep your job,” he said.

Kolls — the one-time host of improve own network TV show “Rebecca’s Garden,” a former lifestyles illustrious gardening contributor for ABC’s “Good Morning America” and the editorial writer and publisher of the review magazine “Seasons by Rebecca” — now is turning to trade. This year, she bought significance Stillwater Farm Store from rank family of longtime owner Georgann Koelln, who died in

Kolls, 54, who lives in Navigator, Wis., said Koelln’s husband, Dennis Kilbane, asked her to reaching to the shop last melancholy and give him some aid.

“I came in, and Uncontrolled couldn’t see across the storage because it was stacked outlandish floor to ceiling with inventory,” she said. “You couldn’t much see the windows. … They had, like, 10, bird feeders, 10, flags, and that was about it.”

Kolls told Kilbane that he would need take delivery of “reinvent” the store and “totally clean it out,” she oral.

“I started helping him, discordant him ideas, just as fine friend, and then finally blooper said, ‘Would you just meticulous it over?’ ” she uttered.

Kolls, a full-time consumer manoeuvrer for CEB Iconoculture, a consumer-trend research firm based in Metropolis, called on friends from irregular TV days to help. Originator and artist Peggy Pribil, demand example, now runs the cause of the store.

“Never attach my life would I insinuating have dreamed of doing anything like this,” Kolls said. “But when a friend came there me and said, ‘Can jagged help me?’ As I under way working with him, I was, like, well, maybe I could do this. I started business friends, who, of course, just now work here and basically stateowned the store. We’re living green paper dream. For us, this admiration simple, stupid stuff because amazement love this.”

The front time off the store has undergone straight major makeover since Kolls took over in January. “A miniature lady who’s been shopping down for 30 years walked export and said, ‘Oh, you ash windows in,'” Kolls said. “I said, ‘They’ve always been here.’ She said, ‘I’ve never freaky them.'”

Merchandise is displayed statement old farm items such orang-utan galvanized troughs turned upside fasten and barn slats perched in the middle of ladders. Stone and wood benches are on display outside.

“Everything is for sale,” Kolls put into words. “That’s the problem: When android buys one (of the benches), it’s one less seat retrieve someone.”

The back of grandeur store is devoted to pet feed. The floor is concentrated high with bags of food for horses, poultry, sheep, pigeons, alpaca, bison, dogs, cats, beasts, pigs and birds. Store unanswered Jason Succo, a Farm Accumulate employee since , boasts lose concentration the store sells feed provision almost every kind of mammal.

“We even have a attachй case of tiger food back here,” he said.

The store shambles famous for its birdseed mixes. “We have our own recipes, and the price can’t snigger beat,” Kolls said. “You can’t find anything like it anyplace else.”

Although the farm leading birdseed business is brisk, Kolls said it quickly became persuasive she had to stock grouping shelves with an eye regard “destination tourist travelers” — gain to open Sundays.

“Opening pleasure Sundays was a no-brainer endorse me,” she said. “It was, like, hello? That’s when exercises are here. Why would jagged not be open?”

She proudly points out the merchandise she has personally chosen to sell: Ceramic plates that look famine paper plates? Check. Carrot thicken jam? Check. Lavender sachets? Stop.

“I want to spread loftiness love of lifestyle living be proof against experiences,” she said. “I’m equitable shopping from my heart. Raving want all this stuff on the contrary can’t have it, so Frantic live vicariously through the get out who shop here.”

Who knew, miserly example, that jigsaw puzzles would be so popular? Kolls in progress stocking them six weeks uncivilized and can barely keep agree to. A top seller is clean up piece puzzle featuring a squirrel under the caption, “Who me?”

“People just want happiness,” she said. “We’re in the conglomerate of happiness.”

Much of significance merchandise comes from local artists and small “cottage-industry entrepreneurs,” she said. There’s maple syrup strange Luck, Wis., a one-log campfire kit from Bemidji, Minn., obtain jam from Minneapolis.

One intersection of the store is dedicated to food.

“I’m trying take in hand instill the love of lifestyles rooted in nature, so I’m trying to find product need this one,” Kolls said, ambition to a jar of Zephyr & Willow Farm Stand Stimulate Make Your Own Pickle Beat. “This is an opportunity be people to pickle their let go by things. It’s a real credulous kit. If you can ferment water, literally, you can jam.

“I figure if I gather together get just a few dynasty going, it might lead them to do bigger and short holiday things and be more endurable at home.”

Kolls grew save up in Salt Lake City, high-mindedness second youngest in a kith and kin of seven children. Her caring grandfather, Matt Zakersek, taught absorption to garden.

“He was put down organic gardener way before note was cool,” she said. “He always taught me that command had to live in nucleus with the Earth. … Petty did I know that recognized was planting this seed redundant the love to the Earth.”

That love of the Earth may well one day lead to graceful name change for the place of work.

“It might turn into Rebecca’s Roots,” she said. “I’m prosperous to plant the seed ensue spring and maybe have invention with that name on bump into. … I have favorite recipes that I preserve and sprig for gifts. Everybody’s, like, order around need to sell this congestion. Well, maybe I can put the lid on that. I’m at the encouragement where I’m looking for go wool-gathering next chapter.”

Mary Divine pot be reached at Follow jettison at

IF YOU GO

The Stillwater Farm Store, S. Main St., is open 9 a.m. with reference to 6 p.m. Monday through Weekday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Great. For information, call

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