Every so often, I’ll get the itch to travel and explore around Pittsburgh. I’m not originally from here (I’m from Long Island) and I love to visit new restaurants with my husband Eric and venture out into new wineries, farms, and nature trails.

After getting the intuition to Google ‘lavender farms near me’, I came across FairLamb Lavender farm in Sandy Lake, PA. We planned the trip and I was looking forward to it the entire week!

Upon arriving at the quaint lavender farm and descending down a gravel driveway, we approached the vast property filled with rows of fresh lavender, sunflowers, and a small cottage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We entered the small cottage to find a charming gift shop overflowing with all of the lavender goodies – lavender bath salts, soaps, lotions, essential oil, and my favorite – a comforting, heatable lavender/flaxseed neck wrap. I grabbed a basket and scissors and set out to cut a bunch of lavender.

As I knelt down to start trimming, I spotted a beautiful butterfly and had to snap a picture! Big bumble bees seemed to engulf the lavender as they worked pollinating the plants.

The energy of this farm is…calming! Of course, right? Fields of lavender and I loved every bit of it. I’ve been watching old episodes of Pioneer Woman and her family on the ranch in Oklahoma and have been pining for some outdoor activities! In this picture, I felt like Ree Drummond – picking my own herbs!

After picking a bunch of lavender, Eric and I headed back to the tent they had set up and started clipping our own flowers! We got to pick from hydrangeas, sunflowers, zinnias, and more to make our own take-home bouquet (pictured here.)

I also went a bit crazy in the gift shop, purchasing lavender bath bombs, soaps, culinary lavender, and a cozy lavender/flaxseed neck wrap…which wound up changing my life when I heated it up and put it on when I got home! You can shop online for these goodies HERE. 

Fairlamb also had a live demonstration of the process of distilling the lavender into the essential oil! They had a big contraption that was purchased from Ukraine that filtered the hydrosol from the essential oil, which they piped out after the process. Pretty cool if you ask this pharmacist!

When we got home, I wound up making a batch of fresh lavender lemonade using the culinary lavender I bought from the gift shop when and for the first time EVER, I made simple syrup!

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After the lavender farm, we headed over to a hidden restaurant gem, Main Street Diner in Grove City, for some delicious Greek food and talked to the passionate owner, Dino.

You know Eric and I love trying new restaurants! Eric tried the gyro platter, which was chocked full out all things Greek – heaps of feta cheese, warm pita bread, gyro meat, tomatoes and lettuce, and tzatziki sauce!

I had the lamb salad, which came with curly fries, feta cheese, greek dressing, lamb meat, and warm pita. The owner generously gave us homemade baklava to take home…and it was everything I prayed for – gooey and delicious!

Overall, it was a great little Sunday for the Fontana family!

To learn more about Eric’s Restaurant Gems of Pittsburgh business, check him out on Facebook! 

We’ll be doing more of these blogs together, so make sure you’re following me on my channels too:

IG – @thepharmacistcoach

Facebook – Christina Fontana

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