A feed store in suburbia is an oxymoron. Who needs a bale of hay? Who needs 100 lbs of grain? What are those little chirping sounds? Who goes there?

One minute inside Hayes Feed & Country Store in Old Burien reveals the answers. Many, many people it seems.

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"Business is great!," says Mark (no last name). Mark escorts us around the store. There are bins with baby chicks constantly chirping .

There is a sense that you are stepping back in time--longer than maybe even the 60-odd years the store has occupied this part of town, longer in the manner that relics from the early farming days of our own community seem to peek out from a lonely, lofty perch. Not needed on today's modern farm, special tools adorn the walls where, if removed, the dust shadow would show their position. Rolls of wire rest like summer sausage in a butcher shop, waiting to be consumed by a local farmer who wants to raise some livestock.

Silly-faced scarecrows full of straw stand tall in a barrel, alert and ready for duty. The building and storage area take up nearly a third of the block along 152nd street where bags and bags and more bags of dog and cat chow await a purchaser. The best kind, Mark tells us, referring to the chow. "Cat's are meat-eaters", he declares." Why feed 'em grain. They need protein", he adds. You can almost hear dogs barking in protest, saved by the cut hooves of beef cattle that would draw their interest.

The time-worn wood plank flooring sags slightly from the bulk sacks of chicken and bird feed that line the walls and bulge like Sumo wrestlers. Wooden pallets hold bags of salt or seed. Ladders lead to upper shelves for that special bird house or watering tub you might need. It's all there and a lot more. It is a type of store caught in a time-warp. But it is a handy market for local farmers.
Hayes Feed & Country Store is located at 9th and SW 152nd in the heart of Old Burien.