Hoosiergirl,
Good luck. It's funny how you take things for granted. I'm on the Organic Lawn Forum and everybody, esp. those in west and mid west talk about getting soy bean meal, cotton seed meal and Corn Gluten Meal at Feed and Seed stores but I can't find any at the Feed and Seed stores in North Georgia.
Pine straw is the most popular and most abundant and affordable mulch in my area (Georgia, pine trees are as abundant as cockroaches). Of course some folks do go for shredded bark etc. I remember seeing an episode of This Old House that was remodeling a home in Texas and they had to explain to the viewers what Pine Straw was. i laughed. When I was a kid my friend and I would rake the pine staw in his back yard in a pattern so that we had a race track for our bikes. If you got off the path and into the straw you would slide and crash, haha.
There is plenty of it here, I'm in North Georgia around atlanta, and it all comes from South Georgia where acres and acres of pine trees are planted for the timber industry. Right now it's about $3.50 a bail, what have you paid in the past?

Good luck.
Kevin

Thanks for the well wishes, Kevin! We've actually never used it before, but after reading all the good things about it, I thought we'd give it a shot this year. I did finally find it at one mulch company and it's 6.99/bale (probably so much because they have to go all the way to your area to get it, LOL)!

I guess we should look into the organic stuff at the Feed & Seed stores since they're abundant here. We're going to try to use organic fertilizer this year, so that's a start...

Thanks again!