March Winter Market Fun

A shot of the March winter market. We are the white van in the middle. Scott Downing's apple stand is to the right, Karen Baldwin's soap and egg concern is to our left

Last Saturday was the March edition of the winter farmers' market in Oxford, OH. We went with very few things to sell. Some popcorn, parsnips, a few winter squash, small yellow onions, gourds, catnip, tomato juice, apple sauce and a few other items. Our sales reflected the fact we had almost nothing to sell. In the past I would have blown off market but I had made arrangements to meet a virtual friend in person. So off to market we went and around 10am Susan Setzer showed up with her father in tow and we met and chatted for a bit and than she had to leave and I had to go back to doing farmers' market things. I believe this is the first time I have met an internet friend in person and it was really nice. I met her via the OGL/Organic gardening list, an email list I have subscribed too for many years. It has a lot of knowlegable people and I have gotten a lot from the list over the years. And it is fun to see what someone looks like. Your mind's eye tends to create people that do not exist in reality. Nice to get that reality check.

The main thing I did was buy food. I ended up buying more food than I sold. I picked up my raw milk order, I bought some swiss chard from the Marcum's. God was it good-had it for dinner last night. Chard is my favorite green and I have not had any in months. I wish I had bought two bags of it instead of just one. I guess I will have to start some chard seed to day. I also bought many heads of lettuce from Harv Roehling. I got some Braun de Morge's, some sort of oak leaf and some lollo rossa. Unlike the chard i have not been jonesing for lettuce because I started cutting the little bit we had from last fall. But there is only one pot of that left. So Harv's lettuce will have to do us until our first crop gets big enough to cut (probably 3 to 4 weeks)

I picked up 6 dozen eggs from Karen Baldwin. I sure hope this avian flu H5N1 paranoia does not put all pastured poultry people out of bidniss. If this happens I guess I will have to quit eating eggs because the eggs raised in CFO's are just gross. They taste bad to me and have a dreadful pale yellow yolk. I remember trying all sorts of grocery store eggs when we got rid of our pastured hens and all were bad. Do not believe the Eggland's Best claims that they have the best eggs in the world, they do not. They have eggs that taste like the cheaper eggs for which you pay a lot more.

I also bought meat from the Filbruns-bacon, stew beef (which will be a part of dinner tonight) some cajun brats and I believe some italian sausage. So far this week we have spent over $100 at the Filbrun's. On friday we went to their farm and bought $96 worth of soil amendments. When we get broilers we will go there and spend hundreds on chicken feed. I also brought up the NAIS issue with Dale. because he is a german baptist he does not do TV or radio and does not have internet in his house so he did not know a lot about NAIS but was aware of it. So I gave him some information and websites to check out the next time he went to the library. He seems very upset by the prospect of NAIS and well he should since he has over 5,000 chickens and turkeys on his farm that would all need to be tagged.

After buying meat it was time to pack up and leave. So we did and drove back home. Got home, got unloaded and was just getting lunch started when we got a knock on the door. Someone was interested in buying some of the junque in front of the store front. So Eugene went out and sold the guy $26 worth of electric fence stakes. About an hour later another guy knocks on the door and ends up buying a wagon wheel for $50 (which we have to deliver). So we ended up making more money sitting at home than going to market. This gives me high hopes for the farm stand being successful