Should I Stay or Should I Go

Red meat radishes

It's Tuesday, it's early in the morning and I have not had any coffee yet. It is a crisp (meaning cold) morning and the dogs and cats are all smashed around the space heater (we have no other heating though a furnace and installation have been ordered and 1/2 paid for and should be installed in the next 5 to 10 days) sucking up all the heat into their bodies and leaving little heat for the rest of the household (pets can be so selfish).

The Final Tuesday market of 2006 is this afternoon but if the weather conditions are anything like last week we may skip the market making last week's mid week market the Final Tuesday market of 2006. Last week we spent hours getting ready for the market went down to Oxford, OH and sat around for 3 hours doing next to nothing. We were the only vendors to show up. We had 5 customers and made about $20. I believe that was the worst turn out for this market in about 5 years. Granted, the weather was sucky, cool, cloudy and threatening to rain at any moment (but it was about 15˚F warmer than this week). The last half hour of the market our friends Steve and Chuck showed up and we talked of worldly things. At around 6:50pm Marc showed up and the three of them helped us tear down and than we all went to dinner at the Smokin' Ox (great BBQ) where we enjoyed good food and better conversation and that dinner made the trip to town worth it for me (which is good, because the market was not cutting it at all last Tuesday).

So I sit here writing and trying to decide if we will go to market today. The weather prophets have indicated it will be colder than last week (but warmer than yesterday when the temps did not break out of the 30'sF (that would be around 3 to 4˚c to all you non USA readers out there) and that there is almost no chance of snow. This means that the weather will be worse than last week and that means it is likely that once again few people will be out and about looking for fresh veggies in Uptown Oxford

Reading what I just wrote is making me think, "Nah, ain't gonna go to market today". But of course Eugene will want to go if for no other reason than I do not want to go and we are often contrary to one another about such things. Than again Eugene is as burned out with this farmers' market bidniss (probably more so as he is mourning the death of his mother and that really takes the wind out of one's sales) and if we cannot do at least $150 in sales it is not worth the hours it takes getting ready for market (it takes about 4 hours of prep work for every hour we sell so if the Tuesday market is a 3 hour market it takes about 12 hours doing all the things that must be done to be able to sell such as harvesting crops, cleaning and bagging/bunching the crops, marketing/writing and sending email newsletters out to our loyal customers, filling out a tally sheet so we know what and how much sold, making sure we have correct change in the till, loading the van, driving the van 30 minutes to Oxford, finding a parking spot that is not too far away (easy in summer, tricky in the fall), dragging all the crates, coolers, tables, scales, baskets and setting all the stuff up so we can peddle our wares to the public. Thus if we do not make a certain amount all this work is really for naught.

So the question is will Eugene and Lucy make it to their last weekday farmers' market of the 2006 season?
Stay tuned....