2nd to Last Saturday Market Day

This past weekend went by fast. We did two farmers markets in Oxford.

Saturday was the Uptown market that we have been going to for the past 3 years. It was one of the few gray and rainy markets we have had all year (a great thing about drought is lots and lots of sunny days. Makes doing outdoor markets easier). It was a cold one too, with a nice damp stiff breeze cutting through things. And because we are almost into November it was quite dark because the sun was still in the process of rising when we got there around 7:40am (market starts at 7:30am, we were late).

So we did not have high hopes for a good market. We were wrong, we had our second to best market ever by selling a lot of tomatoes, peppers, leeks, scallions, arugula, basil, potatoes, etc.. I believe the bulk of our sales happened in about 1.5 hours. It was intense. That's over $700 in sales in less than 2 hours. not bad. I suspect we will do better next year because the market will be better (it gets better every year and right now has the rare combination of a good manager and a good governing board and I believe Larry will be back next year to run the market and most the board members still have a year left in their reigns).

We went home via the Streits so we could pick up our raw milk for the week. Talk to Joe and Janet for about a half hour. Met a young hippie couple from Yellow Springs who were also picking up milk and other things. Eugene marveled over the fact these people drove over an hour to buy milk and other organic items. He forgot that were are doing the same thing to get raw milk (though we do live a lot closer to the Streits than the folks from YS) and if we did not raise most of our produce and poultry needs we too would drive hours to get the food we need.

Finally, got home around 2pm hungry and we still had to unload the van (which was not nearly as hard as loading at 6am because we had sold a lot of stuff and had around 15 empty crates), make lunch and get a nap. Together we unloaded the van and put food where it needed to go and than had tuna sandwiches and took a much needed nap (you would too if you had already worked a 8 hour day by 3pm). Eugene got up before me and went out to the garden to cover the few crops that were not already covered because frost was predicted for Sunday morning (and we did get a light frost, finally!). I got up as the sun was beginning to set, quite groggy from sleep. Fed the dogs because they demanded feeding and did not do a whole lot after that because Saturdays wipe me out.