Farmers Market Details

WOW what an adventure that was

Starting Friday We went berry picking.

Berry picking ...it sounds so calm and peaceful so sweet..so back to nature.. a nice family activity with kids eating some ripe berries and giggling as they walk down nice paths finding the sweet sweet ripe berries

sure in my fantasy that is what berry picking is like. You see we do not have a nice well tended berry patch with neat rows of berry brambles trained to grow on fences.

no we have a thicket of thorns old thorns from last year all crisp and sharp . berry vines from this year full of berries and extremely sharp..and then the new canes that will bear fruit next year that are..well if you have ever seen the movie Snow White where she is running through the forest and she gets trapped by all the branches reaching out grabbing her ..that is what those thorns are like.

This is not the only issue this entire thicket is on a hillside so you are standing on an angle ..not that big of a deal I mean I may be obese but I am in damn good shape for a fat chick I can out run and outlast most people who are in much better physical condition..I just need to take a longer nap later in the week.

So there we are in the thicket wearing denim (jean jackets and jeans) because the thorns do not stick to denim as much as other clothes. the brambles are over the head of my 8 year old volunteer and he is REALLY struggling with the no eatting all the berries in the bucket policy because berries are...one of his favorite foods

Mosquitoes it seems like berry patches.

Oh did I mention that the previous owner of our land had a large collection of building materials? He would buy large amounts of wood and then stack them up on the land so there are several decades and many many piles of assorted types of wood in various states of decay. One wrong step in the thicket can find you standing on a pile of rotting wood

Did I mention how heavy I am?

Did you know that rotting wood does not hold a heavy woman very well.

I fell down the wood cracked and broke my foot went through it I went off to one side through the brambles

I am dedicated though I did not drop any berries from my bucket

cut the hell outta my arm and twisted my ankle (not real bad)

So that was our berry picking adventure

all that work and all we ended up with was a WHOPPING

16 ozs of berries

I separated them into two bags and the boys ate the berries this morning at the farmers market and belive me those boys earned those berries!!

I can't think of anyone I would rather have given them to.

So for the market I had

11 cucumbers of assorted sizes

I have a huge punch bowl full of black seeded simpson lettuce which btw when picked at 6am is not bitter I also had a gallon ice cream bucket full of it as well

I had a gallon bucket of german chamomile

I had a vase with about 15 nastursiums

I had three of my lily lamps with me

I had a large mixing bowl of basil

a bunch of rosemary (the scent of that alone attracted people to the table)

I had 8 large pots of marigolds (zach grew these and they are very very pretty I thought someone might like them for thier front yard for fall)

I had some sprigs of sage

I also put up a sign saying for people to ask me about baby carriers. I make a nice mei tai baby carrier and my Dave thinks I should show it off more often and try to sell them.

For sales

All the cucumbers are gone

All the lettuce sold

All the sage sold

Most of the Basil sold

A few sprigs of rosemary sold

All of the nastursiums sold (I had some people tasting them and they all said "how cool for salads")

None of the lily lamps sold but people were interested in them

and they told me how cleaver I am ...I already know that now buy the damn thing! LOL

I sold one of the marigold plants which was cool Zach was so happy he helped the lady who bought it carry it to her car (what a gentleman!)

All in All it was an awesome day

my signs did not stay on my board very well so for next time I will use card stock and print the signs up on the computer (I hand wrote them at the farmers market)

Next time I will have tomatoes ripe

and I will get some house plants going and hopefully the herbs will be back in full so I will get those to sell as well

I had requests for herb plants so perhaps I will start some basil plants

I had only one bad thing happen today and that was this guy who walked by and snorted at the Marigolds in pots for sale it took all my stregnth to keep smiling at this jerk. I am glad that Zach was not there at that moment because Zach would have been very hurt at that and I would probably be in jail now because that little boy has worked too hard to get his feelings hurt from some smug guy who thinks it is strange to have marigolds for sale. I was a good girl I smiled sweetly almost daring him to say something to me about it. I guess my manic grin scared him away. LOL

Grand total for what we made today

$36.00

stuff sells cheap at the northwoods farmers market

that covered the cost of my fees for the 2 markets I am signed up for so it was a good thing.

and I bought 5$ in fancy soaps from another vendor

chocolate peppermint and a rosewater glycerin soap

OH and I signed up for a canning class I am very excited about that