The Farmer’s Market

Posted on July 12, 2013 by TJ

I haven’t had much to write about in the last few days. Rain was forecast every day for the last couple of weeks–some days it rained and some days we just got stormy clouds. Every day was hot and humid. Every day the mosquitoes swarmed me when I tried to go outside. Every day.

But the weather has changed and it is now sunny. The mosquitoes seem to not be quite so bad. Any improvement is an improvement.

This morning I was busy making beautiful challah bread and potato salad, but EJ and I took the time to drive to the next town to pick up some ear mite medicine for the pets. On the way to the store we passed the Farmer’s Market that is set up every Friday in the hospital parking lot, and we decided to stop at it after we went to the store. I have only been to the Farmer’s Market once before. For a long time I didn’t know it was there, and I usually can’t make it anyway because my Friday mornings are busy.

But today we stopped in. I didn’t know we would stop at the Farmer’s Market or I would have brought my camera and taken pictures. Oh, well, next time.

We mostly wanted to buy local honey. Usually we drive to the larger city about 30 miles away because we have had trouble locating raw honey any closer, but a vendor at the Farmer’s Market sold honey. We also found farm fresh eggs there for about half the price of organic eggs in the store. AND we bought some real local maple syrup. Yum! I think we will have to make an effort to stop in at the Farmer’s Market every Friday.

The people who sold us the honey and eggs made me laugh. They were an old man and his even older father, and a woman. I thought the old man and his old father looked the same age, and only knew they were father and son because EJ told me on the way home. I guess a person reaches an age where he catches up to his parent’s age? Anyway, the old son kept trying to convince a customer that she absolutely needed to buy onions, describing how absolutely delicious they were. So she bought it. Then he told her that she need to buy some wonderful tasty cucumbers. She bought one. I laughed that she was going to end up buying everything he sold if she wasn’t careful. She good naturally agreed, leaving with onions, cucumbers, beets, and I don’t know what else. Then the guy turned his attention on us, but we just laughed and bought the honey and eggs–and nothing else–and went on to the next vendor.

Another vendor sold flowers and herb plants. I am already growing most of the herbs she sold, but I did find a Bay plant, which I do not have, so we bought it, since we (especially EJ) enjoy using bay leaves in food. The lady selling it told us that it is a wonderful plant. It will grow big, but needs to be brought inside during the winter…like the herb Rosemary. I did not know that I was supposed to bring Rosemary in the house in the winter, and didn’t understand why mine died every winter. So now I know. I figure that I got a real deal in buying the Bay plant because not only did I get the new plant, but I also got new knowledge.

We had fun.

After the Farmer’s Market, we stopped at a few yard sales on the way home. We love yard sales. We didn’t buy anything today though.

Usually it is my son’s job to mow the lawn, but he had to work today and if the lawn wasn’t mowed today, it would have to wait until Tuesday. I didn’t want to wait until Tuesday so I mowed the lawn. I don’t mind mowing the lawn, and with all our garden areas we don’t have much to mow anyway. I got hot and sweaty and tired mowing the lawn though because I accidentally ran over a string near the garage and had to turn the mower on its side and get it unwound from the blade. Then I had trouble starting the mower. I kept pulling and pulling the start cord (or whatever it’s called) but the mower wouldn’t start. So I let it sit for a while and went inside to cool off in front of the fan and drink cold tea. Then I came back out and tried to start the mower again. I repeated this several times, exhausting myself with pulling that stupid cord. A couple of times I got the mower started, but it died after a few seconds. Stupid mower. Then I thought, “Hmmmm, it acts like it’s out of gas.” Sure enough, it was. Duh. I filled it, then pulled and pulled the cord and got the mower going, and it stayed going, and I was able to finish the lawn. The lawn looks really nice, but I am exhausted.

I wonder how many calories I burned pulling that stupid start cord? I mean, there ought to be some benefit to all that effort, don’t you think?