On Thursday, we set up our market booth in the middle of our living room. We rearranged and changed our booth feng-shui a little and organized all of our stock. Then we got our booth structure and all of our market things loaded in our truck. Wow! That felt so good to have that all done on a Thursday (usually our truck gets packed on Friday, the day before market.) We were feeling mighty proud of ourselves. And we were feeling so prepared for opening market day.
Jeff was planning on spending Friday finishing up a bunch of new items for market. I was planning on cleaning, getting food packed for Saturday, getting Jeff’s favorite sweatshirt washed and dried in time for market and getting lots of things done around here. That was the plan.
On Friday, it was stormy outside. The electricity went out first thing in the morning. Time to be flexible, since our previous plans relied on electricity. We fed all of the animals. I had a batch of oatmeal already made so we heated it up on the woodstove for breakfast. Jeff also made us some scrambled eggs and sausages on the woodstove.
We need electricity to get water from our well (because we have an electric pump.) So that meant no laundry and no dishes. That also meant no working in Jeff’s shop because he needed his power tools. Oh well, we took the opportunity to relax. The house was so quiet and peaceful. Jeff fell asleep in the living room. I read my favorite cookbook, ‘Nourishing Traditions’ and picked out new recipes I wanted to make. I felt like the electricity going out was a blessing because it gave us the opportunity to sit and do nothing. And that is a rare and wonderful treat in our lives. Sure, we could have braved the storm and worked in the garden. But it was so nice and cozy by the woodstove and it felt like the perfect way to spend the day.
Unfortunately Jeff wasn’t feeling very good. The electricity came back on in the afternoon so we got up and  moving and got a lot done. But last night, Jeff started feeling worse. We knew he definitely had a bug. He kept taking trips to the bathroom, feeling nauseous. Uh oh. So we turned off the alarm clock and decided not to go to market on Saturday.
The weird thing is, Jeff gets sick every year on opening day of the market. So it seems like despite our best intentions, we never make it to the first one. Oh well. Luckily, there are lots more Saturdays for us to go! And I would rather have him home, healing his body like it needs, than trying to force himself to go to market when he’s not feeling well. He is getting better at being peaceful with what his body needs (he used to be so stubborn and try to keep going regardless of how bad he felt.) But he’s getting wiser with age, and he has a wife that would talk sense into him if he tried to go. 🙂
So today Jeff took it easy at home. I needed to drive to Saturday Market because we had a CSA to pick up at the farmer’s market. I picked up some hay for the goats at our favorite feed store on the way (where the dogs are trained to take your money to the cash register and bring back your change- I know, it’s amazing!) Then I went to the farmer’s market and picked up our box of grass-fed meat from Deck Family Farm. We love their meat so much and don’t want to eat any other meat now that we’ve tried it. (Jeff just wrote a blog post about the wonderful folks at Deck Family Farm. You can read it here: Jeff’s Blog)
Then I saw our friends Tatanka and Fenn at their produce stand. We do trades with them every year, which we always look forward to. They gave us some gifts, for the growing baby, they said (bless their hearts!) Then we started up a new trade for the year and I picked out some fresh veggies. Throughout the market season, they have lots of veggie tops that people want taken off of their vegetables, so they let us bring home bagfuls for the goats and chickens. What a blessing that is. It was so nice to see those gals, they are such lovely ladies.
There are so many things that we love about the market. We love seeing all of our market friends, we love trading with friends for local food and handcrafted art & clothes, we love hearing live music on stage, and of course we love sharing our art with the world, having heartfelt connections with customers and makin’ some money!
I got in our truck to head home and saw our midwife Anita walking towards me. Talk about divine timing! When I was driving to market, I was hoping I would happen to run into her because we told her to visit us at our booth and I wanted to let her know that we weren’t set up today. So there she was, parked right in front of me! My wish came true. I greeted her and gave her a big hug! She was just on her way to look for us, so I saw her just in time. I told her we were not set up today, but were planning on being there next weekend.
Part of me wanted to wander around the market and say hello to so many of our market friends we’ve been missing, but a bigger part of me wanted to go back home and take care of Jeff. So I headed home and I knew Jeff was going to be so happy about all the good food I was bringing back with me.