Sunrise Selling

This time, the worst part of waking up at 5am on Saturday to sell at the Farmer's Market was the anticipation that hung over our Friday evening. Maybe April would say it was actually waking up, loading my truck with fruit and heading down the driveway before neither our eyelids or the sun had risen. We were better prepared than last week and had added fresh picked organic apples, peaches & herbs to our inventory. We had nothing besides the jams and illegal fruit butters last week and it was easy to see that folks were looking for fresh local fruits and vegetables in the summer while they could be had. We think there will be a stronger demand for the canned stuff in the fall and winter as people eat heartier breakfasts and think of buying gifts for Christmas. The cheap Chinese awning of countless poles and no instructions had been returned to Big Lots and upgraded to one of those easy pop up deals that seemed easier to setup at 5:30am. It had the added benefit of making our stall look all professional like instead of the card table only arrangement we had last week that screamed amateur hour. And no one wants to buy their jams from amateurs, not when so many people can themselves around here.

The awning effect combined with our fresh fruit and herbs gave our stall an appearance I was hopeful would pull in customers like a tractor beam.

Carl the Cardinal sez: "Buy our fruit bitches!"

The time passed a lot quicker than last week, we made amigos with our stall neighbors and made small talk anytime traffic died down. We talked about trouble and techniques with organic growing, where to get seed for cover crops this winter, the wacky pot growing hippies up in Asheville & Boone and their "hydroponic supply shops." We listened to groan inducing standup comedy from the tall bald guy next door (What do you call a cow with no legs?...Ground beef). We had our first customer come up and ask us for our illegal fruit butter, gave away a few jars to get people hooked on our apple crack and completely sold out of our fresh peaches. All in all a pretty good day. The total haul? Maybe $40 in six hours. Our business model may need a little tweaking...

Another big deal this week was the first eggs laid by our posse of hens. I was proud that my favorite Rhode Island Red, Henrietta, laid the first egg. The same day, the 3 beautiful Black Australorps who follow us around everywhere cooing for compost scraps gifted us with a bounty of brown eggs. I soon figured out they would need a little assistance learning to use the next boxes mounted in their coop. So I kept watch and when they assumed the laying position; I scooped up the bird and placed her on the perches on the nest boxes. I only had to do that a few times before all the hens caught on and started to imitate their coop mates, hopping up to the nest boxes and waddling into a box for a little privacy while they laid. We wanted to remember how our first eggs looked, so we did a photo shoot in the kitchen for posterity.

first eggs

We did our best to eat mostly what we had grown or made this week, which included our spicy green tomatillo & cascabella pepper salsa on chicken nachos, digging up potatoes and frying em into homestyle chips in peanut oil and of course fresh eggs over easy for breakfast.

Crispy and delicious

It's been nearly a year since we left San Francisco and farming is starting to seem less like a crazy fantasy and more like our everyday reality. We have a ways to go before we are self sufficient or even a viable business, sometimes I have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees cleaning out the chicken coop and picking apples. But sitting on the porch Saturday evening watching the sun go down with my wife and reflecting on our second day at the farmer's market and how much we enjoy eating our homegrown; we felt just a little proud of our progress.