From farm to market

Things have just been a hoppin' here on the farm.  Vegetables are leaving the farm so fast it makes my head spin.  As I've said before, I don't get super involved with the produce part of the farm.  Between working at the clinic and taking care of the poultry, there is just not a lot of time left.  This past weekend however I did not have to work at the clinic so I tagged along with the guys to take pictures of what is involved in getting produce to our two main markets that are on Saturday mornings.

It all starts Friday while I am at work.  Since school has started, two of our high school boys are only available on some evenings.  So Ed who only goes to school part of the day is our main help on Fridays.  The tractor stays busy pulling wagon loads of produce from the field up to the driveway where everything is loaded onto the pickup truck for the trip over to Covered Bridge Gardens where everything will be sorted, weighed, packed and put into the cooler. 

The work at our farm is usually finishing up by the time I get home from work and get chores done.  This past Friday it was dark by the time I headed over to Covered Bridge Gardens to take pictures of the pre-market day festivities.  Ed was weighing out Swiss chard and Mike was working on broccoli when I got there and both were hamming it up for the camera.

There are two markets on Saturday: one at Shaker Square and one in Peninsula.  Mick and Kay cover the Shaker market and they take the "big truck".  Mike and Steve cover Peninsula market and they take our pickup truck and trailer.  Normally they load the truck in the morning, but Friday the low temperature that night was going to be only a few degrees warmer than the cooler so they decided to load at night.  One less thing to do in the morning.  Here are some pictures of the trucks in various stages of loading.

We finished up somewhere between 9:30pm and 10pm.  Then a quick trip into town to pick up the traditional pizza for dinner.  Saturday morning started around 4:50am.  I got up to feed the animals then a quick breakfast for the humans and off to market.  We pulled into Howe Meadow around 7:30am.  Saturday was a beautiful sunny morning.  This is the first time I had been to the Howe Meadow market.  It was fun watching the transformation from empty meadow to bustling farmer's market.

If you want to see the entire series of pictures from Friday evening through Saturday at market, they are all over at our Facebook Page.

Market ends at noon.  It takes about an hour to tear down and Mike, Steve and I headed to Bob Evans for lunch.  Finally got home at 3:30pm.  The barn cats seemed to have the right idea of what to do on a warm sunny afternoon.  Seemed appropriate for the humans to do the same.  Heavenly afternoon nap after a long day.