A Week at the Farm Market Day 7: Saturday

by The Woodland Elf · Published October 12, 2015 · Updated February 19, 2019

With Saturday comes the 3rd and final farm market of the week.

Saturday starts at 6am, which if it’s after a 3am night is far too early by any standards, but I guess at this point I’m just used to running on adrenaline Saturday mornings. Basically I woof down down my breakfast and finish packing whatever flowers I didn’t have packed the night before. Then I head down to the Canandaigua market.

Set up time is less on Saturday because I don’t have to put up a tent. If it’s during a flower lull, I usually sew while I’m sitting at the market. It prevents me from getting that nervous feeling I sometimes get when my hands aren’t working at something. Sometimes I sew costume pieces, other times I just catch up on my mending. I usually wear my favorite t-shirts until they’re practically rags, so I always have a lot of mending to do (but honestly, how do you throw out a Rolling Stones t-shirt even when it has holes in it?).

If it’s high sunflower season, I usually have loose sunflowers I didn’t get made into bouquets the night before, so I try to put them together before the market opens. The market usually slows down around noon, so I go for snack time then. It’s never difficult to find something tasty at the market.

I’m usually sold out of flowers by the end of the market, so it makes packing the car for home very easy. Once home, I unpack the car and if time allows, take a little nap to make up for my lack of sleep the night before.

I’m a bit of an insomniac, so I don’t fall asleep in the daytime that well, but if I can, it saves me from having a lack-of-sleep headache the next day. When I wake up I set about cleaning the house from the mess it’s become during the market week. Then I go back outside and do a little something easy like planting or weeding.

Saturday night is lovely. It’s the night to recharge the energy expended the rest of the week. My family usually has pizza and a movie or watches Star Trek (The Original Series of course) on TV. Then it’s off to bed early to make up for the previous night’s sleep deprivation. A good way to end a busy week.

So that’s a typical week of farm market life for me. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little glimpse into my crazy world. It’s not a life that’s suited to everyone, but it’s definitely my true north. I love it.

I love having my hands in the dirt planting and making things grow. I love listening to the sound my cows make as they enjoy their sunflower leaves. I love the people at the farm markets, the shoppers and the fellow vendors. It’s all such a wonderful atmosphere. I love the quiet of being alone in the field pushing the seeder through the freshly turned earth. I’m kept company with the memories of being out there with my grandfather as he taught my siblings and I the ways of the farm.

I never get sick of seeing flowers bloom. No matter how many I plant, pick, or make into bouquets they never fail to put a smile on my face. Even when I’m exhausted, I love walking out in those rows of flowers. I even name my sunflower patches from year to year, because they’re all so different. There was the year of Mirkwood, where the plants ended up growing seven feet tall and the flower stems had to be cut with corn knives because they were too thick for scissors. There was The Mutant patch that had been planted in ground with too much manure, so some of the flowers ended up with strange petals. And then there was the Mars patch of last year, with leaves so large I could have worn them as t-shirts. It reminded of the giant soy bean fields on Mars in the novel I was reading at the time.

In the end I just love farm market life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything…well, ok maybe I’d trade it for a job as a full time costume maker, but this is a pretty good second. See you all at the markets 🙂

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