This past Saturday was opening day. The date circled on the calendar for months, the ready-or-not-here-it-comes beginning to farm stand season. Yes, I had my typical meltdown prior- mostly because there was a partially restored 1978 Cadillac taking up pretty much the entire space in the stand up until 10 days before opening. Turning the building from a garage into a store is no easy task, but not only did I feel it looked great when we reopened, I felt like it was actually a real improvement from prior years! And while I never expect to be offering corn or tomatoes, usually I have a little bit more produce than just rhubarb & mustard greens. But this year, Mother Nature has been temperamental. In fact, the night before opening was rather sleepless, not only because I have a tendency to be awake prior to a big day, but because we had a cold front move through, taking the overnight temps all the way down to 28 degrees with a freeze. But the propane heaters we put in the greenhouse kept the plants safe, and our floating row cover prevented a lot of damage to the outdoor plants like green beans & potatoes. (We had held off putting any tomatoes/peppers/cucumbers/etc outside because this was in the forecast for some time.) So when the alarm went off (before 5 AM), we were happy that everything fared pretty well despite the weather, and got to work with Saturday morning duties like picking rhubarb and grinding & packaging 70+ lbs of sausage.
Dan took the sign up to the top of the road, I put the farmer man sign out in front of the stand, we rolled the stand door open, and farm stand season 2015 was underway. My first customers were new faces, looking for eggs & bread. I was able to help them with the eggs, anyways. The rest of the day was busy. I had new faces and plenty of old ones. Hugs were exchanged, baby news told, as were tales of a puppy that had grown into a bad dog. While it is nice, and somewhat necessary, to be closed for the winter & early spring months and to have a reprieve from butchering that time, lots of my customers are more than just folks who spend money here. They are friends, an extended farm family. I genuinely look forward to seeing them again and catching up with what they have been up to over the winter.
Dan took the sign up to the top of the road, I put the farmer man sign out in front of the stand, we rolled the stand door open, and farm stand season 2015 was underway. My first customers were new faces, looking for eggs & bread. I was able to help them with the eggs, anyways. The rest of the day was busy. I had new faces and plenty of old ones. Hugs were exchanged, baby news told, as were tales of a puppy that had grown into a bad dog. While it is nice, and somewhat necessary, to be closed for the winter & early spring months and to have a reprieve from butchering that time, lots of my customers are more than just folks who spend money here. They are friends, an extended farm family. I genuinely look forward to seeing them again and catching up with what they have been up to over the winter.
Beyond my regulars, there were LOTS of families that stopped by as well. I know the Tionesta Market Village was having a kids' day, so I don't know if that had anything to do with it or if it was just the beautiful holiday weekend. I think it's great that people bring kids to see a real farm and have the experience of seeing where food really comes from. I always try to make it a good experience as well. We had a pen of chicks for sale, and that's always an attention grabber. I'd come over and explain how to tell a baby chicken from a baby turkey, and lots of little fingers got to feel how soft a baby bird is. And I offer cups of bird food so folks can feed the chickens, turkeys, ducks, guineas and peafowl. One of my earliest customers of the day is a nice gentleman who always has me keep his change so I can hand out cups of feed to kids who otherwise may not get to experience that part of the farm. Since I charge only $.50 per cup, it's a pretty cheap act of kindness to pay forward, but it's a wonderful thing to do. But every single time I tried to give away a cup to a child, the adult with them insisted on keeping the pay-it-forward chain going, even if they had to go out to the car to bring me some change. While I've read in the paper about these kind of spontaneous acts of kindness that keep going until 70 folks in line for coffee pay for someone else's, this was the first time I had been a part of something like that. It's always heartening to see that side of the human race....or maybe it's just that we get such an incredible group of folks that stop by to see us!