"Gypsy gold does not chink and glitter. It gleams in the sun and neighs in the dark."

~ Saying of the Gladdagh Gypsies of Galway


Saturday, September 5, 2009

The Fruit Peddlers!


Our Farmers Market Stand


Mom & "the perfect Apple!"



Today we had a very successful market day...and of course, a tad unusual!

Last night my mom and sister came over to help me with my grand idea of doing up some caramel apples to take to the market. While it wasn't a total wash, it wasn't as I had pictured either. We sold 3 so we still have some practicing to do ;)

We got up at 5:30am this morning, and of course, it is like the horses have ESP and know when I step one foot out of bed...they all start whinnying like they never ate before, even when it is earlier than usual for breakfast!

We loaded up 2 bushels of apples & 3 bushels of pears and headed to the market. There was a good crowd and we all but sold out of the pears and our basket of Cortland apples went like hotcakes! We received lots of compliments on our logo and one vendor noticed it on our shirts from seeing our listing the other day on localharvest.org!

We still had a few more picked bushels of apples and pears at home that were ripening at rapid speed and needed sold asap before they went to waste. Figuring we had nothing to loose, we stopped by a little old Amish lady's stand on the way home and I asked her if she was interested. She was not, but took our card and said her brother may be.

We decided to go home, load up with the rest of the full bushels, and then go with the goods in hand, to another local 'amish hang-out'! They thought the produce looked great but had no use for it either; in the mean time, we got stopped by 2 other people visiting the amish ladies booth, wanting to purchase some of the pears and apples we had in the truck! Sounds good to me :)

One of the amish ladies gave us the name of her sister, whom she thought would be interested in them. When she told me her sisters name, all I heard was hfjadhgfivagfnaeiulfhiew - 'uh, could you spell that please'! And she gave me a street name and roundabout idea of where on that road we could find her sister! So off we were again.

We stopped at one amish house along the road selling produce - wrong house, "they live across the street" they tell us! So we go across the street and pull up to about 6 kids running around and an amish lady in the middle of canning pears. Sure enough, she wanted all the apples and half of the pears. She then told us the next road over has a lot of amish people and to stop and see if any of them are interested in the rest. So off we went again, door to door, like girl scouts at cookie time, peddling our fruit!

None of the amish on this second road were nearly half as friendly as who we came to know as 'Mo'! At this point, we were both spent and had impatient animals awaiting us at home. As a last resort, we decided "Ah, what the heck" and stopped at Eli's, our amish neighbor 2 doors down. Sure enough, Eli wanted our pears even though they already had ordered and purchased a shipment from Michigan for their canning needs this year. He was sure to tell us he'd place his order with us next year!

Unfortunately, I cannot find a market for us to attend tomorrow, so we may just set up at the end of my mom's driveway! We have a few days off this coming week from work so we may also be setting up at some weeknight markets too.

No comments: