About the Farm: Chapter 30

Eli and Jim Run the Market

[If you’ve just discovered About the Farm, for the whole story, you can start at Chapter One]

Chapter 30

The rehearsal dinner for Lily and Walker’s wedding will be on market day for Fairfield. Jim and I are honored to be asked to run the market that day.

Walker and his brother meet us in Fairfield about two hours before market time. They drop off crates and coolers of veggies. They also set up the tent and tables, and teach us how to take it all down. They leave the farm truck with us, and we are on our own to do our artistic best to display the veggies and signs. Jim has some experience with this, as he used to sell his framed photographs at artist markets.

As soon as the market opens, we are overwhelmed. I chat with customers and help them make decisions while Jim handles the money and change. Lots of folks ask where Lily and Walker are. When we tell them it is their wedding weekend, people ask me to send good wishes from them, so I start trying to memorize names. One shopper pulls out several extra 20 dollar bills for a wedding present, so I create a separate envelope for wedding gift money.

Toward the end of market, Grey arrives with his big cooler to grab what is left over. Lily has told me I’ll have to add quickly in my head as he loads up, and she wasn’t kidding. Grey is the happy buyer of things that may otherwise have gone to waste, and so I need to figure out a discount for him as well. (If you don’t yet know about Grey, see the Creating Small Farms Chapter.) We arrive at a number, he is pleased and goes on his way. There are just a few things left and these I offer to the other vendors, as Lily has told me to do. After all that, the only thing left over is a bit of zucchini (Of course. See zucchini chapter)

It has been a whirlwind of customers. A thunderstorm is blowing in, and as it begins to rain lightly, we quickly break down the tent and tables and load it all into the truck. As soon as we’re done, the torrential rain starts.

The plan is that Jim will drive the truck and I will drive my car to the rehearsal dinner venue to drop it off. I’ve got a vague idea of where we are going, though it is on roads I’ve never been on before. I’ve got the GPS, which I hope will bring me at least close, though GPS doesn’t work in much of our area. In addition, it is getting dark and it’s raining hard, which is not my favorite time to drive. We take off, with Jim following me into the storm, onto the mountain roads.

By the time we get to where the GPS has led me, we are on a secluded, steep, windy road. It is pitch dark and we are in the middle of nowhere. No signs. No lights. No buildings. No evidence of human habitation. Nothing.

Thankfully, at least the rain has let up. I pull over and get out of my car to talk to Jim. I’m feeling scared and a bit hopeless. If worse comes to worse I hope I can find my way out of these roads and to the farm, and drop the truck off there.

Jim says he saw a wooden sign a little ways back. Maybe we should find that sign again and turn there. I agree to try that.

We manage to turn our vehicles around on the narrow road and head back to find the sign. I turn at the sign (in the dark I can’t read what it says) and lead Jim down another pitch dark winding road. There is no signal, so my GPS is now no help at all. But I keep driving in the hopes of finding something.

Soon, I see cars parked by the side of the road. Then I see a low wooden building, the kind that looks like a cafeteria for a kids’ summer camp. There are lights on in the building! I pull to the side of the road and tell Jim I will try to find someone. I still don’t know if I have found the rehearsal dinner, or simply happened upon a weekend church camp.

I find a door and there are a few children playing outside. In the dark, I stumble a bit. A little girl notices me, so I ask her, “Do you know where I can find the rehearsal dinner for Lily and Walker?”

“Yes, this is it,” she says.

I am so relieved I could cry. “Oh, thank goodness!” I say emphatically.

She puts her arm around my waist (because that’s how tall she is) and with a shocked, worried look in her eyes, she asks. “How long have you been walking?!?”

I assure her I’ve done most of my traveling by car, but she is intent on taking care of this lost, wayward stranger. With her arm still around my waist, she guides me inside, into the bright lights and merriment of the rehearsal dinner after-party. She makes sure I find Walker so we can give him the keys to the truck and the envelope of money.

The food has long been put away, but Jim and I are invited to take the (delicious!) leftovers out of the walk-in cooler and sit in the kitchen to have some dinner. As we eat, we chat with the caterer, who is an old friend of ours, as she cleans up. It has been a long, exciting, different kind of a day, with many experiences I am incredibly grateful for.

Keep reading? Chapter 31 -- Wedding