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Archive for October 10th, 2007
Lessons from Wednesday’s Farmers Market
October 10th, 2007 | 
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The last two Wednesdays my husband and I have manned a table at the local county farmers’ market. What a unique experience. 
We live in an incredibly rural area and the market has five regular vendors (one being my mother-in-law) so it isn’t terribly huge. The in-laws went on vacation to visit friends in Las Vegas so we took over the market duties for two weeks. It is amazing the different kinds of people that one meets in a matter of 5 hours – all with a different story to tell. The regular vendors are all transplants from other parts of the country. We talked about how this area is so dramatically different than the rest of the country. Granted most of us transplants came from heavily populated areas such as Philadelphia suburbs, New York City etc. It takes some adjusting to get used to a trip to the grocery store taking a minimum of 1 hour and that’s only the drive time. Or that pizza isn’t delivered. Or making sure your gas tank has gas in it before you leave civilization because you have to have enough gas to get home and back to the gas station (ask my brother-in-law about how to learn this the hard way). But despite the differences, I don’t think you would find nicer, more caring people than here in West Virginia. Where else do you drive down the road and every passing driver waves at you – even if you don’t know them? Where else do people plant massive gardens so they can trade produce with others? It’s an awesome place to live…..once you get used to it.
We live in an incredibly rural area and the market has five regular vendors (one being my mother-in-law) so it isn’t terribly huge. The in-laws went on vacation to visit friends in Las Vegas so we took over the market duties for two weeks. It is amazing the different kinds of people that one meets in a matter of 5 hours – all with a different story to tell. The regular vendors are all transplants from other parts of the country. We talked about how this area is so dramatically different than the rest of the country. Granted most of us transplants came from heavily populated areas such as Philadelphia suburbs, New York City etc. It takes some adjusting to get used to a trip to the grocery store taking a minimum of 1 hour and that’s only the drive time. Or that pizza isn’t delivered. Or making sure your gas tank has gas in it before you leave civilization because you have to have enough gas to get home and back to the gas station (ask my brother-in-law about how to learn this the hard way). But despite the differences, I don’t think you would find nicer, more caring people than here in West Virginia. Where else do you drive down the road and every passing driver waves at you – even if you don’t know them? Where else do people plant massive gardens so they can trade produce with others? It’s an awesome place to live…..once you get used to it.
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