For those of that didn't read yesterday's post I'll do a quick recap. I started off with a little of our farm history. I then followed up with some information about a CSA. That's not at all timely so I'll pick that up at another time. Having left the story with the tales of our farmers market days. Which is where I will start the story again. Having gotten as much local money as we were likely to do without leaving the farm we had decided it was time to hit "the big city" with our goods. For us that is Springfield Illinois. We were lucky in those days to have two summer markets in Springfield. We were blessed that we were already involved in the Illinois Stewardship Alliance so we'd had some introduction to the network of pioneers that were already making a living farming in rural central Illinois. The two pioneers that made the most impact in our decision to attempt to sell our wares in the city were Garrick Veenstra of Veenstra's Vegetables and Andy Heck of Heck's harvest. They had teamed up to open one of the largest booths at our market. It filled two entire stalls and was filled to the brim with the most amazing vegetables we'd ever seen. If these two thought our stuff was good enough for the big city we were good to go!
We spent the next couple of weeks creating what we were to soon find out was some very popular home made soap,lotion,herbal salves and soy candles. We'd already been making all of our own products here on the farm. Plus I have a Pet Grooming and Boarding business here so we'd been making our own pet products too.
We had been told that to get a space at the market you had to reserve and pay for your spot in very early spring. That was a feat that would remain impossible up until the day we decided to quit going to the markets too. If you remember in yesterdays post we'd already told you how much of a struggle it was to keep the lights on by the time the long Illinois winter decided to end.
But because we had friends at the market we also knew that in the early spring most of the booths remained empty because here in central Illinois winter makes early spring crops a hit or miss. Most of the vendors in those days didn't have greenhouses or any type of season extending equipment. We were told that all we had to do was get there before 7 when the vendors set up. After the paid vendors were settled in and accounted for the market manager would let in the vendors that hadn't paid. To make sure we wouldn't miss out on getting a space we left our house at 5 a.m. to make the hour long commute to the market.
We had managed to be first in line. Later we discovered there weren't that many brave souls willing to chance the unpredictable Illinois spring weather. The following markets we were able to leave the farm an hour later and still get our spot.
The first couple of markets were terribly disappointing but both myself and my partner are very passionate about what we were doing so soon our booth was crowded with visitors and we were selling our wares like the hotcakes we thought they were. Our business grew and our product line grew. We were absolutely thrilled with the money and the interaction. On that note I think it is time to take a much needed break from sitting here at the computer and head out to interact with the beauty here on the farm.
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| Gotta Love The View Here!!! |
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