Rainy Day Friends

Thank God for the dedicated customers who come out with umbrellas on a rainy October market day, for they made my day on Monday as they zipped up and bought dinner rolls, fresh chocolate cakes or a pumpkin bread.  A quick word of chit chat, a shared smile, and they were gone.  Angels unaware perhaps of the gift they bestowed on this baker and her hard-working man.  We were up at work at 6 am, mixing up dough (me), rolling out the second oven (David) and tending to the new flock of pullets (David).   And we busied straight through -- baking, cooling and packaging pies. cakes and breads, loading the truck with tables and tent, bags and baskets -- until we bagged the last warm raisin breads, loading them in the truck and bumping down the gravel driveway and out onto our country road.  The morning's sunny disposition, the brilliant blue sky crisp white clouds and winds that whisked the glowing leaves -- embers of the Sugar Maple's earlier autumnal flame -- had inspired my baking as I kneaded whole wheat bread dough for loaves, and blended up butternut squash for pumpkin breads.  I kept asking "Please stay, blue sky."  But as Robert Frost discovered, "Nothing gold can stay."

In hunching under raincoats and umbrellas, in dodging under our market tent to stay dry while shopping, in bringing the kids to pick up fresh food right after school, everyday folks, our regulars, brought the sunshine back into the day, and brought the light of gratitude to my heart.  So, thank you, heroes!

Funny thing, When we thanked customers for coming out in the rain, they seemed surprised for the gratitude, as if they didn't understand the good they had bestowed on the raincoat-clad farmers behind tables of zucchinis, spaghetti squashes, tomatoes, apples, and bushel baskets of corn, cabbage and sweet bell peppers.  So this post is dedicated to those little things you do that bring joy to others -- pulling in to say hi and buy a sticky bun and a bag of crisp fall apples or a bundle of kale. Simple, small, but with a positive ripple in someone else's day.

We had worried that the rain that began to patter down just at the opening bell of market, would keep customers away, and we wouldn't make gas money.  But, by the afternoon's end, we sold most of our miniloaves, chocolate cakes and apple pies, and many of our risen breads.  Including most of our sticky buns. I was grateful to buy some organic broccoli from Bill Bertram's booth, pack up the truck and get down the road to dinner and warmth.

The fall harvest continues.  Come see us at the parking lot of the Weirton Goodwill and the Newlife Worship Center, 306-308 Penco Road, Weirton, WV.  Click here for a Google Map & street view of the lot.  (You can see our "King Corn" sign against the light post.)  We will be there every Monday from 3 to 6 pm, rain or shine from now until the end of October.  You can also visit the Weirton Market on Facebook.

There's still time to get some great local food!
Betsy