Farm Market2006

Dateline: 1 August 2006

My wife, Marlene, and son, James, have been selling their homemade baked goods at the farmer’s market in Skaneateles, N.Y. on Thursday afternoons. Marlene has done the farmer’s market for 6 years. Our three sons have each been involved in the market enterprise at times along the way. This year, it’s just James.

Marlene puts in a grueling couple of days getting ready for the market each week, but her little home enterprise has a loyal customer following and that is very satisfying. It is a creative outlet that makes money.

Unfortunately, the market is unpredictable— some days are better than others. This year business seems slower than last year and all the vendors are noticing it. But, overall, Marlene is doing well. James is too. This first photo (below) shows a selection of Marlene’s breads on cooling racks in our kitchen. They are about to be bagged and labeled.

This next photo shows our gas guzzling Explorer packed and ready to go to the market. There are 45 full-size loaves of bread in there. The full-size loaves sell for $4.00 each and these are the different kinds: Oatmeal, Oatmeal-Raisin, Whole Wheat, Country White, Cracked Wheat & Oat, Wheat & Toasted Walnut, and Nutty Grain.

Marlene’s Nutty Grain is her most popular bread. It contains unbleached white flour, rolled oats, sunflower seeds, cashews, sesame seeds, flax seeds, honey, olive oil, salt, and yeast. The Oatmeal Raisin is popular too. The whole wheat breads contain a mixture of unbleached white flour and whole wheat flour that we grind ourselves in the kitchen in an electric stone mill.

The mill was purchased in the 1970s by a friend of my mother. Her friend gave it to her and my mother eventually passed it on to us. We have put hundreds of pounds of wheat berries through the grinder without any problems. It’s a Marathon mill.

Back to the contents of the Explorer...

In addition to those 45 loaves, there are 10 mini loaves of zucchini bread, 10 mini loaves of banana bread, 10 mini loaves of carrot cake (with frosting), 10 plates of cinnamon rolls and lots of cookies. The cinnamon rolls have become popular this year with Marlene’s customers.

Here’s a picture of Marlene and James at the market. You may notice there is no Explorer in this picture. That’s because the previous pictures and this one are not from the same week. That old car is Marlene’s mother’s. Our Explorer broke down the day before market and she had to pack everything into the car. The show must go on!

This picture looks like Marlene is the only vendor at the market, but she is actually in a long row of vendors and there is another row of tents across from her too.

And here is a picture of Marlene selling her bread, with money in her hand and a smile on her face.

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Click Here to read a rare (as in, the only) blog post written by my wife, Marlene, telling about her farm market business.