Connecting at Last Week's Farmers' Market

I'd just published my blog posting last Saturday morning--thinking about who might latch onto it out there in cyperspace--when I then went off to our weekly farmers' market.  As I turned in the parking lot, I spotted a bumper sticker on the car ahead of me that read, "No One Cares About Your Blog."  I have to say, that gave me a good chuckle.  I didn't take it personally.

I adore the farmers' market but admit to not doing much more than an in-and-out these weeks so have not been hitting all my usual vendors with subsequent chit-chat.  After some seventeen years, now, I'm known as a regular (and early-bird) customer and get smiles of recognition.

"I haven't seen you lately," Susan says, as I pick out a head of her garlic.  "Have you been away?"

"I haven't been feeling well," I admit.  "I came down with Lyme this summer."

"No!  Everyone's getting Lyme.  I know more people who've gotten it recently."  In fact, around here, Lyme disease is an epidemic.  I know at least a dozen people, not counting myself, who have it or have had it.  Of course, we have a plethora of deer here that carry the Lyme-infected ticks.  I've also heard that mice carry them ... and that their natural predators (foxes, coyotes) aren't as numerous as before.  And then some say the outbreak of Lyme this season relates to our having had a mild winter.  (So much for mild winters!)

After paying for the garlic and promising to relay a message for Susan, I say goodbye and go on to buy flowers, cucumbers, potatoes, sun-gold tomatoes, and Indian take-out.  It's a sunny morning and, feeling a bit perkier than usual, I make the rounds.  Vendors and I chat.  Jerry, the flower man, calls me by name.  When I inquire about one farmer's lettuce, he tells me, "Next week.  It's been too dry recently."  Another says the same thing.  A third has a basket with only a few heads.  I pick one out.  "It's only 75 cents because it's so small," the farmer tells me.  "I don't have much this week.  It was too wet at planting time."  (Too wet, then too dry, it makes for a week of little lettuce.)

As I'm about to leave the market, I find that Peter, the meat-man, is back--for the first time in a year and a half.  He smiles when he sees me:  I'm a good customer of his grass-fed lamb, his pork and beef.  But it turns out he has no lamb.

"I lost at least twenty sheep to coyotes this summer," he tells me, "including ewes, lambs, and one big ram."  And then the dead ewes' little lambs aren't doing well.  "I had to bring all the sheep down from the pasture, even though I'd put up more than five miles of 'permanent fencing' ... or so it's called.  It was a lot of work putting that fencing up," he adds.  "But after twenty years, brambles get to it.  Wild roses.  Moose ... bear ... deer.  Trees fall on it.  And limbs from all our storms.  I can't go up there and keep mending it." 

He asks after the family, then says he's glad to be back at the market.  "I realized what was important about coming here," he says.  "Meaning and identity!  I had customers come to the farm, but it wasn't the same as meeting them here at the market."

We chat on.  Since there's no lamb, I ask for the smallest packets he has of ground pork and breakfast sausage.  He knows I like small packets (I live alone) and says as he reaches into his cooler, "I thought of you this morning when I was packing these."  As he hands them to me, he returns to his meaning and identity theme.

"It's all about connection," I offer.

"We all need it," he says.  A friend of his, a nicely-dressed man who's been listening in, smiles.

As I'm about to leave, the man shakes my hand and says, "I'm happy to meet you."  He tells me his name--a European name.  Ah, those Europeans, I think to myself, and their charming manners.

"Are you Peter's neighbor?" I ask.

Peter gives a little smile.  "He married my ex-wife.  How's that for a connection!"  As I head toward my car, Peter calls back, "I'm the god-father of his children.  How's that for a connection!"  I smile and wave.

Back home, while boiling up my newly-purchased potatoes, I muse that it would have been infinitely nicer if one of Peter's coyotes had killed the mouse (or deer) that carried the Lyme-infected tick that got me instead of the grass-fed lamb that I would have bought.  I also think about connections--vendor and customer, Peter and his friend, plus blogger and any readers who happen along.  Who they are, where they are, what they've sought ... and if, in reading a blog (such as this), they've made some meaningful connections.

My morning's purchases (except for the meat).  The orange drink is mango lassi, the pastry is an alu palak.