Farmers’ Market in DesMoines
Hi neighbors. I’ve spent this last week in Iowa with my daughter and her family. It is always great fun to “drop in” to a life similar to my own 35 years ago.
My granddaughter has her own car now and drives herself to high school and then back home. It is almost a half an hour’s drive each way. She is an observant and cautious driver and I am very proud of her skills.
Still, she is a new driver and just got her license a couple of months ago. She told me about the big dent in her back fender. “The sign isn’t always there,” she explained. “It’s only there in the summer and I backed into it by mistake.”
I assured her that most accidents occurred “by mistake” and that it was an inevitable event to most new, young drivers to have a small run in accident their first few weeks of driving.
“That’s what they (the police) said,” she continued, “I told them what happened and they said they could replace the sign with no problem. They didn’t seem too mad about it.” She bit her lower lip and sighed. “Now I have to fix the car though. I don’t know when that will happen.”
I couldn’t help but smile. I explained that car ownership was a two-edged sword, cars always need some type of attention; and that attention always involves money, time or both.
Time is something she has little of these days. Her school schedule is quite full, and her after-school activities are pretty demanding. But she will get through it all fine, with help and support from her family.
Time is an issue at home too. My daughter has become a skillful baker and decided to offer her baked goods for sale at one or two of the farmers’ markets in the greater DesMoines area. With only this week and next to participate before the sellers fold their tents for the winter, she baked for three days and we attended one within DesMoines proper.
She had been the week before and had some experience with sitting three hours in the sun. She bought an awning to put up over her table. The table was a picnic table from China which we spent two hours the day before putting together. Once we figured out part of the table had been installed upside down, we fixed that and the rest of the construction went smoothly.
Once we got to the market area, we put up the awning. That was not as easy as we thought it should be! We got the metal supports separated and the awning halfway on before the wind picked up.
The awning was connected to half of the supports, and we know that because the rest of it caught the wind. My daughter and I chased the awning, which was pulling the supports, at least 10 feet before we caught it and herded it back in place.
It was then we realized it was upside down. We unhooked the awning. It immediately was caught in the wind again and opened above us like an umbrella. We noticed some of the more experienced vendors were shaking their heads and headed our way.
With their help, we turned the supports right side up and secured the awning to it. It started hopping up and down in the wind. Someone handed us a couple of bungee cords and we tied the awning, supports and all, to the van.
After getting set up, putting out the baked goods was a piece of cake — literally!
The afternoon proved profitable and after repacking and going out to eat, we went to Wal-Mart and bought more bungee cords and hunted up some weights at home for the next day’s adventure.
All the next day the wind was up, it was sprinkling off and on, and we both decided we were too exhausted from baking and parasailing with the awning to do another day at a smaller farmers’ market. Besides, all of the family enjoy homemade bread, cookies, pies, fudge, pastries and candy.
I trust all went well in Nevada during my absence. I’ll be home today and my daughter will be with me. In case you wonder, we will be driving down, not flying!