Almost Without Exception
So - be the exception
I now have many years worth of digital photos of the farm and farm-related things. This wealth of images has its blessings and it has its... non-blessings. For example, if I am looking for some picture in particular for whatever reason, I now find that I must leave a trail of bread crumbs so I can find my way back from whatever nostalgic trip my brain wants to take.
And no, I do not always remember exactly what I was looking for once I realize that I started my explorations. I just know that I was working on something and I wasn’t looking for a memory lane slideshow. You can decide for yourself if this was a blessing or not - I certainly have my own opinions on the matter.
Yes, yes. I know I should spend some time organizing the photos so I can find things quicker. But, let me ask you this - have YOU organized all of those photos on your phone? Have you gone through all of the old photo albums you keep saying you want to look at and organize? No? Me too.
Yet there is value in searching. Some of that value comes in the form of new learning or the relearning of things that have been learned before. And, sometimes, you come to a realization that things have changed or stayed the same - and those changes and non-changes are worth pondering.
The photo shown above is from a Saturday morning farmers’ market in Waverly in 2010. Tammy was putting out the finishing touches before the market opened. This was one of those times where we were pretty well set up with time to spare, so I grabbed a camera so I could take pictures of the market. The hope was that we could use images of various vendors to build a website and help promote their products to the community.
I looked at these images and I felt like I could almost step into them. You see, I did this sort of thing enough that it does not take much to transport me back. I can feel the cool air entering my lungs and I can take some delight in the rays of sun that angle their way through the trees to show themselves here and there on our display.
I can hear softly spoken words and the noises of activity as vendors work to set things up “just so.” It is still early and no one talks too loudly and loud noises are still startling. Another vendor drops a small box on a table and I cringe a bit - both because of the noise and worry that they may have damaged some of their produce.
I look at my hands and I see the cracked skin on my fingers. Evidence that I’ve been working in the soil without gloves once again. Yeah, I never did get into using gloves in the field. Having rough hands was a personal badge of honor. They said to me “hard worker” and “steward of the soil.” I’m not sure what they said to others. But, I suspect most didn’t notice my hands at all.
The beginning of each market always held hope that maybe this time we would be pleasantly busy with continuous sales. Maybe even lots and LOTS of sales.
It rarely happened that way. Typically we would rush to load up the truck and rush to unload the truck and set up the display. We did our best to have excellent product, a nice display and a pleasant demeanor. We were prepared to answer questions and we hoped we might even experience a bit of a rush of people anxious to acquire some good food.
Then, more times than I care to admit, we would not experience any “rush of people” and instead we would experience long periods of time where there were very few customers strolling through the market. So, we started exploring ways where we could be an exception to the norm.
In our case, we embraced the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) or farm share model. We were different for our area - at least for a time. And we still participated in farmers’ markets, but in different ways than we had before.
We limited our markets to May plant sales and September heirloom tomato sales. The photo above was taken in September of 2012 - and clearly we had a really nice crop coming in. Our CSA share holders already had about as many tomatoes as they could want, so we did some “tomato tasting Saturdays” during peak production.
At that time we would tout that we grew as many as 40 different heirloom tomatoes each and every season. And, because of our farm's soil and location, we typically had a stronger late harvest than early harvest (this changed as we added high tunnels).
We would feature our heirloom tomatoes prominently, offering chances for people to taste each type if they wanted.
On days like this, it would not be unusual to have fifteen to twenty different varieties on our table for people to choose from. Each tray would hold an average of 20 (usually more) pounds of tomatoes and we would bring somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty trays. That's at least 600 pounds of top quality tomatoes for those of you keeping track at home.
On top of that, we would often have a few boxes with "seconds" - tomatoes that were not top market quality, but still perfectly useful - that we would sell at bulk prices to people who wanted to can, make sauces, or whatever...
And, of course, we would have some other veggies as well to complement the tomatoes, like fall lettuce. Sadly, our bacon and mayonnaise trees were usually not ripe at the same time - but that's how it is sometimes.
I will report that we often did pretty well on these days - at least in comparison to other market days. But, we would usually still be going home with about half of the tomatoes, unless the food bank dropped by and would take a batch of the remaining tomatoes. The problem there was that they were "allergic" to any tomato that was not red - so those stayed with us. It’s a case where being the exception wasn’t a good thing. Their loss, I guess.
We made our farm an exception because we had such a wide range of tomatoes. And we really leaned into it. But, being an exception has its risks. What if no one wants a Wapsipinicon Peach tomato or a Black Krim? What if our brand of being an exception is too much for everyone else?
I guess in our case, we were more interested in being an exception than being accepted. That probably says something about Tammy and I, but I’m not always sure what.
After markets like this, we would combine partially loaded trays with other partial trays and compress how things went back into the truck. If we failed to do that, the tomatoes would roll around inside the trays and we were going to be a bit unhappy with their condition (and the condition of the inside of the truck) when we got back to the farm.
The repacking process took some time, so we were often the last to get packed up at the end of the market day. And, without fail, there would always be someone who would pull up as we put the last thing into the truck and say something along the lines of...
"Oh shoot! We missed the market and we were soooooo looking forward to it. I don't suppose you have any tomatoes (or some other veggie) that we could still buy?"
You would think that after this had happened many times before, we would politely decline. But, we always said yes (as long as we had what they requested).
Then, one of us would climb into the truck (usually me) and pull things out - even if it was a huge pain to do - and we would show them what we had.
Almost without exception one of the following would happen:
The person would inspect, prod and mumble. Then they would finally select ONE tomato - and after a little more prodding and mumbling, maybe select a second one. Then they would pull out a big bill to pay (or ask if we took credit cards - we didn’t) so we would then have to go find our change box again.
The person would ask us, after we had gone to the extra work to pull things out, if we would give them a discount. After all, market was done and we should be grateful to make one more sale - even if it was at a quarter the asking price.
The person would sigh and say, "Are any of these 'Better Boys?' They're not? Well, I don't want any then."
Please don't take this wrong. We are both people who like to be helpful. We prefer to be kind. If you are interested enough in stopping and asking for something specifically from us and we have it, we'd love to accommodate. So, we found ourselves going through these motions even with the knowledge of how it was likely to turn out.
And sadly, we often found ourselves regretting that we had tried to accommodate. And that's kind of sad.
But, I DID say "almost without exception."
There were a couple of cases where the person(s) who stopped us and benefited from our extra effort recognized what we were doing.
Once, the person did not buy much - because they did not need much. But, they made it clear that they were incredibly grateful to get some fresh produce and that they understood it had taken us extra effort to do so. This individual was not physically able to help us re-load, but they wanted to do something to help if they could.
The honest and heartfelt recognition of our extra efforts was enough. And they were able to tell us at a different market that they had enjoyed tasty BLT sandwiches thanks to our product (even if we didn't have bacon and mayonnaise in our truck).
The other time that I specifically recall honest recognition is when an individual said, with sincerity - but not much fanfare - "I know this is not correct change. Please keep the extra to pay for your additional effort on my behalf. Thank you."
And, on top of that, we saw BOTH individuals at the next farmers' market. Rewarding our extra effort with continued patronage.
Today's challenge? Be the exception. Recognize the effort someone makes on your behalf. Let them know you appreciate it and recognize the value.
Have a great day everyone!
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This blog is a full re-write of an earlier draft originally published Feb 24, 2022
I miss the surprises in my bag full.