However Meager It Seemed When I Bought It (And Introducing Poppy the Gosling)

So I'm working yesterday morning, an article due, some interviews lined up, a pile of paperwork to handle, when I get an email from Corinna that says:

We will be short on produce this week so come early. No tomato plants this week. We were hit with a bad wind and hail storm Monday night that took its toll on the farm and garden produce. Nothing too badly damaged except some trees/limbs down (including one old apple tree that was loaded) and many of my garden veggies were battered. Many we could not harvest for sale this week. The baby arugula is toast. We hope the rest recover. Because of the damage we will not be bringing tomato plants this week. I may need them to replant those that don't make it.

Thank you for Supporting your Local Farmers!

It was already 10 AM and the market had been open since 8. Do I go? Do I lose an hour and a half of work to go to a farmers market that probably won't have very much?

I sit and ponder. I have lots in my garden. I could get by another week without Charlotte's box or the farmers market.

But can the farmers get by? That's the ultimate question I ask. Because, in many retail environments two or five or ten bucks may not matter much, but at the farmers market, it matters.

* It matters to Corinna, who is there with her two children and their new pet goose, Poppy (who, by the way, is getting along well with Cutie the Duck).

* It matters to Melissa, who spends 50 bucks just on gas to get to and from the market.

* It matters to Jen the soapmaker whose property was decimated by a tornado a few weeks ago.

* It matters to the two new vendors there yesterday, who are probably trying to decide if it is worth their effort: Flat Creek Lodge, which recently became the second licensed artisanal cheesemaker in the state of Georgia (with Sweet Grass Dairy being the first), and Kristin from Modern Day Masala, who is a native Atlantan married to an Indian man who packages unique spice mixtures that she learned how to create from her Indian mother-in-law.

* And, ultimately, it matters to me, because I want convenient community-access to local farm produce and goods. And if people like me stop going, they stop coming (a number of farmers have already stopped, because of gas prices).

And so I went. I bought a small handful of kale (all that was available), six duck eggs (all that were left), two little bundles of radishes (the last ones), two cookies, a bar of soap, and a chunk of mozzarella.

Late yesterday afternoon, after bike-riding home from the community center (where the empty bike rack from a week ago is now full) with my daughters in the much-needed but inconveniently-timed sudden storm (and feeling a surge of anger at the continual incidence of MOMS on cell phones in mini-vans who completely ignore crosswalks by not stopping, as is the law and frankly, is basic common sense when you see children trying to cross a street!) (oh dear, I'm getting all worked up again), I made Two Local Pizzas that celebrated the bounty of the day, however meager it seemed when I bought it.

One pizza featured a whole wheat and blue corn (from Charlotte last fall) crust, topped with the mozzarella, my one home-grown (salmonella-free) tomato, and chopped olives. The other featured the same crust and mozzarella, topped with roasted onions from my garden and Corinna's chopped kale.

And as lightning drew nutrients up from my soil to my crops (as Melissa says it does), I was nourished as well, by far more than food.

However Meager It Seemed When I Bought It (And Introducing Poppy the Gosling)