This Little Piggy Went to (the) Market

Kent County Agricultural Fair, seen from across the river in Ste. Marie-de-Kent, NB.

And this Saturday that little piggy will be me!! That's right, Barnyard Organics is making it's Farmer's Market debut and the Spring Street Farmers Market in Summerside! WhoohooO!

I'm nervous and excited at the same time. Nervous that we won't sell anything, excited to be a part of it all. I've always liked going to the market, but wasn't so keen on spending my entire Saturday mornings there if I didn't have to. But we've got more chickens coming and although we haven't tried all that hard to sell the ones we've got now, we thought the market might open us up to a new demographic of people willing to pay for a premium product. The other big reason we're going is to sell the edamame. Anyway, I think it'll be a good experience if nothing else. My biggest hope, personally, is to get some orders for lamb, since there'll be two ready next week and 8 more along the next few weeks/months.

I've also spent some time this week putting together some decorative sheaves of various grains, tied up all purrrdy with a bow, since we know that it's the stuff that people don't need that they spend the most money on. (If you're a potential customer please skip this paragraph! haha!) Anyway, I wasn't sure how they'd turn out, but I'm pretty impressed with myself really. I've got winter wheat, triticale, spelt and oats, each looking very different and very pretty. I had great intentions of having all kinds of pictures of what I'll be selling posted to the blog as pre-advertisement, but alas, it hasn't happened. I've got pictures on my camera, but every toy ever created seems to require batteries, so my camera has fallen to the bottom of the list- even though it's far less annoying that a little train that pipes the same tooting song over and over and over and over and over.....
SO, you'll just have to come to the market for yourself to see what we've got. Or, you could wait until next week and I'll put some up here for you to see. If I were you, I'd go with option one.

So that's what's coming up, here's what's been happening;

Mark is currently enjoying his second day of harvesting the spring crops, yay. :)
We took a 'vacation' last week and went home for the Kent Country Agricultural Fair, which has yet to let me down. What a great time. Mom and Dad were camping at the fair, so we got to sort of take over the house and travel back and forth at our leisure-although I've come to realize that with a 1.5 year old and a baby, there is very little relaxing about 'leisure'. Thankfully I've got a couple great neices and nephews who babysat for us while Mark and I hit up the fair by ourselves (or rather with my brother Mark and his wife Lisa, who we always look forward to seeing and visiting with when we go to West Branch).
Mom accepted her Farmer of the Year award like the celebrity she is and made a really sweet speech that made me cry just a little. I don't know what it is about the fair, but it makes me awfully nostalgic and sentimental. And glad that I married a farmer and into agriculture.

Mom and Dad rode into the ring in a fancy horse drawn carriage, with the premier, Shawn Graham (waving wildly), which is just a little bit hilarious, given the family connection (my grandmother married Shawn's grandfather).

When we returned from home (meaning West Branch, NB for me) we attended the Meal in the Field (aforementioned in the last post) which was held at the Rossignol Winery in Little Sands, PEI. Beautifully done event. We were matched up with Joel Short from Georgetown Inn, who showcased our chicken in a sushi type dish. He served it as pulled chicken with an Asian glaze rolled it up in rice, in a cone of kelp. He also offered it in the more traditional sushi roll. Either way, it was delicious and definately a new way to enjoy it. We got to taste lots of great wines and snack on some really really tasty dishes. (Mark's fav was our chicken, mine was Roy Vandemaar's pulled pork sandwiches made by the chef at Stanhope Resort, although all the food was pretty Deeelish.) Nicely done event. Made me all that much more excited for the Organic Harvest Meal coming up September, 27th, also organized by Roy.

Anyway, am pretty exhausted and have a big day tomorrow, so off to bed I go. Stay posted for the results!

Hope all is well in your corner of the world!

Sally