An Inglorious End to my Farmers Markets

The farmers markets didn't pan out for me. Thankfully I had only signed up to attend five during the summer (five total markets - not five markets a week) as I quickly learned that while I really enjoy being at the market and talking to people, I simply hate hate hate the whole set up and tear down of the market. The lugging everything to the car and stuffing it full (I have a Subaru wagon and it still barely all fits!), then going across town to the market, pulling everything out of my car, struggling in the heat to get everything set up (no matter what anyone says, those 10x10 tents are not easy to get up by yourself). But that's only the half of it - you have to do it all in reverse at the end of the day.

Then last week I went through the entire process of getting everything out and into my car, shlepped across town, only to find out that they had made a mistake and din't have me on the schedule nor did they have space for me. Sadly, I was more relieved that I didn't have to go through the whole set up then I was angry over the mistake. I think that's when I realized how very much I didn't want to do any more markets. So I traded out with someone else I know who makes similar products and she is going to take my space at the remaining markets I'm supposed to do.

If the markets had been huge money makers for me I probably wouldn't have traded in my time, but they really didn't bring in that much - at least not enough, in my mind, to make it worth all the hassle. And with my big tradeshow of the season looming in the near future and the zoo job, I felt like I had more then enough to keep me busy this Thursday afternoon rather than sitting at the market all afternoon.