The first market of the year is right on cue....aka; people never cease to amaze me.

You gotta love the general public...mostly for their uniqueness and originality.  (If you can't laugh at their antics, you'd be in the slammer for hurting one of them, I swear.)

Take the farmer's market.   

{Not literally.}

Last year I made a list of humorous and unforeseen incidents that still, to this day, keep me laughing hysterically.  (It could become a farmer-comedy-routine at the next sustainable agriculture symposium,)

Take the farmer in the tent next to me that walked up to me last fall and loudly proclaimed, "I hope you can tell me what's causing my nuts to shrivel up this year!"

What can you say to that?  Keeping eye contact was hard enough...

Then there was the sweet gal that ate my 2-day old display of hardened chiabata bread...oven hardened for hours and dried for days to stand up to my lovely display of tomatoes, basil and olive oil.  She told everyone how great it tasted as my jaw stood dropped-open trying to find the words to tell her it was not for sampling, when a really, really old guy picked up the last piece, trying to bite into that simulated brick with his dentures.  

The artisan baker next to me was literally laughing for two weeks over the very pained look on his face.

One of my favorite antics came from Chester...an adorable, very well-behaved and beautifully trained dog that has become my "good omen" ever since he christened my table on the very first day I was at this market.  He lifted his leg on my tablecloth (the one with the most delightful Italian words and pictures of fruit and olives in all the right colors for my farm theme) and he shamelessly "marked his territory'.  Apparently, I'm his from now on.

So, last Saturday, at the first market of the year, it was a beautiful 73-75 or so degree day, full sun and a record turnout...what could possibly happen to add to my list of bad, badly behaved market goers?

{I shouldn't be surprised, but every time it happens I sit here shaking my head.  No! Not again!}

A professional gardener, who has become a friend (and brings me delicious homemade breakfast bars on occasion) apparently couldn't take it any longer and came up to my table saying, "No one knows how to market anything", and started rearranging my table! 

(Hello...Did she know I was standing right there?)  She meant well, and actually, I did take her "suggestions" constructively and rearranged it myself the following week. Quite an improvement I'd say but her delivery...oh my, her delivery could use a bit of...shall we say, tweaking!
{Still, bring on the breakfast bars, my friend!}

My favorite thing that happened was a quirky little comment that Chester's master made to his lovely wife when I told her, "Watch out for the big (grapevine) balls hanging on the tent!", as she dodged her way to the table to say hello.

"I just said that to her earlier this morning..." was all he said.  She turned beet red.

It will be a great year...