Floods and frozen farmers

Ah yes, the first Saturday farmers' market of the season.

I am signed up for the entire season of market, which entails getting up between 5-5:30 in order to get all the critters fed, myself ready to go, and driving into Davenport to set up to sell my wares before 7:45 am every Saturday.

This year there have already been a few challenges to the normal flow of the market. It started with a disagreement between the two preexisting markets that shared a common parking lot owned by the city, and the city's levee commission, over changes in the rules for the new lease of the lot (referred to in the local papers as "the green bean wars"). Somehow it ended with 3 separate markets, 2 combining and heading to another location, and part of the original market staying in the established spot down by the river.....which is where I decided to stay....I just want to sell my stuff.

With that all settled, there was one problem remaining. As I mentioned, the market is, well, down by the river.............which happens to be flooded right now.

My booth is supposed to be, oh, somewhere in this general region.

In spite of the deluge, a decision was made to carry on with the market anyway, simply moving it up onto the road north of the lot until the water recedes, which seemed like a reasonable alternative. After watching the weather forecast last night (it wasn't pretty), I had a LOT of hesitation before deciding to go ahead and load up the truck and hope that the weather report was as unreliable as usual. Unfortunately, it was fairly accurate for a change. It was 40- something degrees with 15-25 mile an hour winds and raining/drizzling steadily all morning.

My friend Jean, huddled for warmth in the back of her car.
Sorry about the fuzzy pictures...I was trying to keep rain off the lens...plus I was shivering so hard that I couldn't hold the camera still.

Considering the inclement weather, many vendors did show up with some wonderful items for sale.

My friends Tom and Nancy always have beautiful hostas. These guys had a sense of humor about the flooding situation, they displayed many of their bedding plants in this bass boat offering free delivery...downstream.

Darci has some awesome handmade goats' milk soaps that smell Divine.

YUM!

As I was leaving market (I wimped out and packed up early..I couldn't feel my hands anymore), I saw these pelicans hanging out along the flood waters, yes, we do have pelicans in Iowa :). They are so beautiful to watch especially when they are in flight.

Next Saturday is sure to be better, after all it is May!