They Grow More Than Vegetables at the Rocky Mount Farmers' Market

Two years ago, almost to the day, I moved to Rocky Mount.  Came to a house I had never seen, a people I didn't know in a town that had no reason to care about me.  Just another move, another house, another year.

My family quickly found the Farmers' Market and I applied to the craft committee to sell my homemade soap.  You see, the folks at the Rocky Mount Farmers' Market are committed to ensuring that the things sold there are really local.  Your hard earned money goes directly into the hands of the person across the table.  You can ask questions about what you buy.

Take grits for example.  I never knew a thing about grits (did I mention I am not from around here?) until I got to know Carol.  Carol and I talk about more than grits, we discuss beaches, art, music and travel.  By the way, if Carol is there with the Carolina Grits, don't ponder your purchase very long or you will find the crate empty.

One fall Saturday, I set up my soap, put on my reserved smile and tried not to scream, "I'm not from around here!"  Rena, the other woman who sells soap, came over to my spot.  She has beautiful soap and even more beautiful eyes.  We talked. Then I bought some calendula from her, the first of many purchases.  So much for competition.

I feel for the market manager and his task of herding all of our wares and opinions into our spaces but I know his secret.  He is watching out for all of us at the market, making sure that we are all well cared for.  When the weather turns cold, he creates space where there is none so that we can all fit into the warm, main building.  He makes a person feel easy, like you should on a Saturday in the South.

Recently, I bought a loaf of Magie's bread.  All seven ingredients are listed.  They are all recognizable things like yeast, spring wheat flour, and butter.  My kids eat that bread instead of chips and many Friday evenings have seen heated discussions about what kind to buy the next morning.

The truth is, I didn't mean to find my friends at the farmers' market.  But there they are.  There is the joyful woman who gave my daughter a small pot of "hen and biddies" and Michael with his collard shirts and I did not spell that wrong.  I will never forget the quiet integrity of Mr. H and his honey and how his unfiltered beeswax makes the best lotion cake ever.  That beeswax could make a donkey's hoof look like she'd gone for a french pedicure.

My sweet friend Angie and her pecan chewies and if that wasn't enough her lovely daughter had to go and get her started on that ultimate chocolatey death thing, and it is so good I think every piece added a year to my life.  Drury Lane sells amazing breakfast bars and you get humor with every purchase.  Kellie and her husband bring lettuce and peppers and pottery from the microfarm and her beautiful voice spoke encouragement to me once when I dared whisper about my dreams of writing.

Great, I am crying now and you folks from Rocky Mount weren't supposed to make me cry because I want to go back home and I'm not from around here!

No one knows home better than you.

You people who were so generous with the work of your hands and your happy hearts, you know that when the door opens I have to go back to my people but you had to go and grow my heart here.  Now my heart will break for you too and it was just supposed to be a farmers' market but instead it is a gathering of friends.

I don't think it's like this everywhere.  I think it's special here.

So go to the market.

Grab a twenty or whatever and pick up some fresh produce and eat it when you get home.  Get some cranberry honey this fall from Gardenbees for your biscuits or hot tea.  Pick up an organic roasting chicken or some seafood driven in from the coast and celebrate who you are and your friends, old and new.

They grow more than vegetables at the Rocky Mount Farmers' Market, they grow hearts.



Interesting Farmers' Market Facts:

• The people who sell baked goods at the market are required to have a kitchen inspection.
• Farmers who sell produce have their scales certified for accuracy every year.
• Baked goods have a list of ingredients.
• The market isn't just for groceries.  You will find pottery, beautifully bottled vinegar, quilts, plants, information on gardening, freshly cut flowers and the occasional live band or car show.

Farmers' Market Challenge:
Consider trying to buy most of your gifts at the market this year.  Our family did it last Christmas and it was a big hit.  Red pepper vinegar for someone who likes spice, a lovely bowl or chicken roaster, a scarf, a handwoven basket or beautiful woodwork.  Make a fruit or vegetable basket or pick up a beautiful piece of handmade jewelry.  Not every vendor or farmer is there every Saturday so come often to see new things.

This story was originally published on the Rise Rocky Mount: Our People, Our Stories Facebook site.  If you have a story about life in Rocky Mount that you would like to share, check out the Facebook site listed below or email Lori Harris at rockymountstories@yahoo.com.

Facebook pages:
Traveler In My Own Backyard
RISE Rocky Mount: Our People, Our Stories
Rocky Mount Farmers' Market

Other posts you might like:
Before we found out we were moving...Heavy, Heavy July
When your heart is one place and your life another...The Great In-Between
Friends...Iron Sharpens Iron...I wanna be like you...

Heavy, Heavy July

The weather is cool for July.  July is for lakes and watermelon and air heavy with water that soaks into my skin and through my clothes.

This is the coolest July that I can remember.  It feels light, like spring instead of the dog days of summer.

Days and days of rain and temperatures in the 80s have made this summer delightful.  It's also weird.

That swimming pool membership I wanted didn't pan out.  With rain several times a week, the swimming hasn't been that great anyway.

That camper we didn't pursue would have been sitting in the driveway.  We have other things to do this summer.

Possibilities hover around us but never land.  So we wait in the weight.  July is light but our hearts are heavy.

Difficult decisions hang on and on and how do you KNOW what to do?

Houses sit empty too long and cost too much and the decisions of the past come and ask questions that simply can't be answered.



I drive myself crazy.














A little girl turns seven in July and the doctor says it's time for a new eardrum.  She's ready to get her ear fixed but she doesn't know everything that I do.  It'll be fine, God willing, but my heart hurts when I think about it too much.

How do you KNOW?

I worry about the past that can't be changed and the future that isn't even real and I go crazy.  My mind knows it is useless and even worse, it's faithless.

My worry is faithless.

There is only one decision that can be made.

Take the next step.  Then take another one.  Keep on going until I come to a crossroads then make the best decision I know and take another step.

Take a step now.  Not in the impossible past or the imaginary future but now.  Today.

still grateful,
m

The Great IN BETWEEN

Oh, Lisa-Jo Baker, you dared us to write about the great IN BETWEEN.  If I open this gate sister, it might not stop flowing and certainly not in time for five-minute-friday.

When I saw the topic this Friday morning, I almost winced.  You see, I AM IN BETWEEN.  I live in between, with just an eye on the yesterday, driven toward tomorrow and more often than I wish, right in between them both.  And missing so much of what is in front of me.

Always, in between cities, in between friends, in between families.  Never quite there.  I referee in between kids, plant flowers at someone else's house while I am in between homes and live too much in the future.

But life is now, right here in between and I am missing it.

I am missing it because of my desire for what isn't.

Maybe I need to accept the great IN BETWEEN as the greater WHAT IS REAL.  The fields around us in this house that isn't mine are real.  My real kids play in those fields and I can go with them.

The future I imagine isn't real.  It can change or never even happen.  I can participate in it when I get there but I can't control it.

This life IN BETWEEN is real right now and begging to be lived.

The pool down the street in between the park and the cute green house is real and begging for wild, splashing kids right now.

The great IN BETWEEN THAT IS REAL is calling me and I don't think I want to miss it.

m.


Other posts about living life right where it is...
What I learned in June for Chatting at the Sky
Unplugged...Living a Real Life
The Truth, and I Saw It Right There In Sunday School

What I learned in June...

Emily at Chatting at the Sky is hosting a blog party inviting readers to post what they learned in June.  By the way, this chick has a great blog, definitely worthy of your email subscription.

Please comment on what you learned in June, then share or forward.  We'll call it a party within a party...

Here are just a few things that I learned in June:

• Life is not, in fact, boring.  Sometimes things get wild.  Just when I think that I am going to be crushed under the sheer repetitiveness of cleaning this house and driving to the grocery store again, God grabs my whole basket of life and throws it in the air.  I have no idea where the pieces will land.  They will probably land exactly where they started and I learned in June, that I will NOT take that for granted.  Actually, I will probably will take it for granted, but not for quite awhile.

• Sometimes it feels kind of good when your basket of life is in the air.

• I glow.  This June, while our entire basket of life was in the air, my husband said I had a glow about me.  It's adrenaline.  I am not stressed by the pieces of my life careening around my head, landing who-knows-where, but I am awake, alive and aware.

• Sometimes God is like a freight train, fast, loud and powerful rolling right through your life.  You can run alongside and grab on or you can watch it go by.  This has happened to me before.  I LOVE IT WHEN HE IS LIKE THIS.  LOVE IT!  Just grab the train and hold on.  It is one of the few things I do well and I encourage you to grab the Train next time He comes by.  It will take your breath away.  It will make you glow.

• Running can be fun.  This is revolutionary.  I am a walker.  Two weeks ago I would tell you that I hate running.  My daughter and I started Couch to 5K.  It's fun.  I am embarrassed to admit that I  look forward to the three days a week that we run.  Seven weeks to go and we will be "runners" able to go three miles any time we want.

• I can still surprise myself.  (I didn't say confuse myself, that happens every day.)  Forty-two years old and starting to run.  After a lifetime of faithful Dr. Pepper drinking, I now prefer Coke.  Goodbye 30 years of Hershey's with Almonds, my favorite candy bar is now Milky Way.  Maybe it's early menopause.

• Don't take your local farmers' market for granted.  Their stuff really is better.  The weather here in NC is messed up this year though.  We had about three weeks of strawberries instead of six.  The blueberries and tomatoes are not here yet.  I miss my berries.  Next year I won't mess around. I will eat local strawberries because local strawberries taste like candy and store strawberries taste like cardboard unless you sprinkle sugar on top.  Then they taste like cardboard with sugar.

July may well bring the landing of the basket of life, most likely right where it was before.  But maybe not...

gotta go, there's a Train to catch,

m

Other posts you might like...

my favorite post...the identity of Superman

maybe the scariest day of my life...The Slidin' Chevy

when my kid taught me a lesson about giving...Nathan and the Bell Ringers

When You Show Up for the Trip and Get Sent Home

Ever have something you want?  Something you really want and it seems like you could have it, if you just did everything right.  But maybe it isn’t up to you.

Right now, there is something that I want.  I really want this thing.  Well, it isn’t a thing exactly, more like a circumstance.  I don’t mean to be all secretive but I can’t tell you what it is.   I mean, I love you all but some things just aren’t meant to be shared on the internet.  Not yet.

It doesn’t matter anyway because this is about all of us together so you just imagine your own thing because at the end, I am going to ask you something.

Okay, so the allegory goes like this:

I want to go on a trip.  I believe I can go if I just get everything ready.  I get all my ducks in a row, iron (insert muffled laughter here), get the dog and kids ready and five of us hop in the car.  We think, we believe, it is time for the trip.  We all want to go.

We get to the airport, grab our bags and head toward the counter to buy our tickets.  We have the money and all the paperwork.  Everything is as perfect as we can make it.

We arrive at the counter and announce our intention to board the plane.  The agent looks at us calmly.

“No.  Go home.” 

We ask questions.   I plead.

“No.  Go home.”  Nicely, gently, certainly.

I want to know why but there is only one answer.

“No.  Go home.”

Does this mean “not today” or “not ever?”

Have I done something wrong?  Do I wait?  I have done everything that I know to do.  I showed up for the trip and got sent home.  I don’t even know why or really even what the answer means.  I am a woman of faith so what do I do with this?

DO I GIVE UP?  Let go and move on?

When does “no” mean “no” and when does it mean “not now” and most importantly…

How do I know?

HOW DO YOU KNOW? 

Does it even matter if you know?  What do YOU do when you get sent home?

The actual circumstances don’t matter.  If you are going to forward or share this post, please consider doing so after you add your own insight in the comments.  The best way to go the unknown is together.

It is well,

m

On a lighter note...

Okay, so not a lighter note but another big question and the story of the Slidin' Chevy.

When we had a blast at the Tough Mudder...happier than a pig in mud.

My Name is Still Butmommy.

sounds like life and living and love

"Listen-To-Me!" I must say it hundreds of times a day, begging for their attention so I can parent them.

"Hey you, listen up!" I say playfully, ready to give instructions for some new and no-doubt life changing project that will probably require a mop to clean up.

"Listen to me..." I think in my heart...wishing to be heard but truthfully, often too full of self-doubt to even speak.

He listened to me, and maybe that's why I married him.  He still listens.

Listen, I remind myself.  Listen, while they still want to talk.

Do more than listen, hear them.

Listen to what isn't said.

Listen with eyes and hands and heart.

Remember what it's like to want to be heard.

Sounds like breathing babies near me in the dark.
Sounds like a good man getting up early to make eggs and go to work in the dark while I sleep.
Sounds like angry sounds and crazy laughter because there are three of them.
Sounds like dishes and vacuums and the mundane things of life, call them boring or call them blessing.

Sounds like life and living and love.



Blogging today at the prompt of Lisa Jo Baker for Five Minute Friday.  Every Friday she invites the rest of us to share.  The only catch is that we do our writing in five minutes, share and encourage each other.


Other Traveler posts you might like...all about surviving life with kids...or maybe them surviving life with me...
My Name is Butmommy
Confessions of a Reformed Helicopter Parent
King Robert of the Wild Hair

Fall...

Everyday.  I fail and I fall.  And I fuss at myself for failing and falling again.  Seems like I had it together about twenty years ago, like I rarely fell at all.  But I was wrong.  I was falling down every moment and didn't even know it.


Can't learn new things if you don't risk a fall.  Can't learn to walk or ride a bike or ride a horse unless you risk a fall.  Seems like you fall all the time and then you fall less and then you walk and run and fly through the air.  And it's good.  Way better than staying on the ground all the time.


You know, jumping is just falling on purpose.



Everybody falls.  Only one man in all of history that didn't fall.  And then He sort of did only He did it on purpose and He did it for us.  He fell right down on our mistakes.

My kids fall all the time.  I sigh and think, "Don't you get tired of flailing around wild and falling into things and hurting yourself?"  

And then I complain because my life is so ordinary.  

They have the same life I do, only they don't think their lives are ordinary. They make them rather extraordinary.  

But there is a cost for this extraordinary.  

Sometimes they fall.

Joining the blog party over at Lisa Jo Baker's today for five-minute-friday.  Check it out!  http://lisajobaker.com/