Disastrous Downpour
To all the customers who arrived quite late to market list Sunday only to find most of the vendors packed up and leaving the premises, I do apologize. However, we were all soaked to the bone and several of us nursing the added insult of losing tents.
If it is raining when the market opens, business tends to be steady as patrons arrive well prepared with umbrellas, raincoats, and boots. Even the kids will show up with their dinosaur themed raincoats stomping through the puddles. But when precipitation begins, especially past the halfway mark, that type of rain puts the brakes in a market. At some point a threshold is reached when each vendor knows their day is over and they might as well begin to pack it up. Exacerbating this desire to pull the plug is an intensity of the rain.
At one point on Sunday the ongoing downpour was clocking in at 3 inches an hour. Those with fresh goods began consolidating their tables, breaking down, and packing up the value-added items such as honeys, sauces, and dry goods. Everyone has their own methods and ritual of packing up at the end of the day. Inside of the box trucks, there are specific ways to stack items or stow away with bungees and hooks. Others have vans, trucks, and cars whose exit plan is akin to a game of Tetris. The sound of rumbling thunder quickened our pace to break down and pack up under the shelter of our tents while the rain poured down outside. Hopefully, the deluge would lighten up by the time we were ready to drop the tents and pack up for good. No such luck.
Most of our tents come in a 10 x 10 configuration, with some of the larger produce vendors having 10 x 15’s. A depression in a tent from collecting water can easily reach several gallons. When the tents are new, they shed their water quite well, but like all things as they age, our tents tend to sag. That is why you will see vendors using brooms, signs, totes, anything for a little extension to press up on the tent to keep it from collecting water. A gallon of water weighs a little over 8 pounds. That means a 5-gallon bucket worth of rain weighs close to 40 pounds. Add that and maybe more onto the additional weights go keep the tents in place and disaster quickly ensued. When I first saw Twin Springs collapsed tent I knew exactly what had happened. One leg always goes first. Looking at my own tent and seeing the massive bubble of water that had formed on one side, I began fishing in the car for a long dowel rod in order to push the water off the tent. Too late. I was partially inside the vehicle as the tent clattered on the roof as it collapsed. A string of explicatives left my mouth but quickly cleaned up my language when I realized it was two of the young gals from a neighboring vendor who were coming to my rescue. Between the three of us, we managed to quickly break down and stow everything, including the broken tent as more thunder rumbled overhead. As I rolled through the lot on my way out, I realized more vendors head also suffered catastrophic tent collapses due to the weight of rainwater collecting on top. Only after I was thoroughly embedded in outbound traffic did the rain began to let up. Maybe the drive home would not be as miserable as I expected, but no less uncomfortable in soaking wet clothing. In that misery, I was not alone. Every single one of the vendors and their workers were in the exact position I was. Soaking wet in retreat that could last for hours.
These are the days I recall when someone looks at a good day and tells me how lucky I am because my life as a farmer must be fun. For the most part, I would say they are correct, but days like last Sunday is what keeps it from landing the perfect ten. Just so you know from here on out, for whatever reason if you show up to a farmers market, not just ours, but any farmers market and find the majority of the vendors packed up or already gone, don’t complain because they’ve probably just survived an extreme weather event and just want to get their day over with. Give us a little grace.