Saturday, October 19, 2013

Our first farmer's market

     Yesterday was the first time Free Family Homestead attended a farmer's market as a vendor! It was beyond exciting and nerve wreaking leading up to the start time. We had decided to test the market in our area for the soaps and laundry sauce I make. The three scents that won were: lavender, peppermint, and citrus. As with any outing with three babies, it was stress filled trying to get naps finished, car packed and everyone fed before going to get our both set up.
     Once out there, we set up our table and sign and waited for the organizer to come over so we could pay our fee. My amazing husband came up with a wonderful idea to use a picture frame as a sign for our product and prices. I pulled some of our fall decorations out to draw attention to the sign and then we waited. It took a good hour for the crowd to pick up but once it did, it got very interesting. We had quite a few sales of soap bars and 1 jar of laundry sauce sold. I couldn't have been prouder.
      Now this market lasted from 2-6pm, my biggest challenge was how to keep the kiddos entertained for four hours in a parking lot with not a lot to do. First we started with the great cricket hunt. Conner is starting to show an interest in everything creepy crawly so I had him scour the lawn for the biggest cricket he could find. With it being October the pickings were slim so that game only bought me about an hour at best. Luckily, a lady with her 2 year old daughter stopped by and let her daughter play with out kids. She said this beat the playground and I had no complaints as they were entertained for yet another hour. By God's grace as soon as the little girl and her mom had to leave, a teenage girl came over and started playing with Miranda, which quickly turned into with Conner too. She was getting along so well with them that I asked if she did any babysitting. Turns out that she did and she teaches VBS, jackpot. Once she had to leave, I was forced to break out the big guns, crayons and coloring books. That got us to the end of the show with some very tired babies. Jasper was there too but he slept the whole thing.
     All in all, this was a great first time experience for us. Our product sold, I found a babysitter for that ever elusive "Date Night", and we made some friends. This was the last show of the season but we will definitely be there next year every other Friday. I am hoping to expand our inventory to include Rosemary Mint and Ginger scents.
     

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