On this historic day it's only fitting that I digress from pure gardening topics to talk about something dear to my heart and somewhat in keeping with the gardening theme. I'm talking about the power of community and people. Despite getting laid off last summer, I have some very fond memories of the summer. This comes from my involvement with our local farmers' market. When a people really want something, they will make it happen.
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Just a little over a year ago I had a discussion with a couple of women at our book club. Each of us had moved to our town (or moved back in the case of one) in the last few years and we were wondering why there was no farmers' market, especially since we lived in such a rural community. And then the discussion led to..."I wonder if we could start one ourselves?". Hmm, none of us really knew anything about what it would take. But then again, hmm, what if we just asked the community to help us? So we set about putting up flyers, setting up a Yahoo group, and then inviting those folks who signed up to a meeting. And thus our farmers' market was born.
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In a short couple of months we opened the market. At our peak we had maybe 10 vendors. Not huge but they were happy and the customers were happy. In no time it became a real gathering place - kids, dogs, friends, just catching up and enjoying the sense of community. Make no mistake, it took a lot of work by a lot of people. But we were lucky to have the right mix of know-how in our volunteers (we're an all volunteer driven market right now). And this year's market should be better than last years.
So what does this say about the power of people? Yes, we can.
Hi Jean, what a happy ending to this story. I love what you and your community have done, and wish you well. Everything looks wonderful, so artfully displayed. And I agree, yes, we can change the world and make it better.
ReplyDeleteFrances
What an inspiring story! Power to the people...yes we did do it! And you ladies did it to, everything looks wonderful!
ReplyDeleteJean,
ReplyDeleteIsn't it good to believe and accomplish! The gourds and food look wonderful.
gail
What a great story! Thanks for sharing. And I love the photos too.
ReplyDeleteJean, you should be so proud you helped start something so wonderful. We have two farmers markets where I live and they are wonderful opportunities to meet people in the community as well as help them with a livelihood.
ReplyDeleteJan
Always Growing
Jean,
ReplyDeleteWay to go! I admire you and your group for this fine accomplishment. It is this kind of volunteer spirit in community development projects that is desperately needed all over America in these tough times, and I am happy to read that Obama's administration will encourage them.
BTW, I love the template you use on your blog that allows large photos to be posted. Is yours a certain Blogger template or one you created? Please clue me in with any tips or secrets! I must now figure out a way to convert or modify mine to be the same as yours as I dislike the small sized photos mine displays on my posts which have to be clicked to enlarge. Alas, I wish I had a green thumb with computer and Blogger skills!
Jon at Mississippi Garden
Jon,
ReplyDeleteThanks for noticing my new template. It's a Blogger one called Minima Stretch but there are several other templates out there with the word 'stretch' in them that will do the same thing. But to get the photos bigger, you still have to do some wrangling. I used Robin's tips which are here: http://robinsnestingplace.blogspot.com/2009/01/enlarging-photos-on-blogger.html. Not mentioned in her tips, maybe because she didn't have this issue, was the fact that I had to remove the tag that gets added to photo. Sort of like a caption. I had to go into the HTML to do that.
Good luck, I'm sure you'll be able to get it to work for you! Holler if you need help.
Jean
Jean,
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for your explanation and the link to Robin's tips. I will give this a try soon. I hope I don't crash and destroy my blog in the process!
Your blog looks so "spacious" and crisp and so easy for my tired old eyes to read. (I'm still recovering from my eye surgery in September.)
Thanks again.
Jon at Mississippi Garden
Bravo, Jean! I often think that the "average" person, one not in a power position, can do little to change the world, then I read stories like this and feel admiration and optomism!
ReplyDeleteJean,
ReplyDeleteMay I bug you with one more question? I am on the verge of changing my template to minima stretch, but before I do it seems per the Blogger Help Group Forums, I should back mine up and go through all sorts of hassles just in case it turns into a crashed out mess. Did you do all that backup stuff before you changed to this wonderful template? Please clue me in as to what "preparations" you made before converstion. Thanks in advance.
Jon at Mississippi Garden
Jon,
ReplyDeleteI didn't do any of that stuff. I think that would be a prudent thing to do if you were using a non-Blogger template, just in case there was some kind of compatability problem. But I just went ahead and did it and it was quite easy. You will have to adjust your fonts and colors though. At least I had to. But they provide a very easy way to do that too. So I say, go for it!
Jean
Jean,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info and this nudge to "go for it". Thus I'm going cross my fingers, throw some salt over my left shoulder and do the conversion and hope my computer will not burst into flames!
Jon at Mississippi Garden
Jon the Pest is here again, Jean. Just dropped by to let you know that I took the plunge and changed my template and it seems to have worked. I will still have to do a bit of tweaking with fonts and colors and a few things to get it ship shape.
ReplyDeleteThanks so very much for your advice and help!
Jon at Mississippi Garden