Things I Learned at Farmer's Market 6/27/2010

I've wondered why freshly laid eggs sometimes are rotten. Yesterday I learned from Sheila that sometimes when a hen has an infection in the egg laying tract, the eggs are very bad. Some people give their hens a round of antibiotics mixed in either the food or water to take care of the problem. Sheila says it works best in the water because it's easier to withhold it for a time and then offer medicated water and they'll drink it because they're thirsty by then.

Sheila also says they gather the eggs two or three times a day in hot weather and put them directly into the refrigerator, cleaning them as necessary at a later time.

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One young man told Hiromi yesterday that he is an ex-convict who has filled out many job applications or had interviews that always end the same way when the company representative comes to the part about having been convicted of a felony. Then he's told that they'll check with their superiors and get back to him. He never gets the job and usually doesn't hear back.

Several weeks ago, the man bought flowers from us. Yesterday he told Hiromi that he and his female companion are separating. The flowers must not have "worked."

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People without a gall bladder must restrict their diet to very low-fat foods or risk swift intestinal distress. I learned this from someone whose gall bladder was removed.

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One person I talked to was a woman who said she grew 14 inches in one year when she was an adolescent. She married a man who was 6 feet tall in sixth grade. He eventually grew to 6'4". They have a daughter who is 6'2" tall.

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A young woman who is majoring in Equine veterinary medicine is spending the summer working on a horse farm in Oklahoma. She's very impressed with the owner of the farm, who walks through his barns at least twice a day, and greets every one of his many employees by name. He speaks fluent Spanish to his immigrant employees. When a Mexican national recently suffered an injury on the job, the employee went out of his way to pay for his care and he visited the employee regularly to show his concern.

The young woman is very sure she never wants to have a job exercising horses or being a jockey.

Racehorses are often not very tame. They run better if they're not overly well-gentled. So working with them can be a little bit risky, and those who must do so regularly know that they must constantly be vigilant.

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The sister of the vet-in-training is an orthopedic doctor-in-training. This summer she is shadowing and assisting an orthopedic surgeon, and learning a lot in the process.

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One of the Amish church districts in the Yoder-Haven area has 30 households--a larger number than is often the case. However, that same church district had only 17 young people at a recent singing, with only three of them being girls.

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Our market is requesting that every vendor be on site at 7:00 AM, 30 minutes before the market opens, or the stall they have reserved and normally occupy can be declared vacant and rented to someone else. If for some reason a later arrival is necessary, a phone call to the market manager or board chairman can keep the stall reserved for the vendor who usually occupies it.

It doesn't usually take us 30 minutes to set up, so we find this new requirement a bit annoying, but we understand the problem when there are so many vendors wanting a spot that leaving one vacant just because there was a no-show makes very little sense.

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Some people say "shard" when they ask for Swiss Chard. I don't know why.

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On the first market day of the month, vendors need lots of change because people who just got paid come in with $20.00 bills and use them to pay for small purchases.

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I have mispronounced Mariachi in the past. It has a sneezing sound in the last syllable. I don't know why. "Character" was the pronunciation clue I referenced incorrectly.

I've encountered the word as a variety of Lisianthus (Prairie gentian/Eustoma), but I know it is used as a Spanish word with musical associations

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I've also mentally mispronounced pergola in the past. PAIR guh luh is close to right. It's one of the words I've often read and understood but seldom heard or spoken.

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Coaching a boys' baseball team is stressful when the parents of the players get too involved in the game. They can be very grim about winning and put an unreasonable amount of pressure on their sons--so much so that it's hard for them to have any fun playing the game. One coach I know doesn't enjoy it as much as she used to. The kids are as much fun as ever, but some of the parents are unfun.

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The guy who played and sang at market yesterday was John D., just as I guessed, although the facial hair threw me off for a bit. Also, as far as I knew he still lived in the Pleasantview area, but someone told me they thought the musician was from Pretty Prairie. I didn't catch many of the words of his songs, but he has a good voice. The strong parts sometimes switched so fast to the quiet parts that I always lost the lyrics then, even if I had been keeping track till then. Nothing sounded familiar, which is probably no wonder, given my old-fashioned tastes in music.

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Someone told me yesterday that her mother always made rhubarb pie without sugar. I cannot imagine eating rhubarb that way. All her children thought they hated rhubarb till they grew up and learned that other people ate it with sugar. Then they learned to like it. They've concluded their mother had found a sneaky way to eat all the rhubarb without having to share it. The prize does not seem commensurate with the punishment in this case.

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One woman who bought flowers yesterday told me that seeing them throughout the week always cheers her up. That's a good reason to buy flowers.

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Richard's family was at market yesterday to see his brother Donald's family's market booth. These two men lead very different lives. The one is a Beachy pastor, gardener, furniture store employee married to a woman who grew up Amish; the other is a pediatrician married to a pediatrician who is Asian. I'm pretty sure the pastor does not envy the doctor. I don't know how the doctor feels about his life. I presume he's happy.

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Pappardelles pasta is very good, but I rarely buy it because it's expensive. Jan, the herb lady at the market, knows how to sell it--by preparing a sample dish, made according to the recipe that comes with a bag of pasta. The claim to fame for this pasta is the wonderful flavorings that are added to the pasta dough, and the fact that the quality control is painstaking and the result is stellar. Many of the recipes star Jan's fresh herbs also.

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Norma comes to market with a tractor and trailer. Usually her husband drives the tractor, unhooks the trailer, and comes back with the tractor when the market is over. Yesterday, Norma and her oldest son were there alone, and they left with Norma at the wheel. She told me it's scarier to drive at the end of the day than at the beginning when there's less traffic. I admire her courage. Her baked goods are quite popular.

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Quite a few of the market customers are middle-aged people who are there with an elderly parent or neighbor. I'm always happy to see people who look out for the elderly in their circle of family and friends.

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I have never seen a market customer who was wearing too many clothes, but I have seen quite a few who would look a lot better with more clothes. I thought of this again yesterday when I saw a large man wearing a tank shirt and suspenders.

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I met a lady whose name was Ashariah. She has a daughter named Israel Miriam. The girl's first name is pronounced Iss ry el--a feminine pronunciation, according to the mother. I suspect that the mother's name was one she chose herself as an adult. She associates with others in a religious group who have done so. If there's an Ashariah in the Bible I've forgotten who she was.

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Unrelated to market--I'm leaving for Indiana at 3:00 AM tomorrow to attend the funeral of Alvin Beachy, father to Susanna, who has been a dear friend since we were 17 years old. She is the mother of our daughter-in-law, Hilda. Thanks to Paul and Edith for providing a ride for me.

Alvin died of fatty embolisms following a traffic accident in which at first his worst injury seemed
to be a broken ankle. Essentially, marrow from his broken bones traveled elsewhere in his body, causing blockages in vital organs.

Rebecca told me after church today that her father died of similar complications when his chest was crushed, but she had never heard the name for this condition. I wonder when this term first came into common usage, or when the mechanism for damage was first understood.