The amount of foot-traffic at our Burlington farmers' market has begun to decline; it's cold in the morning and most believe that after September there aren't any interesting crops coming in. Not so. While it's true that the veggie variety has moved from basil and broccoli rabe, to Brussels sprouts and butternut squash, there's kale, carrots, and even cardoons to satisfy cravings for locally grown produce. Some vendors have even started bringing their own pickles, and long garlic braids adorn many booths. My husband Dan and I have scheduled deliveries of meat shares at our stand for each week remaining. It keeps the truck full of coolers and there's a feeling of satisfaction when it goes back empty each time.
Of course, nothing goes smoothly - I forgot to load a share on the truck during the last week of September - so this past Saturday we made a concerted effort to ensure nothing went squirrelly. I put paper labels on all the special orders so that someone who ordered a beef share doesn't get a bag full of pig hearts or a ten-pound chicken by mistake.
I had instructions written in triplicate: bills with balances due highlighted in pink, a check list of who's coming, what they are getting, and what they owe - if anything - plus, the original orders filled out by the client with a photocopy of a check or notation of being paid in cash. We rehearsed the load twice and counted the coolers before we left the farm. Foolproof? Oh my, no.
I left my stand for a bit (beverage-related) with Dan and a friend waiting on customers and fielding softballs from tourists about the farm and the food. It was a slow time, and about half the people we had expected to arrive had their meat orders home already. I took a walk around the market and did some socializing. After an hour my cellphone whistled, and I was called back with a cryptic message of urgency.
The fellas think that they gave someone who ordered a small (7.5 lb.) pork share, a large share (15 lbs.), but they weren't sure about anything except that they may have done the opposite as well.
This made extra work for me today, to find out who got shorted and to make it right. Then I have to start the list of what goes on the truck for this Saturday. Do you think that quadruple checking could make the remaining market days error free? Or should I simply continue to make a list, check it thrice, and hope for the best?
