I’m a relatively fair-skinned person—not quite the ghostly pale that my sister claims me to be, but fair enough that I burn easily. The last four days—heavens, have I only been here four days?—have been long hours of work under an unrelenting sun, and my skin is showing it. Along with the bug welts, my arms are now covered in a heat rash. It’s really quite lovely, I assure you. This happened to me in Africa, though I can’t say I expected quite the same result here in Maine.
The morning started off cool, so much so that I woke up around five and had to pull up my quilts from where I’d folded them to the foot of the bed the night before. The air still had a brisk chill to it as I collected the peaches this morning, but the sun was blazing with its usual vigor while I harvested the last of the snow peas and then pulled up all of the plants and pitched them on the compost pile. I spent the next couple of hours helping Leslie sort, weigh, and pack peaches, and then late this afternoon she and I loaded up the truck and drove into Brooklin for the weekly farmers’ market.
Today’s market was the second one I’ve been to so far—she and I took our peaches to one in Blue Hill yesterday afternoon. Setting up the tent and the tables and the signs are hard work, but the event itself, while tiring, is enjoyable. It’s a fun challenge to try to charm people into buying our fruit.
I love to listen to people talk up here, and I’ve been astonished at how friendly Mainers are. This is how a typical conversation goes at the farmers’ market:
“Hello! How are you today?” –me
“Oh, hi, deah. Good, I’m good. How ah ya?” –customer
“I’m doing well today, thank you. Would you like to try some of our peaches? They’re grown just up the road. I picked some of these myself just yesterday.” –me
“Well, these peaches ah lovely.” –customer
“They taste just as good as they look. Would you like to try a sample?” –me
“Oh, shuh. Oh my. I think I’ll take some o’ these. Ya ahen’t from around heh, ah ya, deah?” –customer
From what I’ve seen so far, the people here are as rugged and inviting as the land.
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