Farm Market Fun!

This past Saturday was opening day of the Farmers' Market that I manage. The weather was fine, I had seed packets to hand out to the children that attended, and it was great to see my veteran vendors and to meet new ones as well.

Despite being early in the gardening season here in Ohio, there was some spectacular looking butter crunch lettuce, an abundance of strawberries, lots of baked goods, and wonderful hand crafted items.

Emily set up beside me and sold lots of bottle cap and Perler bead magnets. Her friend Katie sold magnets of her own. And two local ladies played their dulcimers for our entertainment.

And wouldn't you know, when I went to the library for a new stack of books, I just happened to find a gem called Farmers' Market Day by Michigan author Shanda Trent which is illustrated by fellow Ohioan Jane Dippold. The end pages are covered with beautiful pictures of vegetables, the illustrations are bright and eye catching, and the story tells of a little girl's day at the market and all the items she sees there. Her excitement is exactly what I feel each time I walk the rows and greet my vendors and customers.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by Literacy Musings Mondays for more great blogs as well as my personal website Fun With Aileen where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own chapter and picture books. And finally, you can find me on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.

Summer Stories

Summer is a time of stories, stories of time spent swimming, of cookouts and birthday parties, eating watermelon, of vacations, and all the things that  make summer great.

Managing my town's local farmers' market and selling baked goods while Emily sells magnets is a big part of our summer story. This past weekend we had to move from our normal farmers' market location because of the local cruise-in car show. We didn't have to move far, just to the back end of the park, but we didn't have the normal cover of our pavilion. Thankfully, however, most of my vendors had canopies and there was a lovely breeze.
 

My summer story also consists of reading great kidlit, and my choices this week were smile worthy. The first book aptly titled, The Story I'll Tell, was a beautiful tale of adoption. My oldest niece is adopted, so this story hit particularly close to home. In this story, a mother imagines the stories she will tell her adopted child when he is old enough to ask where he came from. The creative ways she dreams she will tell him are like beautiful poetry; but in the end, she reveals that the truth is equally beautiful.

The second book I read, I'm My Own Dog, was a tale of pet ownership from the point of view of a dog. It was quite amusing and although I don't own dogs, it made me think about my three cats' points of view. I'm pretty sure they, like the dog in the story, believe that we humans are their pets and they work continually to train us.
 

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by and join the Literacy Musings Monday Blog Hop where you will find other great blogs, or my personal website, Fun With Aileen, where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own early grade Fern Valley chapter book series and my Quack and Daisy picture book series. And finally, you can find me on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days. 

Opening Day!

This past Saturday was the opening day of Farmers' Market and it seems to me that it was a great success. The rain held off, so we were all dry. Customers arrived, so we sold goods.The face painter painted Emily's face free for advertising. And I took pictures of everything.

 

The beautiful jams and jellies.

 The fresh strawberries.

 The child vendors.

 The wonderful vegetables.

 And works by local crafters.

As most of you can probably tell by my posts, I love to take photographs. So, I found it funny that the first book in my to read pile was a book entitled Photographer Mole.

It is the story of a mole who loves to take pictures of all his friends, local groups, families and so forth. But one day as he is admiring his photographs he realizes something is missing. To the regret of his friends, he leaves town in search of the missing something. At this point in the book, I still had no idea what Mole thought was missing so I kept reading in anticipation. When Mole finally finds what he was looking for and comes home, it isn't at all what you imagine it will be. At least it wasn't for me. I heartily recommend this book and I'm pretty sure that kids will keep reading with anticipation of Mole's discovery just like I did! This book is a bit older ( 2004) but well worth searching for.

The second book I read was called How to Find Gold. I wasn't nearly as impressed with this book and was left kind of confused as to if the characters were imagining all the incidents or not, but perhaps as an adult I was just over thinking the story. So my suggestion is, if  your library has a copy, check it out and see what you think. And if you figure it out, be sure to let me know.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by and join the Literacy Musings Monday Blog Hop where you will find other great blogs, or my personal website, Fun With Aileen, where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own early grade Fern Valley chapter book series and my Quack and Daisy picture book series. And finally, you can find me on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.