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Cream of the crops: Ill wind doesn't slow sales or smiles at farmers market

The wind played havoc with canopies Saturday at the Downtown Hickory Farmers Market, but it didn't faze people looking for fresh produce and other wares.

It wasn't a good day for neat hair, but shoppers kept right on browsing among the vegetables, flowers and comfort items such as lotions, potions, cushions and honey.

The gusts and rippling canopies had Dorothy Samson moving part of her display inside her van.

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She's the mom in a family business O My Soap! and some of her stuff is in glass bottles. The soap, however, was doing fine, and Samson was happy.

"We've been here all year," she said, "and everybody has been great."

In fact, she's claimed her spot in the public parking lot across from the Post Office for each of the six years the farmers market has been in operation.

Samson, husband Jim and daughter, Jennifer Toney, run the business and make the soaps. They live in Newton.

Samson became interested in soap-making when she helped run a shop at a plant nursery.

"I've been making soap since 2001," she said, adjusting a few fragrant bars as the wind continued to whip through downtown. "I'm always learning new things about soap."

She was glad for the sunshine.

"It hasn't rained like we expected," she said. "Looking at the forecast last night, we thought it would rain most of the day. It hasn't and we're grateful."

Then she made sure bottles of lotion and oil made specially for the complexion weren't teetering.

The veggies and bags of cornmeal and grits under Chris Ross' canopy weren't going anywhere. The frame shook and the fabric crackled, but the goods stayed put.

Ross, from Morganton, displayed newly harvested apples from area growers. Foremost on his table were heavy paper bags of cornmeal and grits milled at Linney Water Mill in Union Grove.

Built more than a century ago on the site of the Mayberry Mill erected in 1790, it's one of the few productive mills left in North Carolina.

Ross holds forth about the quality of grits and meal ground the old-fashioned way.

"This is really good," he said, putting in a plug for his apples in the same breath.

The vegetables, however, are from his Mountainside Farms, and they attract their share of attention.

Ross likes Hickory's market.

"I've been at the market since July, and I have to say it's been a good year. Everybody in Hickory has been very nice to us.

"And I'll be back until the season ends," he said as he moved down the table to wait on a customer.

The farmers market is counting down the weeks to closing for 2009. Nov. 25 is the last day of "a wonderful season," said Joanne Brown, market manager.

"We've enjoyed six great years, and it just keeps getting better," she said. "The community is very supportive."

It sure seemed everyone was having a good time. Vendors and shoppers were smiling and chatting as if there was a family reunion going on.

"Every Wednesday and Saturday until the 25th, we'll we here," Brown called as she hurried to retrieve a vendor's needlework cushion blown like a leaf in the wind.

People grabbed canopy poles, clung to their treasures and turned their faces from the wind until the gust let up.

Then a quick glance around. All was well. The shopping and chatting started up again as if nothing had happened.

Credit: Hickory Daily Record, N.C.