Well, I did it.

Today was the first farmer's market of the season. I left the house at 5:45, picked up the borrowed tables and the neighbor kid (who volunteered to help me out with set-up and take down so he could sell Rhubarb Punch from my booth in the interim), and got to Elkhart Lake by about 6:20. I wasn't the first one there, so I wasn't too early - but people were still setting up an hour later, so apparently I could have slept a little longer and still been fine.

The lattice thing worked out pretty well, although I need to ask Rick to trim about 18" off the worst end of each for the next time. Nola sent me a bin of craft items to display, which helped fill that second table and avoid a barren atmosphere. I didn't dare hang my framed pictures up on it after all - the hook just didn't look stable enough, and I didn't want to bet the cost of the frame (especially on a breezy day). But Nola had some little dolls that hooked up there just fine, and it gave me a place to hang the vest that Tammy painted, and I think it was more or less a success. The wind did manage to knock over my spinning racks several times, even though I tried taping them down with packing tape, so for the last hour or so I just spread the prints out on the table. Before next week, I'm going to hit Rick up for a wooden base or something to help stabilize them, since I really do think the cards look better on the racks. Oh, and I want table cloths.

As far as actual sales - I paid for my gas and made enough extra to buy strawberry ice cream for myself and my helper. But it was a bit warm out there for comfortable shopping, especially as we headed towards noon, and with the lack of rain earlier this spring there wasn't much in the way of produce to attract shoppers. And the lady in the booth next to me (a sculptor with some really interesting little garden art and jewelery) tells me that the first weekend is always poor, and the customers will start opening their wallets as the summer gets going. So I figure it was a good familiarization run, and I enjoyed chatting with the shoppers and getting to know the people in the adjoining booths. I'm content.