In the last couple of weeks, Tom and I have worked as farmhands for Fartley Farms Hot Sauces.  Fartley Farms Hot Sauces is our son John’s business.  We told John when we were picking peppers that we felt like migrant, seasonal workers.  John needed a little extra help the last couple of weeks and we were glad we could help out.

Our first job was picking up 700 bottle of #6, Ginger Reaper Hot Sauce from John’s co-packer.  The co-packer takes John’s recipe for hot sauce, makes it and bottles it.  Tom has helped John pick up sauce from the co-packer before.  The co-packer recently moved to a new location in Westerville, so it was easy for the farmhands to pick it up.  John thought we should use his truck, but we were confident we could get all 60 boxes in the Prius.

The new facility for the co-packer is very nice.  There is a lot of space for them to expand and we drove the Prius up the loading dock into the warehouse.  It was easy to load and there was plenty of space.  After we loaded everything, Mike gave us a tour of the new facility.  A gleaming kitchen made us confident the hot sauce would meet John’s quality standards.  We delivered the boxes of hot sauce to John’s house.

The next weekend, John and Jackie had a booth at the Brewdog Christmas Festival in New Albany.  Brewdog invited them, along with other Ohio artisans, to sell their goods outside the Brewdog restaurant.  Jackie was with John all day Saturday and Sunday at the booth, but Friday she had to be gone, so the farmhands filled in.

I wasn’t too excited about being outside in the cold and rain for four hours, but it turned out to be more fun than I expected.  John only needed one of us at the booth with him at a time, so Tom and I took turns.  John did all the talking and taking money, but Tom or I kept him company and boxed up the hot sauce.  It was fun to see people try the different flavors and take advantage of his special festival pricing.

When I wasn’t at the table, I wandered around and talked to the other vendors.  There were supposed to be thirty vendors in all, but the weather was so miserable on Friday and Saturday (cold rain) that some people didn’t show up and others left early.  I talked to two women who made botanicals and several women who made jewelry.  The woman next to us did needle-felted earrings which were very whimsical and fun.  I bought a pair of mushroom earrings even though I don’t have pierced ears.  They were so cute!

A man had a table full of items from the American Nut Company.  I asked if he was the “American Nut” and he said, no, his aunt was!  They have a shop at North Market and he was helping her with the Christmas Festival.  They have lots of different kinds of flavored nuts and popcorn.  It all looked delicious!

One young man had a table full of items that looked like he picked them up at flea markets.  I asked him about it, and he said he went to estate sales and bought items that he cleaned up and sold.  He was really a sunglasses designer but he only had two pairs left from his summer line of sunglasses.  I asked how he got into designing sunglasses and he said being an entrepreneur ran in his family.  His mom owned a home health aide business and his dad owned a construction company.

I bought some coasters from a woman who did macramé.  I hadn’t seen so much macramé since the 1970’s!  Her items were beautiful and elaborate.    The coasters were simpler, but I needed some coasters.

My favorite booth, and the place where I spent the most time talking, was two young art students who made their own paper and were knitting while they sat at their booth.  We talked for a while about being makers.  They were living out of vans and traveling from one Christmas show to another.  They didn’t want to do it forever, but were hoping to support themselves in this way for a while.  The paper was made out of different fibers such as squash and sunflower stems.  I had to buy some and chose the squash paper.  We talked for quite a while about the things you can do with plant fibers (like spin and weave clothing).  Tom also talked to them for a while.  You can see some of their stuff here.

After two hours outside, I was getting cold and the arthritis in my hip was acting up.  So I went into Brewdog to sit in the warmth for a while.  I ordered a pretzel which turned out to be soft, huge, and delicious.  It was also my supper.  Tom ate half of it so I wasn’t overloading on carbs.  After half an hour I returned outside and the farmhands stayed until the end so that we could help John load up the car.

The next day we delivered hot sauce to Ohio Art Market in uptown Westerville and took the dogs out while John and Jackie were at Brewdog.  On Sunday night, after the end of the festival, John and Jackie stopped by the house with some more hot sauce for delivery on Monday.

On Monday the farmhands dropped off more hot sauce to Ohio Art Market and then went to downtown Columbus to North Market.  North Market is a 145-year-old vibrant public market made up of Ohio’s best independent merchants, farmers, and makers. There are lots of different shops, including Flavor and Fire which carries Fartley Farms Hot Sauces.  When we dropped off the sauces, the guy working there said he had a hard time keeping Fartley Farms on the shelves.  Just what we like to hear!  Of course we had to walk around North Market a little.  We ended up getting a few goodies for lunch.

That was the end of the work for the Fartley Farms farmhands before Christmas.  We are always glad to help John with whatever he needs and we work cheap.