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| by H. Jackson Browne Jr. |
In my travels, I picked up a little book titled Life’s Little Instruction Book by H. Jackson Browne Jr. There are 511 one-sentence observations in that little book. The author wrote it as a gift to his son as he was leaving for college, providing sort of a parental road map. Observation # 71 in his little book caught my eye. Learn to make something beautiful with your hands. I immediately thought of my husband.
My husband is a craftsman who makes beautiful wooden screen doors with his hands. He built a wooden one for us with a lattice bottom after our first child was born. That was the beginning of a wooden screen door business.
After a newspaper ran an article about his business, a woman requesting a brochure wrote a note expressing how nice it was to read about a person using his hands to make a living. That has stuck with me all these years.
I went with him recently to the city. We happened to turn on a street that just happened to have one of his doors on their entry. My husband stopped, on a whim, to inquire the year it was manufactured. 1986. That door was 24 years old! The householder was the one who had purchased it, and had enjoyed coming in and out of that door for 24 years! My husband beamed with delight!
Which brings me back to observation #71 – Learn to make something beautiful with your hands. Being a vendor at a farmer’s market gives me an opportunity to see people who, on a regular basis, use their hands to create beautiful things. It is rewarding indeed. Perhaps that is why I enjoy the Farmer’s Market so. There are many craftsmen, artists and farmers working with their hands, and many making a living doing so!
Well, I'm behind excitement! I should have posted this blog 2 weeks ago - before the tulips arrived at the market! Each Farmer's market from here on out, the signs of Spring will keep mounting. The spring flowers are beginning to arrive. This is my favorite time of year at the market. Oh, the tulips and daffodils! My friend Bestbirds is a photographer. He has been sending me pictures of the flowers at the farmer's market for over 6 years. The pictures featured here are those he has taken over the years at the market. 
Each week from here on out his camera will be busy getting some of the first shots of spring. I am looking forward to seeing them!
