I remember the first time I set up a farmers' market booth. It was May 2008, and the St. Matthews Farmers' Market at Beargrass Christian Church was in its second season. Looking back, I wasn’t just starting a business; I was beginning to shape my life’s work.
The sun was just rising as I loaded the van, eager to arrive early. Once I made it to my stall space at the market, I set up my table and covered it proudly with my handmade tablecloth, stitched together from old coffee sacks. The earthy smell of the jute grounded me. My coolers were in place. The scale and calculator were ready. As I finished my chalkboard price sign, I stepped back, feeling accomplished. Believing people longed to connect with the people behind their food, I proudly hung a handmade macramé display filled with photos and artifacts from Foxhollow Farm. This would become my Saturday ritual for the next decade.
With time to spare before the 8 a.m. market bell, I prowled the church parking lot to meet some fellow farmers. Many of the multigenerational farm families were welcoming as I introduced myself as the new kid on the block. I hopped my way through a young girl’s chalk-drawn hopscotch course, the grandmother knitting in the corner of their booth cheering me on.
The noise of a tent leg scraping against the pavement grabbed my attention. As I made my way over to the commotion, I saw a middle-aged man cursing under his breath and struggling to get the last leg of the tent in place. The push button of the telescoping design was giving him trouble. He stood back, arms crossed, and kicked the foot pad into place.
His faded black checkered tablecloth suggested he had been in this game for a while, but I was delighted to see he was also a cattle farmer, too. He and his family had been raising cattle for generations and had recently decided to finish a few of their animals on grass. With a picture of a Belted Galloway bull displayed proudly on the table, he was also curious to investigate the bustling “farm-to-table” movement now drawing new customers out to local farmers’ markets.
Like many Kentucky farmers, he likely kept a nine-to-five job to help pay the note on the farm—a reality that had become increasingly common as small dairies disappeared and the tobacco industry began to decline. I was too naive at the time to understand how tough it must have been for this generational farmer to leave behind the farm and all its responsibilities on a valuable weekend morning, trading it instead for a market booth, marketing materials, and the hopes of finding customers who still remembered how to cook at home.
I asked him questions and compared his prices with mine to be sure I was not undercutting him. He stopped me. “You don’t belong here, pretty girl.”
I didn’t understand, so I politely said, “Oh, I know my booth is over there. The market hasn’t started yet. I’ll get back to my booth soon.”
He grunted. “No, you don’t understand. You are just playing farm. My family and I have been real farmers for generations, and you can’t just come in here and start selling grassfed beef because you think it’s cool to be a farmer. We have to work hard to keep food on the table, and you don’t know what that’s like, do you?”
My heart sank. Did I belong?
I felt Great-aunt Margaret, my grandmother Mary, and my mother Janey beside me—the strong women who had stewarded the land before me. I smiled and thanked him for his hard work as a farmer. I told him how deeply I admired people who had cared for farmland and kept farming traditions alive for generations. I wished him the best.
I knew I would work hard to share recipes, educate consumers, and make sure there were enough grassfed beef customers in this city for all our farmers to be paid fairly. I was doing it for the cattle, for the land, and for future generations.
He was right about one thing: I wasn’t farming to put food on my table. But I wasn’t playing farm, either. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was here for all of us.
