Laying Groundwork

Last week, as I was planting three young sour cherry trees in my back yard, my mind kept rushing ahead to visions of mature trees heavy with ripe, red fruit. Such easy thoughts. Then my shovel lodged in the unyielding, orange clay. My thin sapling had yet to even bear one leaf, and already, I was facing a challenge. Groundwork is an essential, but sometimes tedious and unnoticed task. You got to get in there and get your hands dirty. And then you hope and wait that your efforts pay off. Over the past few months, groundwork for the Cheverly Market, too, was underway. Correspondence, contracts, and negotiations with vendors. Serious consideration and outreach as to a day and place. The development of committees. A website. An e-mail list serve. Marketing plans. The creation of a Board of Directors and movement towards being a 501c3 entity. And plans for music, demonstrations, and special events. Unlike my clay soil, Cheverly is fertile ground. Although work has sometimes been slow and challenging, I have found the people and Town of Cheverly to be rich with support and ideas. And unlike my tree, the wait is much shorter before I find out if the groundwork is fruitful. Walk outside and look at the trees are coming out like debutantes. In the past, I never gave a second’s thought to the labor that was devoted to digging holes for those trees and all the years spent pruning and growing. I sincerely hope that the work I and my committees are undertaking will result in market as strong, glorious and long-lived as the trees that line the streets in Cheverly.