using the wagon wheels

I go to our local farmers' market almost every Sunday morning that I am in town - probably 40 times a year.  Usually I go on bicycle, and come home trying to balance my heavy load in my large-but-not-large-enough front basket and on my handlebars.  Some see it as picturesque (especially when I have flowers teetering on the top of my french market basket), but those unbalanced baskets and bags aren't so fun to maneuver.  I look back fondly on the days when we had a jogging stroller to haul our veggies home, sometimes on the lap of our kids.

So, I thought I might build an art bike with a tricycle as a base.  And I still hope to do that.  But while carrying my really heavy basket around the market this past Sunday, I decided that even that bike wouldn't solve the whole problem.  I really could use one of those handy wheeled carts that people use in New York, and happily, more and more around here.  It would make my marketing experience so much more relaxed and enjoyable (in the way that removing heavy objects from your purse can change your mood so quickly).  And then I remembered the wagon wheels that I uncovered while cleaning out the garden house/garage (leftover from my kids' wagon that had fallen apart).  Yes, most would have given them the heave.  But I thought they might come in handy.  When I proposed the idea of building a wagon to my daughter, she took the bait.  Out we went to clean off the wheels, lube them up, and find some wood scraps to use.  I suggested we draw up some "plans" before we started to build.  Amazingly, my daughter drew up something very similar to one idea I had.  She even made a planning and designing book first to record her ideas.  The project is still "under construction" so check back in a few weeks for more pictures of the finished wagon.