With the morning temperatures hovering in the mid-30s and a possibility of snow looming in the dreary sky, Susan Dietrich tried to keep her hands warm and her mood light as she set up her booth on the first day of the Mill City Farmers’ Market season. Up went the oversized chalkboard listing the artisanal fare handcrafted by Dietrich for Very Prairie, her nearly four-year-old local food company, while jars of specialty mustards, bottles of rhubarb ketchup and bags of granola were carefully arranged among rustic crates, sheaves of wheat and labels made to look like the slate tablets once found in old prairie schoolhouses. As she and her assistant Kristen Ophaug prepared for the start of the market, Dietrich couldn’t help but wonder: Was it worth the effort?
