Mother Nature is No Match for Kurt

The weather may have been gloomy, but that didn't stop Kurt Schliebner from getting out and selling bread on Tuesday April 5, 2011.

Schliebner is one of many vendors who come out to Gulfport's Tuesday Fresh Market to sell goods and food every week.

This Tuesday though, the market was cancelled because of bad weather conditions, but Schliebner set up shop like any other Tuesday.

Schliebner buys bread from New York Bread and Bagel on 34^th Street in St. Petersburg. The shop specifically makes bread for him to sell at the Tuesday morning fresh market.

“I sell more bread in one Tuesday than New York Bread and Bagel does in a month,” Schliebner said.

Since Schliebner orders his bread on Thursdays, he can't tell if the fresh market is going to be cancelled for weather reasons. So, in order to recoup the cost of buying the bread to sell, Schliebner is out every Tuesday, rain or shine.

“I've been here for 18 months now and this is the third time I've been the only one here,” Schliebner said.

Since Schliebner has been in the position of selling bread in the rain before, he knows the precautions to take. In order to keep the bread from getting wet from the rain, he covers all of it with a clear tarp that will still allow people to see it, but not have to worry about it getting soggy.

Just because the Fresh Market is cancelled doesn't mean that people are forgoing getting bread though. While there aren't as many people walking and perusing as there normally would be, Schliebner still has many regulars who look forward to getting bread from him every week.

“People will just pull up to the curb and leave their engines on. They say that they knew I'd be here,” Schliebner said.

While rainy conditions are less than ideal to sell bread, Schliebner sold around 34 loaves of bread, about half of his stock, by the time early afternoon came around and the sun started to peek out of the clouds.

It just goes to show that persistence does pay off.