BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. — Dozens of chickens at Aspen Moon Farm in northern Colorado provide eggs for thousands of people in its community.

Every week, the eggs are sold through the county’s farmer’s market. Farm Manager Josh Olsen says ordering food through the market is a great way to support your community.

“It’s going directly into the family’s pocket and to the local economy,” Olsen said.

Considering farmers markets are typically a place where many people gather, a lot has changed since the start of the pandemic. Boulder County Farmers Markets went online.

“All of the sudden instead of having the vegetables speak for themselves, photos had to be taken, descriptions had to populated into these online platforms,” Olsen said.

Going online is something Boulder County Farmers Markets Executive Director Brian Coppom says they always intended to do. Along with it, curbside pickup, and a lot of logistics to figure out.

“It took purchasing box trucks, refrigerated trucks, we had to purchase walk-in coolers, freezers, tables, sanitation equipment, PPE, we had to invest in simple things like thermometers and pulse oximeters to check the staff on a regular basis,” Coppom said.

Through many months of trial and error, Coppom says they’ve nearly perfected the process. He’s eager to share their success with other farmers across the country. That’s where Farmers Market Coalition comes into play.

“We really like to create this network for farmers market operators to communicate with each other," Farmers Market Coalition's Hannah Fuller said. "And we’ve heard from a lot of those operators that that network has been really important for sharing expertise but also just not feeling alone in this really unique position in running a farmers market.”

Hannah Fuller says the coalition conducted a survey last summer and found approximately one fourth of farmers markets had moved their operations online. Others have continued in-person shopping with social distancing and sanitation protocols. Stephanie Fenty, who is also with the Farmers Market Coalition, says farmers' resiliency became clear when there was a shortage of food at grocery stores.

“A lot of things weren’t available just because the food chain was basically failing during a national emergency," Fenty said. "And that really showed the importance of local food systems because at that time, we saw local food sales dramatically increase.”

There’s more than one silver lining. In Boulder County, going online has opened a wide range of possibilities. A season that would typically end in October has continued throughout the winter months. Now people can order and pick up all year round.

“There are root vegetables – storage crops – crops that keep during the winter," Coppom said. "So there’s onions and potatoes and radishes, and daikon radishes and rutabagas.”

Coppom says farmers markets have grown a lot from the pandemic and he hopes the new systems continue even after we get back to some sense of normalcy – giving more people access to healthy and delicious local food.

“The closer we are as a community to the source of our food, the more we’re tied together and the more meaningful those dinner parties become,” Coppom said.

Editor’s note: With our coronavirus coverage, our goal is not to alarm you but to equip you with the information you need. We will try to keep things in context and focus on helping you make decisions. See a list of resources and frequently asked questions here.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused stock market volatility in recent weeks, and some on Wall Street are concerned the U.S. is heading toward a market slump similar to stock market crashes in 2008, 1987 and even 1929.

But America has recovered from all of those fiscal storms in big ways, so let’s put more recent fears into context.

A stock market crash is a sudden and dramatic decline in prices that results in massive losses, and there’s no better example than the stock market crash of 1929. The bust was preceded by a period of economic growth through the “Roaring Twenties” alongside the rise of new technology sectors like automobiles, radio, telephones and aviation.

That changed on Oct. 28, 1929 as prices on the New York Stock Exchange tumbled 13%. To put it simply, prosperity led to overconfidence in the market. When investors feared a market correction, they began buying and selling stocks rapidly, accelerating the crash.

You might see the Dow Jones Industrial Average used as an indicator of America’s economic strength or - depending on when you look - weakness. The Dow tracks 30 “blue-chip” companies that produce industrial and consumer goods, which today includes household names like Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Walmart, Apple, Boeing and more. When companies on the Dow fare poorly, it can mean other businesses are also feeling the strain.

After the initial crash in 1929, the Dow continued to lose 89% of its value before bottoming out in 1932. Unemployment skyrocketed after the crash, and the country launched into the Great Depression.

Eventually, America bounced back as the manufacturing sector ramped up in the wake of World War II and as the federal government offered aid and work projects through the New Deal. But the Dow wouldn’t return to pre-crash heights until 1954.

The next significant crash came 50 years later. The largest one-day percentage drop in history took place on Oct. 19, 1987, also known as Black Monday, when the Dow fell 22%. While there were no “evident explanations” behind the crash, program trading may have been a factor, according to Investopedia.

The most recent recession 12 years ago was caused by the failures of several big banks like Countrywide, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, who had propped themselves up on subprime mortgage loans that defaulted at record paces, which is why this recession is also known as the 2008 Housing Crisis.

The federal government bailed out banks with a $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in late 2008, and Americans received stimulus aid through the $831 billion Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009.

In recent years, the Dow has been doing exceptionally well, continuing to set record numbers since 2013 and eventually reaching a record-high of 29,551 points last month.

Since the emergence of coronavirus this year, Wall Street has had more than a few bad days. The Dow plummeted nearly 3,000 points last week on March 16, a drop worse than any day during the 1929 crash.

Though the Dow closed this week with a loss, it had three straight days in the green and markets had their first week-over-week gain since February.

There’s also hope for many Americans who will benefit from a $2.2 trillion stimulus package that President Donald Trump signed into law on Friday. You can see if you qualify here and here.

For certain, America is in the middle of a roller coaster as stores, restaurants, businesses and more close to prevent the spread of the virus. But as history shows, the country has weathered fiscal storms before, and we can weather this one, too.