I love our Farmer’s Market. It surprises me and enriches my life and Maria’s.

At this time of year, the market shrinks with fewer vendors,  and I used to go to supermarkets. Not much anymore.

Our farmer’s market has most of what we need, and it’s great stuff. The market is housed in the former town firehouse and operates every other week until it warms up and they can move to their beautiful summer site next door.

It’s also bringing things new to me: great food, clothes, friends. I’m getting the best lobster meat, the best soap, beautiful fresh vegetables, the best fitting winter cap, the best bread and cake I can remember.

It’s something of a magical place for me, the goods and items are wonderful, but the surprise to me is the people. They are great to get to know. And this is just the small winter version.

This is powered by a strong sense of community and a commitment to creativity and healthy and delicious vegetables.  These are dreamers, farmers, Imagineers, hard workers.

We are also making some wonderful friends. First, I stopped to see Casey who is planning a food cart or breakfast place in a newly available building. Then I bought a new blue winter cap. Then I got some crab-stuffed crab cakes, lobster meat, and fresh shrimp from Adirondack Seafood and the Hodges, some of the world’s nicest people, and finally, I went to see my friend Caindy Casavant, (photo above) a/k/a the Goad Lady to pick up the soap I made in her class last week. Her lovely blog can be found at www.cazacrez.com.

Maria and I have signed up for a soap class with Cindy together, we’ll always buy soap from Cindy but I was curious about how she makes it, it’s wonderful soap. I’m hoping to work closely with Cindy and see if I can’t use my blog to help her blog. We’re talking today to see what I can do for her, a busy, hardworking goat farmer who never rests. She’s going to make it big, I believe.

I hope I can help her, I love watcher her put her very hard work to good use.

My soap came out well, I’ll use it in the shower tomorrow. Cindy is the real deal. She’s a dreamer who makes dreams come true and a hard-working farmer right out of Willa Cather. Next month, she’ll be hand-feeding 100 baby goats twice a day for a month. You won’t see me in March she says. She’s putting together a beautiful website and I have some ideas for her so she can build an audience even bigger than the one she has.

 

Casey’s refurbished horse trailer is just about ready. She expects to have it out on the street in a couple of weeks, and in the meantime, a couple of buildings have opened up and might tempt her into a breakfast/coffee, cake/etc kind of breakfast restaurant. I’ll keep up with her on the blog, whatever she does. Casey is the real deal, she’s worked hard and talked to a thousand people, and she’s ready to go. A dream come true. You meet the nicest people at farmer’s markets.

I bought a new blue cap (above) that fits perfectly. I didn’t get the name of the woman who made it, I’ll catch up with that when she returns in the Spring. I never used to want my picture taken, I thought I was just too ugly. Now I still think I’m ugly, but it doesn’t matter. I have to come out in the open. It could be worse. I could have an orange squirrel nest on my head.

Edwin never quits, he brings his vegetables to the market every week, rain or shine, snow or mush. Maria says these are some of the best vegetables she’s ever had. He has a wonderful face, I love taking his portrait, and he’s a good sport about it. In the summer, he has the most beautiful table at the market, he has less to sell in the winter, but he is always at the market.

Kean is a Michelin stared baker from Washington D.C., I never imagined getting bread like this in our town. I go out to her house once a week to pick up multi-grained bread, for Valentine’s Day, I’ve ordered some Olive Oil Vegan chocolate cake for Maria. She’s new here and still getting used to our odd ways, she had a whopping Super Bowl lineup up for today and she was almost sold out by the time I got there (cinnamon-raisin sourdough, olive oil, olive oil, and sea salt focaccia). She’s an amazing baker, she will be much appreciated here.

When I moved here, I was sure my seafood days were over in this rural town in upstate New York. Enter Jim and his family from the Adirondack Seafood Company. It’s a family business, they care about what they do.

Today I took home a bag of lobster meat, four crab cakes stuffed with crab meat, and some fresh shrimp. Like Kean’s bread and Cindy’s soap, this is another thing I never expected to find here, but it is coming into my life every week. Small miracles but good ones, all.