Farmers Market At Rest

Our local farmers market is a bustling place on the weekends during high season. From early summer to late fall, thousands of people tramp along the dusty wooden floors past the stalls lining the covered main pavilion. Light streams from the upper windows upon heads bowed to inspect the bounty produced by local growers: paper bags of deep red tomatoes, piles of lettuce mixes, bouquets of basil bound with rubber bands, rows of cardboard pints of berries. A riot of fragrant international dishes--Mexican burritos, Belgian waffles, Indian samosas, Sri Lankan curry, Japanese noodles--spikes the air with frying oil and earthy spices, enticing samplers to linger.

It's a happy, loud, lively gathering spot. A band or two, sometimes just an impromptu gathering of players or a kid strumming a guitar for donations, provides a background beat for the shoppers, picnickers, and strollers. It's a rare visit that you don't spot at least one friend, and a quick trip to pick up the week's veggies can easily turn into an hour-long chat by the lake while the kids climb the rangy old tree whose branches hang over the water.

As much as I enjoy going to the market, I have to admit that I find the crowds and noise overwhelming. So it is with some guilt that I reveal that I haven't visited the farmers market once this summer. Instead I've gathered locally grown goodies from nearby roadside farmstands, u-pick orchards, and country markets. The fruit has been especially luscious this wet summer, with huge sweet blueberries, juicy peaches, and fat late-summer raspberries just rolling out of our refrigerator to be made into pies, smoothies, and all manner of sweet treats. And I've rediscovered the gamey goodness of grass-fed, locally raised beef and pork. (And, oh my, yes, I have put on weight this summer! Thanks for asking.) All this with the added bonus of quiet drives along wildflower-lined country roads, giving me the chance to enjoy the sights of silvered-sided barns next to fields of tasseled corn stalks and golden-headed sunflowers.

With school set to begin next week and the temperatures dipping down in the evenings, I know that my summer of food gathering and country wanderings is coming to a close. September is such a time of turning, the culmination of the summer's growing season and the slow easing into fall's declension and winter's return. This one month encapsulates vibrant growth and the skeletal outlines of decline, much like the the farmers market visited at mid-week, deserted and scruffy and at peace with itself.

Without the vibrant cover of people and produce, the main pavilion reveals its elegant bones. It was designed by a local architect and shares the lines of a 13th-century European cathedral, the long pavilion like a cathedral nave crossed by a transept. A skylight illuminates the northern end of the pavilion, its geometry evoking a barnlike version of a cathedral ceiling soaring skyward.


And everywhere I see the leavings of the weekend market's bounty, products of a long summer's worshipful labor.

I hope you are enjoying September's fullness as much as I am. I've missed my online friends during this extended blog break, but I look forward to visiting your blogs and posting more regularly. I must admit I am very rusty at this blogging thing!