A Day at the Farmer's Market!

Well, since it's been raining for the last few days here, I decided to put up pictures of our city farmer's market from LAST weekend, when it was really lovely. Ahh, I wish this weather would make up its mind!

By the way, despite the fact that we live in the most urban areas in the entire country--there has been a push, by the city, to have quality farmer's markets in various places. It seems to actually be expanding--and it's great because it allows local farmers from upstate New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania to bring their various products over from their farms.

And there's always a great variety of stuff. Yep--no simple fruit and veggie market here! Farmer's markets around here have different bread artisans, various cheese stalls, honey sellers, flower farmers (fresh and dried flowers!), wool and sheep soap sellers, beeswax candle and ornament makers, makers of fresh fruit jams, game bird meat and egg farmers, buffalo meat--you can even buy compost for your garden. So yes, it's a great place to go! And, FINALLY, the city does SOMETHING right!

Our farmer's market sits in the heart of downtown Manhattan, with the stalls circling the famous Union Square Park. The 60 odd stalls really are like a small old world market mecca, and it gets crowded with pedestrians and their children and dogs--it is an outdoor paradise! Here are some pictures that I shot:

A lovely flower vendor

More flowers, but this time someone got clever enough to create dried wreath masterpieces!

Tasty pies!

Someone selling Forsythia branches. While this is lovely, I am always sad about this because I realize..if you go far enough into the country you could get this for free...or, if you had even a semblance of a yard, you could grow these inexpensively. There is something about capitalizing off of people in the city that doesn't gel with me....hmmm...

I didn't have a chance to take too many pics of other things being sold as the crowd was getting rather thick at this point--and I was getting too many heads bobbing into my shots...ahh, living in the city--while I am glad there are wonderful opportunities such as this farmer's market, I still can't wait to be on the other end of those stalls :)

Crowd shot, below:

In other news, we are still patiently awaiting bees...it's not looking too good. The middleman who is supposed to be picking them up for us this week hasn't gotten back to us. I can only pray he is in transit for them, so--waiting patiently...

Also, Big Town Farmer's web server is acting VERY strange lately...we put the mag up last week and seem to be getting complaints that some folks dont see it (maybe it's cached?)...no idea but the server techs are not all that helpful...grumblegrumblegrumble...so I think we might have to reformat what we are doing entirely...

This might not be a bad thing as I am working a business idea that is more dynamic and still involves farming...I'll have those details shortly.

Have a great day!