I love the Woodland Park Farmer’s Market.
We pet the dogs from the no-kill shelter.
We watch Robillard’s honey bees hustle through a display.
We point out the newest blooms at Karen Anderson’s stand, and throw bean bags through rings to get a junior firefighter badge from the Four-Mile Fire Protection District crew.
There are vegetables to touch and watermelons to taste. We buy goat cheese from the Canyon City dairy, and mushrooms from Black Mountain Mushrooms in Guffey.
We say hello to neighbors we see only at the Friday market, and try to carry on conversations with other parents, watching our children pool together and race through the crowd.
After a couple of hours, the boys and I head home, loaded with bags of produce from the people who actually grow and make our food. We talk about our menu for the week, made up entirely of the day’s purchases. We shell peas and make pesto, and laugh about how pink our fingers turn when we pickle the beets.
Like most children, mine refuse vegetables regularly.
With patience, I hope they will one day learn to love them, as they are learning now to love their farmers.
The love of the market and fun with food comes first. The love of eating the food comes later. The time with Mom doing something fun is an amazing gift; you're making memories, and that is something sweet that the best fruit cannot touch.
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