Sunday, August 08, 2010

My Soggy Saturday Morning

This morning, Chris and I grabbed our umbrellas, drove and picked up Ky, and then headed up the peninsula to a farmers' market.  We'd arranged to do this on our trip back here, because we'd neither the time nor the space to stop at fruit stands in the Okanagan (I miss you, many kinds of apricots and cherries that I didn't even know existed before!).  The next best thing was to check out the farmers' market, since we'd never been to one on the Island before. 

It ended up being the first rainy day in a very long time.  We didn't mind so much, since we all had umbrellas.  And everyone at the farmers' market was extra chatty, because there were fewer customers because of the rain.  (Chris in particular loved this.  He went there dressed from head to toe in Saskatchewan Roughrider paraphernalia, including a giant green golf umbrella, and so he got to talk football with CFL fans, and meet a few people from Saskatchewan too.) 

A few observations:
1.) There was a live music performance (this part is the same as the one in Regina), which featured women in long skirts, one of whom was playing a tenor recorder (this part is different from the one in Regina).  When I saw the tenor recorder, I may have shouted, "Awww, sweet!"
2.) Farmers' markets out here are lacking in Hutterites.  I really missed the Hutterite-run booths you get in Saskatchewan farmers' markets.  Those ones are my favourites. 
3.) It's really hard to balance an umbrella and a bag of produce while fishing money out of your wallet.  I am uncoordinated.
4.) This is the same as every farmers' market and fruit stand I visited, but it's really a good thing that I don't bring too much cash to stuff like that.  I could spend a lot of money on fresh food.
5.) Tea is the nicest thing in the world after you've been standing in the rain for an hour.

I'm glad we went, and I want to check out some more farmers' markets over the next couple of months. The food we bought completely made my day.  We bought cheese curds!  Ones that are so fresh that they squeak in your teeth!  (And we made poutine for supper!)  I'm also excited about the blackberry vinaigrette that I made from the berries Chris bought.  (I did question Chris about purchasing berries that can be picked for free in this city's parks.  He justified the purchase by saying that they were inexpensive and he didn't feel like going berrying this week.) 

(My intention was to take a picture and write a more coherent post about this morning, but my hands were too full with my umbrella to take out my camera, and it's now bedtime and so I'll have to just let this post be choppy and stream-of-consciousness.) 

1 comment:

The Blog Fodder said...

There is a great farmer's market in Duncan on Saturday. Free range goat sausage hot dogs and organic fudge.