To market, to market, to buy a...

Today was the first day of our newly renamed "Saturday Market."  It used to be called the Farmer's Market and was somehow affiliated with an official organization so there were rules that made it difficult to be flexible about what was sold there.  So...we are no longer a "Farmer's Market" and are now the "Saturday Market."

Listening to the weather forecast last night, there was very little hope for a successful first market day.  And even when we were ready to leave, it was raining pretty good.  But the rain quit so we headed "to market, to market...."  And only after we got our few items set up did we realize how COLD it was.  Luckily we are close to home so I went home and dug out the hats and gloves, and heavier jackets.  But in spite of the weather, we had lots of customers and guests!  People driving by, bicyclists on a tandem bike (brrrrr!), lots of people from town, and all of the vendors, too!

Our only garden produce was rhubarb, and, of course, everyone else has rhubarb, too.  But we also brought fire starters--pinecones encased in wax--Leann melts down old candles out on the cookstove in the sugar shack, puts the pinecones in old muffin tins, and pours the melted was on each pinecone.  She also had some smaller pieces of apple wood, so that plus the fire starters made a kit.

And she had made up sets of pre-cut boards (cut from our old fence boards from the Minneapolis house) for bluebird houses.  So people could make the birdhouse there or buy the kit to take home.  One customer bought 5 kits to make with grandkids!

This lady was selling several kinds of items, but here she's making rugs she calls a Toothbrush Rug or Nalbinde Rug that has Scandinavian as well as Peruvian roots.  The "toothbrush" part, she says, comes from Swedish or Norwegian immigrant women realizing that toothbrushes already had a hole in one end (to pull the fabric through), so they filed off the other end into the needle point that they needed.  It looked interesting, we have LOTS of old fabric around here, so I bought a kit.  Oh, and...she said several of her rugs were made from old sheets she bought at our giant Labor Day weekend yard sale two years ago!

Our church was there selling cinnamon rolls, pies, rhubarb bars, and some plants...and rhubarb!

We were just so pleased that so many people braved the temps to check it all out.  Lots of people made the time go really fast.  And then we went home and turned on the fireplace!