How’s that for a dramatic title?
Tuesday was the first big farmers’ market of the summer, and if I were being honest I’d tell you I was psyched.
Three summers ago, I worked the booth for the Co-op selling their homemade breads. This was my first experience with a huge farmers’ market.
I loved everything about it. The people, the produce, the excitement.
I only worked a booth that first year, but we’ve been going back every summer Tuesday we could.
So maybe you can imagine how much I was looking forward to the first one this year. I had big plans. I brought my camera intending on taking pictures of the local farmers and their produce. A big post on the advantages of buying local was in the works.
But then we showed up and realized every single other person in Bozeman had the same idea. Honestly, I can’t blame them… it’d been raining for weeks and this was the first warm day we’d had in a while.
The thing is, the crowds don’t really bother me. It’s the combo of two very excited kids and the crowd that I quickly discovered isn’t for the faint at heart. If the kids weren’t begging to get the the playground, I would have loved to slowly browse all the booths. Instead we dashed to grab dinner, and then parked it on a picnic table to eat where my 4 year-old didn’t ’cause he was too excited to do this…
Although it was rushed, we did get to enjoy some good local fare. We had a fantastic “crepe dog” from our friends at Rendezvous. It was a local, all beef hotdog that we later found out came from Meat Montana, Kaelin Germann’s husband’s grassfed beef ranch. (You might remember Kaelin from her raw milk posts.) Needless to say, we love living in a small town.
After that the kids finally got to play in the park, and that’s when I realized this might not be a weekly happening for us this summer.
The thing is… I’m the type of mom that likes to let my kids have their freedom at the playground. You won’t find me hovering over them… it’s just not how I do things. I don’t take my eyes off them, but they like the opportunity to explore and make friends without mom on their back. The kids had fun, but keeping up with them while hundreds and hundreds of people are around at the park isn’t my idea of a good time.
So keeping them within 3 feet at the park for an hour was a new experience for us all.
Not to mention the river running along side was pretty rapid. It was madness.
The easiest part of the night was the tail end when all the kids we’re playing on a big empty stage. At least they were contained, and we could slip in some adult convo. This was the best pic I got of my kids with Jeanne’s. Photo fail.
So what’s my point? Well, don’t tell my kids but mama and daddy might have to turn Farmer’s Market into date night.
-Abby
