It's Market time!

I don't give a hoot about April Fool's Day, April showers, blah blah blah. But I'm super excited that today is April 1st! Why? Because that means the Farmer's Market is opening tomorrow!

Our local farmer's market is open Thurs-Sun from April until Oct., and weekends in Nov. and Dec. I'm very excited for all the fresh produce, flowers and meats! Even honey! We have a quite large farmer's market that actually has it's own allotted space by the city, and is housed in an honest to god open air building!

One of the best things about this is that all the local places I would normally go to (or not, because some aren't open to the public) are all in one place! I can get my hand-ground meats, veggies and flowers for my table all in one place! Another good thing is that the majority of the merchants at the Market are small family-owned farms and ranches. They grow as much as they can, and sell what they can't use themselves. Some even have co-op programs, or buy-ins; where you pay a small deposit and two or three payments pre-season and from July through October you have a batch of veggies dropped off on your doorstep each week.

This summer, I'm making a very big effort to eat as natural is possible, with buying as little food as I have to. I don't have my own garden yet, and frankly don't have the know-how to implement a large enough one in the near future. I'm hoping to start small this season, planting some Walla Walla's, maybe some corn, and a few strawberries. Maybe I'll lose my mind and go a bit further, but for right now, that's the general plan. But since there is no way in hell I'll be able to realistically self-sustain the Boy and I this year, I'm going to try to take weekly trip to the market, and hopefully buy anything I need there.

An amazing friend of mine and I had a conversation last night, and we ended up at one point discussing how we didn't want to eat organic, we wanted to eat food that was more then that. Grown by people who grow it because they love it. Food pollinated by bees, and feed by sunlight and good ol' dirt. Both of us are fairly health conscious, and have been slowly moving left on the food spectrum. My friend is expecting her first child, and has even bought a food processor with the plan to make her own baby food, and I don't blame her. With the recent outbreaks of nastiness in everyday foods (tomatoes, peanut butter, pistachios) it's a bit scary to think that basically anything I'm feeding my son can potentially make him sick. I'd rather risk a bit of the "you're losing your mind" and know what it going in his mouth, where is came from, and where it has been.