Farmers' Market

Today was a day at the Sebastopol Farmers' Market for the people.  I was particularly struck by this lady selling wool. She looks like somebody who has spent so many years immersed in her product that she has begun to resemble it .

The resident homeless man was there with his tricked out bike and his dog with a wreath of flowers around its neck to match the crown of flowers on his own head. He was deep in conversation with a small child who had been dancing for him until they clocked me with my camera. The light was difficult to get a good picture, and the dog was asleep on the lawn too far away to make a good composition, so I've put what I did get in the extras.

We bought a big bag of micro greens with flowers from a very serious young woman with a crew cut, a dozen peaches from a smiling Hispanic man who was handing out generous samples...sometimes several to the same person, a box of mixed mushrooms from an Asian man who grows many varieties himself and gets the rest from local sources.  Our final purchase was a vast number of homemade sausages for a family barbecue when my brother and his wife are here this week. The Yucatan sausages have so many ingredients in them that I didn't see how they could possibly be good, but I had to change my tune when we bought some a couple of weeks ago.

Nope...not quite our final purchase. A new stand featured pasta which contains 30% vegetables. It is made by two women who grow the veggies and also sell a beautiful bag of tomatoes, peppers, garlic and basil along with a recipe for making sauce. We couldn't resist. We chose a combination of garlic, tomato and basil pasta. Next week maybe we'll try some cucumber for a cold pasta salad.

I'm so much happier with images like these than with the heartbreaking ones that have appeared in the paper every day. Going to the Farmers' Market gives me some hope for the planet and its occupants.