The People's Republic of Boulder Blog

Farmers’ Market: Summer’s Here

By Amy Brouillette, 5-02-07

This Wednesday was the first Wednesday of the Wednesday version of the Farmers’ Market, which always, for me, marks the beginning of Boulder summer. Pickings were rather slim, as it goes this time of year – but the old standbys were in-house: the wild mushroom guy, the peanut butter man, Eldo water reps, the flower stands. One I hadn’t seen before, either because I repressed it or just missed it, was the “Hippie Dippies” stand, a few paces from the north entrance.  In true hippy dippy fashion, there were no hippies, dippy or otherwise, manning, or womanning that stand, just some random things scattered along the counter, so I was unable to decipher what exactly are their products (though I had some funny guesses).

The food court, the hub of Farmers’ Market culture, was thriving. A man on guitar played “Puff the Magic Dragon” (twice).  I got an iced tea/ginger lemonade conconction from one of the Asian-style vendors, which came in a “compostable” plastic vessel. Everything there is compostable: The food court, and the market in general, is a “waste-free zone,” thanks to a collaboration with Boulder’s Eco-Cycle. Cups, food containers, utensils, all are biodegradable, and go into (non)waste containers set around the place, often with the help of non-waste volunteers, who hang around the containers, and make depositing non-trash a rather jovial, and orderly, experience.

A discussion about the world’s dying bees broke out around the radishes, somewhere along spinach and arugula row. There were worries about the fate of Boulder’s honey, which a vendor quelled with assurances his bee guy has “plenty of honey.” On my way out, I strolled past the ACLU stand, and a lone man distributing materials on the troubled state of free expression in America. He was reading U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s beautifully scripted dissenting opinion on the Court’s recent decision banning partial-birth abortion. We chatted a bit, as the crowds thinned out, and vendors began packing up their wares.  I affixed an ACLU button, “Stand Up,” to my jacket, and headed home with my spinach.

Read more from Amy’s blog at www.newwest.net/republicofboulder

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