Market

Opening day today at East Town Market and not much on offer. The fat white turnips were the prettiest things for sale. A few stalks of rhubarb, scattered lettuces, nothing nearly as tempting as a sugarsnap. One farmer told me her peas are at least two weeks off.

Many of the produce vendors didn't come this morning. I passed the empty spaces where I expected to see their tables, their trucks, their faces, hoping to recognize them from last summer and the summers before it.

Plenty of shoppers turned up, though, with their kids and dogs. Vendors too with various things I'm not looking for in a farmer's market. Aside from the flowers and plants, the bakery items and coffee, there were ceramic fish, magnets made of buttons, and revolving copper lawn sprinklers. One woman set up a glass table under a tent to sell her self-published novel, a romance-mystery called Mixin' It Up! Too bad you can't eat literature.

August should be livelier.