Besides dropping Tuesdays, the other major change starting next week involves our market meals. Granny Shaffer’s wraps up their season at the market today. They’ve provided us with tasty meals twice a week May through September, often in oppressive heat, and we’ve really appreciated their dedication and yummy food. Next week, Hazel’s Bakery takes over the Friday lunch and will serve a different soup each week. On Saturdays we continue our benefit breakfast, but the menu changes to pancakes, eggs and sausage.
That said, today Granny Shaffer’s is serving hot roast beef sandwiches for lunch. The Plainsfolk will be playing.
Tomorrow Cooking for a Cause includes biscuits and gravy, sausage, and cooked to order eggs. It’s served from 9 to 11 and all profits go to the Ozark Area CROPwalk. CROPwalk is an interfaith walk held in over 2,000 communities nationwide. Our walk is this Sunday and there will be information on it at the market Saturday in case you would like to participate. The focus of the walk is fighting hunger with 1/4 of the funds raised being split locally among Crosslines, Lafayette House, Children’s Haven and the Salvation Army. The rest goes around the world feeding refugees and increasing economic opportunities in areas of chronic poverty. Locally, United Methodist, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Christians (Disciples), Catholics and Baptists walk together. Other churches, businesses and individuals are welcome.
The Loose Notes will play on Saturday.
Keeping the market going two days in a row is a challenge for our growers, but they’re committed to doing it if the weather will cooperate. It’s my job to make sure we have the customers they need on Saturdays when there are festivals galore drawing the customers out of town. So mark your calendars now. On October 6th we have a special musical treat. Joel Conner and Robert Bruce Scott of Indianapolis will present “The Music of Simon & Garfunkel” in much the same way that Simon & Garfunkel originally presented it when barnstorming the U.S. in the 1960's - one guitar and two voices in intricate harmony. Joel Conner, singing Paul Simon’s part, has performed across the United States for nearly 40 years. Robert Bruce Scott is an operatic tenor who performed at the market last year playing his 32-string Celtic harp. We are really pleased to have these musicians stopping at the market during their Oklahoma/Missouri tour.
On October 13th, we’ll have our scarecrow demonstrations. Lisa Sweet, Webb City’s queen of crafts, will demonstrate how to paint the scarecrow’s face – really the only part of the process that takes talent. And for those of us with no talent, she’ll also be giving away her demonstration pieces. I also hope we’ll be able to share some other materials like the clothing used to create the scarecrows. I’ve gone through my closets (is there anything more satisfying than clearing out closets?) and invite you to do the same. If you have long pants, long-sleeved collared shirts, overalls, denim skirts or dresses, old boots or hats, bring them to the market by the 13th and we’ll pass them on to others making scarecrows. The pants and shirts need to be hard woven fabric like denim or cotton. Stretchy fabrics like knits don’t work well. Also, if you have plastic bags, we can use those to stuff the scarecrows. Wouldn’t it be fun if homes and businesses throughout Webb City were decorated with market mums and pumpkins and original scarecrows? And you can add a couple of market carrot driveway markets to complete the effect for only $2 each. Who knows, maybe this winter we’ll get snow and actually need driveway markers.
In the meantime, come to the market and celebrate the fall. There’s still plenty of produce and other good things to buy, great music to listen to and friends to meet and make. See you at the market!
