If all goes well this week, we’ll look different on Saturday. The Parks Department plans to drop the sides on the pavilion. The sides will provide protection from the wind, but it will still be chilly inside so dress warmly. The pavilion doors will remain open so the space is well ventilated and safe.
goods, BDJ Creations with holiday woodcrafts, Jane’s Glass Art, and Nancy’s Doll Closet with loads of hand sewn clothes for 18” dolls. Of course, many of our regular market vendors also sell products that make good gifts. Mo Mushrooms is selling dried mushrooms as well as mushroom powder that would be welcome in a cook’s stocking. Juniper Coffee has locally roasted coffee beans for the coffee drinker and a new product that is receiving rave reviews – Juniper & Cardamom House Syrup. I’m not a coffee drinker but I
was hooked this summer when I tasted their cold brew flavored with their signature syrup. Just right for stockings, kitchen cupboards, and coffee bars at work, this is a gift that will be used and appreciated.
Oakwoods has mild and hot chili seasonings just right for winter. DnD Smoked also has chili seasoning that a certain city manager swears by. My mother always loved getting bags of fresh pecans from Fairhaven in her stocking. They’re great for snacking and for cooking, and while you’re at Fairhaven’s table don’t forget the pecan and peanut brittle and chocolate peanut butter balls.
Market branded gifts include our hats and bags and who wouldn’t want some market tokens in their stocking to spend in 2021?
David Loving is playing at the market’s center stage from 9 to 11.
The Free Kids Meals this week are: Breakfast – market-made pumpkin oat energy bar served with a cinnamon yogurt dif, fruit, and milk. Lunch – Oven fried rice with market carrots, peas, parsley and egg, a Songbird Kitchen eggroll, and milk.
Confession time. Our pumpkin oat energy bar uses butternut
squash instead of pumpkin. Butternut is often used to substitute for pumpkin in
soups and pies. Last fall we picked up two huge boxes of butternuts from E
& O Produce’s bumper crop. Some we used fresh in the kids meals, but most
of which we baked, pureed, and froze. Now it’s a breeze to
defrost and
incorporate in the meals. Anyone, aged 1 through 18, can pick up a local
butternut oat energy bar and other breakfast and lunch delights, packed to go,
from 9 to 11 at the market on Saturday. If the kids aren’t there, just show our
wonderful volunteers a photo of you with them so they can get a head count.
As I’m sure you’ve heard, this is the last month that the
Sentinel will exist in print. Each week I plan to include an appreciation for
some part of the Sentinel and the first I’d like to share with you is the long
time column called Coonfoot nd Vicinity. This weekly column was written by Louise Ott, a
lady I never had 
the pleasure of knowing but who must have been a very special
person. Each column started with a variation of “The Good Lord blessed us with…”
rain, or heat, or wind, or some other kind of weather. Louise then proceeded to
keep us up to date on all the happenings north of Alba - who had dinner with whom, whose
cousin, aunt, brother, or childhood friend had come to town to visit, who had
taken shopping trips to the big city (Joplin). The Lamar Free Fair was always fun but the Kentucky Fried Chicken closing in Carthage was criminal. (A new one is open now.)
This “All About Town” type of column has deep roots at the Sentinel. You would have found a daily front page column sharing the same kind of news in the Sentinel in the early 1900s. Even at the turn of the 21st century times seemed more casual. For example, did you know that twenty years ago when Coonfoot was being published one of the Jasper County polling places was Louise’s laundry room and the voting machine sat on her washing machine?
Coonfoot was the first column that my children looked for when they were in college and was the absolute favorite of their roommates and friends. The arrival of the weekly Sentinel always meant a gathering as Cora or Emily read Coonfoot to everyone. Emily’s friends were especially intrigued with the Sentinel. Both her roommates grew up in New York City and they had never known anyone who was in the local newspaper. They were amazed that Emily knew lots of people in the paper, that her family was in the paper, and her first grade teacher, and her preacher, and…even Emily herself was in the paper occasionally. A few weeks ago when the Sentinel ran a photo of Emily’s new baby, I emailed her a digital copy of the page with a message “Guess what, Emily? You still know people in the Sentinel!”
Times change, communication styles change, but let’s remember we are a community and find ways to stay in touch.
