Fall

Definitely fall Saturday morning. This was my view as I drove into Market.

I come down Delta highway from River Road, so there's frequently fog as I cross the river and pass the ponds. This is the first time the fog got thicker as I came down the exit to 7th Street.

Fortunately, I had layers. Lost the jacket while still setting up, though the flannel stayed on much longer. Hat came off after lunch, and by 3 pm I had to go change from jeans to shorts.

Fall in Oregon is weird.

Farmer's Market is amazing, though. I bought salad mix, green beans, lemon cukes, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries, d'Anjou pears, blue plums and two different varieties of seedless table grapes, all locally grown. Next week we'll probably be through the rest of our homegrown apples, so they'll add to the list.

I brought a few new plates in from the recent firing, set up left to right a crab dinner plate, sea otter dessert plate and an orca dessert plate, and only then realized I'd created a marine food chain. Decided to leave it there and see if anyone noticed.

Students are back on campus, and coming down to Market in droves. I never used to sell well to college kids; my demographic seemed to be moms and grandmas, a dwindling market. Lately, though, they've been stopping in, admiring the work, sometimes buying, or at least taking a business card for when they had their own kitchen/apartment/space. Denise has also seen the love--three young women went through her entire box of watercolor cards, comparing favorites, before settling on the ones to buy.

A father and daughter came in a couple of times, looking at everything, not talking much to me. The second time, though, daughter came close and said, Can I ask you a question? Certainly, I assure her. Well, when my mom was growing up, she had a panda cookie jar that was always full of cookies. Do you ever paint a panda on a cookie jar?

I flip open my inventory book, say I have one in the booth right now. It's in a box under the counter, would you like to see it?

Would she ever! I cherish the look of delight on her face when I brought out the jar, even more so when I showed her the mother and baby panda on the back.

Mom's getting a panda cookie jar.

Down on the farm

My mom still lives on the family farm in central Wisconsin, so that's where we went next. Nobody's actually farming the place anymore, the barn is empty, but she rents out fields and pasture to neighbors to graze cattle. This gets a little income against the property taxes, but mostly just keeps the grass down. She had a grass fire a few years back, does not want that happening again.

Mom's 87 years old now, living alone, although my brothers are available when she needs help. Tony and his wife built their house on former pasture land across the road, Val lives about 30 minutes away in Chili and comes weekly to mow the lawn and do chores. John lives in Menasha, but since he retired, he's been available to drive for things like family funerals, class reunions and Amish weddings. (She's an adopted grandma for the neighboring clans.) I got to see all three of them while we were there.

I also got to hang out more with Tony and Cindy than previous years. Because of Denise's knee, we couldn't stay in the upstairs bedroom at Mom's, so we slept in their guest room. Tony's working nights at a cheese factory, but planning to retire at the end of the year. He was actually throwing a 65th birthday barbecue the weekend after we left. Sorry to have missed it; he does really good 'cue.

He's already got a retirement "hobby" lined up. Grandpa Gosar was a butcher's apprentice in Slovenia, and was the go-to guy when the neighboring farmers needed to butcher a cow or pig. Dad took over when I was growing up, and now Tony continues the tradition. He still has Grandpa's skinning knife, although the blade's worn down to a needle, so he had a knifesmith friend make him a new one. He built a walk-in cooler in the basement years ago, but he recently bought a refrigerated trailer. I asked if he planned to do mobile butchering, but he said no, it would sit on blocks here. He just needed more capacity. He's already got orders for six pigs and a goat for their new Ghanaian priest.

Learned most of this in the dark, watching the flames from his enormous firepit. He built it out of the rims of a dual-wheel rear tractor tire, and it's about four feet across. "Hillbilly engineering," he calls it, like when he converted a restaurant rolling hot case/oven into his barbecue smoker, using old box springs to hold the meat. I'd half like to see what he could do building a kiln.

We actually got to visit some galleries on Sunday--I know, I'm shocked too. Who know extremely rural Wisconsin had an art scene. There was actually a Clark County art tour happening every weekend in September and October, and two of the stops were a few miles from the farm. There Once was a Barn is a converted barn featuring fine woodworking by Pat Plautz and fiber art by wife Kay. Pat's sister, Mary Jo, and her husband Randy Fox have converted their barn into a gallery/workshop/studio as well, with Randy's woodworking and equipment on the ground floor and Mary Jo's studio, where she does drawings, paintings and mixed media, upstairs. They're about two miles apart, and we visited both. Picked up some nice fall-colored ice-dyed cloth napkins from Kay, and a print of milkweed pods from Mary Jo.

Mostly, though, we hung out. Visited. Watched the bird feeder and met the cats. Caught up with John, who was up to take Mom to a funeral on Monday, and played with his friendly doggo, Misty.

It was nice.