It's always a joy to see the great produce that our local farmers bring at the end of the season. It was a lot cooler today than yesterday so walking around and looking at the all the booths at the Roanoke Farmers Market was a real pleasure.
I took lots of pictures of the beautiful vegetables, flowers, the market area, and whatever interested me. Since not everyone has the luxury of going to a local farmers market, I put up a Farmers Market web page.
We go to the market often enough that it is always nice to see the familiar faces once again. We headed home with corn on the cob, mountain cabbage, bratwurst from Garden Mountain Farm, and bread from On the Rise Bakery. We didn't need any tomatoes since ours are about to swamp us once again with their late season spurt.
I did spend a few minutes talking to Mike Hubbard from Garden Mountain Farm. He confirmed what I had guessed that the dry weather which is merely an inconvenience to us suburbanites has started to have an impact on the livestock farmers. According to Mike some farmers have already started to feed hay because their pastures are so dry. Normally Virginia area farmers don't have to supplement with hay until December. On our farm in Canada we usually had to start hitting the hay yard no later than the first of November. Any time you have to start feeding your hay early puts some pressure on your bottom line.
After leaving the downtown, we headed to the Roanoke Natural Foods Coop to pick up some other essentials, eggs, Marmite, and Nibby Bars. It's a good way to start a Saturday here in Southwest Virginia.
