Orleans Farmers' Market revs up for the season

The honey bears stood sentinel at the first sunny market of the season on a grassy patch in downtown Orleans this morning. Representing E & T Farms, they beckoned shoppers with a sweet tooth into the line-up of various bee products.

Long, tapered candles lined one basket, beautifully molded bedside candles filled another, and jars of honey in every size from bear to half gallon were flying off the table from every side.

The next booth brought rhubarb; 15 pounds according to the scale when I purchased the last of it in one fell swoop. At $2.50/pound, it was hard to resist as I conjured up an image of 15 pies stacked in the freezer for the celebrations of darker months.

The 30 pounds of asparagus brought to market by Surrey Farms was sold out by the time I reach the stand, but they promised more in two weeks time.

For greens, I swapped $3.50 with the Kitchen Garden for a gallon ziplock of two spinach varieties, kale, and baby bibb lettuce.

Between the various stands, I spent $40.50 at the market: $29 on rhubarb, $3.50 on greens, and $8 for a pair of beeswax dinner candles. I supplemented the shop with 2 half-gallons of local apple cider from Phoenix Fruits, which ran me in the neighborhood of $8, and a dozen eggs from the Orleans Whole Foods store for $4.50 from Lake Farm Garden in town. I picked up the half gallon of raw milk that I receive weekly as part of a coop from a farm in Foxboro at a friend's house near Rock Harbor and dropped $4.25 in the money bucket.

All told, the weeks' shop cost me $57.25; not bad for an all local harvest.