Family Fun and Community Come Together at the Farmer's Market

I haven't written a piece lately on anything local. I haven't really had much occasion to and given my own life, have been a bit busy with other topics, such as breastfeeding or cloth diapering. Yet over the last few weekends our local Farmer's Market here in Upstate NY has been making large efforts to not only be welcoming to families with children but also really celebrate them.
On any given day the Farmer's Market is wonderful enough with the river right there, lots of fresh food to buy and eat, fresh herbs and flowers in pots to take home, crafts to browse, local wineries offering samples, shady trees to relax under, and a whole community of friends to see and visit with and new people to meet. They offer huge bonuses for people shopping there with EBT and even have a system for using your debit card.
This summer though the manager of the market, a very sweet lady, has been making it her mission to really make it fun, and most of all include children. A couple of weeks ago was Family Fun Day, with live music, games and a funny faces booth to have your picture taken and then emailed to you.
Here was ours.












And here are a few more pictures from that day.

This is the band that played all day, my cousin's husband is actually in it. 

(You can actually see my cousin in this picture actually, the cute young woman in the front left corner.)

This is Bug playing the "throw the radish into the jars" game. He had a blast but I honestly do not think he made it even once. The last picture is Bug doing the scavenger hunt. There was no prize but he still took it very, very seriously.

Then last week the Nature Center came and taught kids about animals, with me just having had my surgery though we did not attend sadly. 

We did however go today and today they again had loads of stuff for the kids to do. They had actually brought a basket full of inexpensive kids toys for all the children of both shoppers and vendors to play with. There is a pretty usual crowd these days of a few of the vendors children, and a few of the regular shoppers like me who bring their kids. They are all about 3-6 and they basically run the place, because honestly come on, these days kids don't have a lot of free places to just run and be a kid. The Farmer's Market is set right in the park with fields of fresh grass, lots of other kids to play with, the same kids come almost every week and now there are games and toys, it's a kid paradise. 

So I say Thank You to the Farmer's Market Manager and to the people who run it every week. I know you go above and beyond to provide the Farmers with a safe and friendly place to sell their products, and the shoppers with local produce and loads of fun. You do not have to have live bands come, or provide our kids with toys, but you do and for that I for one say thank you. Keep doing what you do because you are helping to not just keep this town nice but grow a community for my generation and my children's as well.