Let's Go Local!

What is that? You might ask...baby lavender? Baby rosemary? Nope. Both of those are actually wrong. This morning I went to the farmer's market near my house. I found lots of WONDERFUL things to look at, smell, and taste. The above photo is of a dwarf plant that I discovered and just HAD to bring home. I'll tell you more about it below.

I don't have to work at the theatre until later tonight. So I feel like I have an entire day to myself where I otherwise might not. I got up at a decent hour this morning, and headed over to the farmers market in Silver Spring, MD. It's not a big market, with only about 10 vendors, but I would still consider it to be a good local market; at least I don't have to go all he way down to the Eastern Market area of the city.

I started out with just browsing, wandering through the vendors just to see who is offering what, and for what price. One of the first things I noticed were all of the fresh salads and strawberries. Not that I didn't already know, but perhaps I'd just never really noticed since I live pretty removed from "the land." But the first harvest of the spring brings more than just strawberries . There are also various lettuces, kale, spring onions, sugar snap peas, and more. The market was awash in shades of red, orange, yellow, and green this morning. There were vendors with freshly cut and potted HHHHerbs (cause there's an H in it!) and flowers of every color, as well as baby squashes (with flowers!) everywhere. And to top it all off, I even got to join in with a one man band (a guy playing a Bass, tamborine, and harmonica all at the same time) while he sang I've been working on the railroad and Dinah blow your horn. I felt like a kid again! Below are my pictures, why don't you take a tour with me of the sights and sounds of the Silver Spring market?









Even though there's a salmonella scare in the US because of tomatoes, not all tomatoes are tainted. Tomatoes from Virginia have been cleared. And these heirloom tomatoes look delicious!


That first picture? Well this is the zoomed out version. If you guessed that the aforementioned photo was dwarf curry, you'd be right! After rubbing this plant and having visions of various curried meats and vegetables stewing in my kitchen, I just had to bring one of these home!

And finally, I thought I'd share a quick clip of the guy who didn't mind that I was singing children's songs along with him:

Where's Noah When You Need Him?

Or Sean Connery or James Mason for that matter? Long-eared animals anyone?

Coming out of a meeting yesterday I was happy to note that what had sounded from inside like a torrential downpour had passed. It was wet and puddly...but no longer actively raining. I grabbed a mochaccino from my favorite Coffee dram and happily walked back to the office. At about 6:30 I was having Internet problems so I decided to pack it in and use the Internet in my apartment. As I left the office I saw that it had started to drizzle and was again glad that I had packed an umbrella. By the time I went down the one flight to the lobby, the drizzle had morphed into a Biblical flood the likes of which I hadn't seen, well, since about two weeks ago in DC actually...

I decided to risk the walk because my only other choice was to go back to the office and stare at the walls. Within a block, my white pants were soaked from hem to upper thigh and were plastered coldly to my legs. Small favor, I suppose, that I'm so pale so not much flesh tone showed through! The streets I crossed were completely flooded with several inches of racing, dirty water and not even my long legs could span the distance. So into the new rivers splashed my cute gold ballet slippers. I got so wet that I actually had to stop three times to take off my shoes and tip out the water!

I couldn't really do anything but laugh at the situation and so giggled hoarsely all the way, stopping now and then to give a hacking cough as my stubborn bronchitis alerted me that it doesn't like for me to laugh.

I got to my apartment and squished across the floor to the bathroom where I stripped and dropped everything into the shower. Then I put on some nice, dry clothes and fired up my computer only to find...no Internet. Sigh. I do hope my shoes recover.