Westminster Farmers’ Market Report from Maple Heights Farm
Tornado watches and Irish Step Dancers, goats, fiddlers and a final washout!
What an outstanding performance we had last week with Lauren Dennen dancing to the music of Susan Nickerson and her husband.I hope you got a chance to see them.It was really wonderful.Even in the awful heat and humidity on Friday, Lauren never broke a sweat!What a performer!And the Nickersons’ music just adds so much to the atmosphere in the market!Thank you to all for making my afternoon so enjoyable!
The market was fantastic last Friday with all the entertainment: music, dancing and Meghan’s goats Echo and Marmalade.The goats were a great addition to the market and Meghan did a great job keeping them from eating all the beautiful herbs and perennials on display!If all goes well, she would like to bring them again.The afternoon ended with a bang as a thunderstorm approached.As the thunder slowly approached over about 45 minutes, the vendors decided to pack it in.At 6:15 as the last containers were being packed away, the sky opened up in a downpour!And the market came to an end.
If not for the weather, every thing went off without a hitch for our first anniversary celebration Friday. We did get in three good hours, though. Temps were in the high eighties with high humidity, moderated by a nice breeze. Our market manager, Al Magane kept an eye on the skies. There was a tornado watch twenty miles to our west, moving our way. The first two storms missed us, moving to our north and then to our south. Al had the vendors pack it in when lighting was seen to our west. Just as the last of twenty-four canopies and tables with product were packed into vehicles, the skies opened up. I mean it poured buckets! The timing couldn't have been better if it were staged. I checked the time as we were leaving; 6:15, we only missed forty-five minutes of a great afternoon.
Nice article on the front page of The Gardner News Saturday. You cannot read the whole article online unless you set up an online account. Even though we get the paper delivered at home, I can't log on, since I don't
WESTMINSTER — The Westminster Farmers’ Market celebrated its first anniversary on Friday, on a somewhat unusual date. Indeed, many farmers’ markets are well underway by mid-August, the month the Westminster market began in 2008. Sign In To Read Full Story
Westminster Farmers’ Market Report from Maple Heights Farm
This Friday we are celebrating the 1 year anniversary of the opening of the Farmers’ Market with a Birthday Celebration! We are lucky enough to have some Irish Step Dancers performing at 5:00 and Sue Nickerson and her husband Steve will be on fiddle and guitar!Stop by for a piece of Birthday Cake and enjoy the festivities!
We now have 71 votes for Favorite Farmers’ Market on Local Harvest.I think that is pretty impressive so far.We are about 50 votes away from getting onto the top 100 list.Now, if you have been to our farmers’ market, I think you will agree it is top notch and deserves your vote.Just the top 100 is all I’m asking.So please vote at www.localHarvest.org.It takes me between 2 and 4 hours to write this report each week (admittedly not my specialty).It will take you about 2 minutes to vote.Please vote!
Did you see the Sentinel and Enterprise on Sunday!We had a wonderful article written about our market – taking up almost the entire front page
Westminster Farmers’ Market Celebrates One Year in Operation!
The Westminster Farmers’ Market will be holding a Birthday Celebration to celebrate opening one year ago.There will be birthday cake made with fresh local ingredients and entertainers including a troupe of Irish Step Dancers at 5:00 p.m.!Come enjoy the festivities and atmosphere!
Did you know that Saturday, August 22, 2009, marks the first birthday of The Westminster Farmer's Market? And...there are going to be fireworks on The Town Common!
In all honesty though I should tell you that the fireworks are to celebrate The 250th birthday of The Town of Westminster. Even so it gives you a great excuse to check out the location of our farmer's market. Yes, The Town Common is a preferred viewing location for the fireworks Saturday night.
So, come enjoy the fireworks Saturday night. Since you found the common is so easy to get to, come back on Friday afternoon and enjoy our farmer's market.
M.L. Altobelli took these photos at our farmers market on Friday 08-07-09. It was taken just as the vendors finished setting up, hence, not many customers.
I need to learn how to down load more than one jpg file to a blog page. Sorry they are spread over a couple of entries.
M.L. Altobelli took these photos at our farmers market on Friday 08-07-09. It was taken just as the vendors finished setting up, hence, not many customers. [Read More]
Thank you to Emily Devlin of The Sentinel for writing a very nice piece on The Westminster Farmer's Market. This should really help in the promotion of our market. It's grown so much already this year!
Here is a quote from Emily and the link to the article:
"In its second year of operation, the Farmers Market has tripled in size, growing from just five or six vendors during its first season in 2008, to at least 24 each week this year."
Keith Harding of the local cable access TV station, channel 8, was in attendance at the market on Friday. He was there with a camera person doing interviews with venders and consumers for most of the afternoon. He even got footage of an impromptu step dance done by a little girl. This girl danced as Sue Nickerson played fiddle and her husband Steve, accompanied on guitar. Next week the girl's mother will be bringing the whole group of step dancers to perform at 5PM.
Westminster Farmer's Market; "Be there or be square."
Sorry to bother you twice in one week, but I thought you should see this. Westminster Farmers' Market has some of the best this country has to offer! Read about our vendor Westfield Farm's award winning cheese!
CONGRATULATIONS WESTFIELD FARM!
Massachusetts Cheesemakers Bring Home the 2009 American Cheese Society Awards
The American Cheese Society announced the 2009 American Cheese Society Awards on August 7th in Austin, Texas. Massachusetts farmstead cheese makers Carlisle Farmstead Cheese, Carlisle; Shy Brothers Farm LLC, Westport and Westfield Farm Capri, Westfield fared well in the competition in many categories:
Soft Ripened Cheeses made from Goat’s Milk - 2nd Place, Carlisle Farmstead Cheese, Ada’s Honor
External Blue Molded Cheeses All Milks - 1st Place, Westfield Farm, Classic Blue Log, 2nd Place, Westfield Farm, Bluebonnet, 3rd Place, Westfield Farm, Hubbardston Blue Cow
Farmstead Cheeses Goat’s Milk aged 60 days or more- 3rd Place, Carlisle Farmstead Cheese, Greta’s Fair Haven
Fresh Goat’s Milk Cheeses, flavored with peppers- 1st Place, Westfield Farm, Herb Garlic Capri
The American Cheese Society “applauds all the cheesemakers who work daily to bring the traditions of American made cheese to life, to market and to the largest ACS Cheese Competition to date. “ The American Cheese Society’s goal is to give positive recognition to those cheese that are of the highest quality in their aesthetic evaluation for flavor, aroma and texture, as well as their technical evaluation.
Westminster Farmers’ Market Report from Maple Heights Farm
This Friday at the farmers’ market we are having a cooking demonstration performed by Sheila Lumi of WIC.She will be demonstrating nutritious recipes using ingredients that she finds in the market.So stop by for some free samples and recipes.
Have you seen the back page of the Community Journal?This is the voting page for “Best of North Central Massachusetts” and guess what???They left off “Favorite Farmers’ Market”!!!I am sure this is just an oversight on their part, and even though my kids are begging to go blueberry picking this morning, I am going to put them off while I contact the organizers of this event in order to have “Farmers’ Market” listed in the vote!In the meantime, I propose a write-in vote.Of course you can vote for whichever farmers’ market you choose, but you know that Westminster is running one of the best farmers’ markets in this area!So vote!And write in as item 80) Best Farmers’ Market Westminster Farmers’ Marketor the farmers’ market of your choice.Since this may not work as a category, the Westminster Farmers’ Market gets my vote for “78) Place for family entertainment”.In addition, Meghan’s “Meetinghouse Café” will get my vote for “36) Coffee Shop/Diner)”, Honeybee Baking Company will get my vote for “44) Desserts”, M.L. Altobelli “17) Garden Store/Nursery” and from there, I’ll have to get creative… and you can bet I will do just that!
We had an excellent turnout last week, the weather was beautiful and tents dotted the common making the whole scene look so festive.Add to that the line of cars surrounding the common and the absolutely adorable baby goat brought by Pat Stewart and we really have a successful event!I think for the most part we are going to continue to see an increase in vendors as each week goes by.That is thanks to you for attending this market and making it such a success.Vendors are coming in to “try it out” and they keep coming back!Last week was also the third “delivery day” for Massachusetts Local Food.We have two more delivery days that will coincide with the farmers’ market and then we have to find an indoor location.You probably haven’t thought too much about fresh food for the winter (except maybe putting a few fresh veges into the freezer for Thanksgiving – which I hope you find time to do) but you may want to consider this.Where will you get fresh food when our farmers’ market closes?And of course, I have the answer for you.Consider looking at Mass Local Food to meet your needs this fall and winter.This cooperative carries only locally produced items and will be available for online ordering with a monthly delivery to Westminster at the beginning of each month.This is an all-volunteer run cooperative that will bring you meat, cheese, preserves, coffee, tea, breads, desserts, and more!At this time, many of the vendors that you deal with at the market are already listed and selling on the website.We hope to add more vendors and round out the products as the markets are closing in October.And some great news has come to me:We have been mentioned in the Boston Globe!!!Read the article here!
Next week, expect a few more new items in the market.We have a booth filled with birdhouses and bathouses (stop by and check out the sports themed painted birdhouses – they are beautiful!)And Bob Richard will be back with his beautiful handcrafted cutting boards.All these items are worthy as a beautiful and thoughtful Christmas present for someone special.If Andy doesn’t take the hint, he is going to be getting a beautiful cutting board for Christmas!
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