At least once a year, I meander over to the Lincoln Park Farmer’s Market to check out their wares. All the local farmers converge every Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., bringing with them a wealth of freshly picked fruits and veggies, homemade jellies and jams, as well as baked goods galore. Additionally, there are the local artisans who set up tables to sell their crafts.

The marketplace was not as large or crowded as in the past, probably due to the holiday weekend. I wanted to stop by and check it out, and maybe I’ll return, camera in hand, once all those groovy-looking gourds and great pumpkins land there later in the month.

I arrived shortly after they opened, a little tuckered out from my second of two Sunday strolls.

Earlier, I trekked over to the border of Lincoln Park and Wyandotte and paused on the bridge to watch some Canada Geese lazily gliding single file down the center of the Creek. The group was too far away to get a close-up shot, and it was way too sunny to just point and shoot and hope for the best. It didn’t matter because they paid no attention to me and soon they disappeared around the bend of the winding creek. I headed for home soon thereafter, sorry that I had left the house so late because by then it seemed to be getting hotter by the minute.

I went home and enjoyed the cool air and my tall glass of strawberry milk that revitalized me and I was soon ready to go again.

But … it was hot, hot, hot there in the parking lot, even though the majority of the vendors had umbrellas or canopies to protect them and their goodies from the searing sun, and, what shady areas there were to duck from the sun, did not allow for many good photo ops of the colorful bountiful harvest toted in by the trucks and trailers.

I would frequent the market more often, especially at the tail end of the Summer, when the produce is at its finest, except the vendors don’t like you picking up the produce to squeeze or thump it … that’s a no-no. Sometimes I feel like I might get my hand swatted or be chastised for such improprieties, just like the commercial of the bespectacled shopkeeper, Mr. Whipple, who admonishes the customers to “please don’t squeeze the Charmin.

I did eye a box of green beans, just like the ones pictured above. But not for any particular reason, except they reminded me of my mom who would clamor for some every time we went to an open air farm market or a drive in the county around this time of year. Not only did she love a large beefsteak tomato sliced onto a crispy piece of toast, or she would make a meal of new potatoes that were boiled up then drizzled with butter pats, but she liked to make stew with lots of green beans. Now, stew was not my personal favorite as dishes go. My mom would send me for green snap beans to put in the stew. She’d warn me not to return with mangled-looking or raggedy-looking beans that would spoil the stew. I’d counter that “I’m not going to inspect each bean I drop in the bag”, a statement that usually garnered a grimace or two on her part.

I took a complete tour of the market, and I passed on the beans, and any other produce, though I’d tucked some money and a few plastic bags in my pack before I left the house.

“Cool as a cuke” would not be the description for me for either of the two walks I took on this hot and steamy day. Though I added four miles to my total, I’ve never “bean” happier to get home and take it easy.