As I drove down to the Wednesday morning Farmer's Market at the St. Augustine Beach Pier, windows down, blaring 88.5, the Flagler College independent radio station, decked in my over-sized cropped t-shirt and moccasins, toting my wicker purse, I realized that sometimes I'm just too much of a hippie for even me to handle. Not necessarily a hippie in the general terms, but definitely a townie in the terms of that guy who you see riding his fixed gear bike downtown with his dread-locks and bandanna. This is a townie, he is a staple of St. Augustine. Sometimes I enjoy joining their ranks.
The Farmer's Market is a favorite stop of mine, even when I'm not channeling my internal tree-hugger. Every Wednesday morning, local artists, musicians, and entrepreneurs fill the St. Augustine Beach Pier. These mornings are busy and lively, you're lucky if you find parking in the pier parking lot. There're loads of locals which flood in every Wednesday morning for fresh breads, hand made jewelry, and hand squeezed lemonade. Every Saturday morning, these same vendors can be found at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre. Even more vendors come out to this market but, inexplicably, parking is even more difficult to come by, so if you're headed to the Saturday market, get there early.
It's really worth heading over, though, to the Wednesday or Saturday market. The music floods the lot, people are talking and wandering every which way and putting money back into the local economy instead of at yet more commercial dealers. Today I met a very nice woman named Patty who was there with her husband selling hand made pottery. Her husband was sitting at a potter's wheel, forming piece after piece with his bare hands and slack-jawed kids looked on in amazement. It was truly awesome. I even chilled out for a little while just to watch. He made a slab of rough clay into a vase in less than five minutes. Too cool.
They also do pottery classes, a five week session with two classes a week. I'm going to be looking into it more and hopefully putting a link to their website up here. What could be cooler than to get to work with your hands and actually producing something beautiful? Or at least finished...beauty is in the eye of the beholder...and can only be accomplished by those with hand-eye coordination, of which I have little.
That's all for this post. Just a good tip on a free, fun way to spend a morning. There will be more of those to come, for sure.
Until next time! <3
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