Market Mayhem

Wednesdays are important on the island.   Wednesday is market day,  Marco's version of an old fashioned farmer's market.  Every Wednesday morning vendors roll into town at the crack of dawn, raise their tents, set up their tables and arrange their wares all while I lounge in my pajamas and sip my morning coffee.  By the time I finish my java, walk the dog, eat breakfast, make the bed and take a shower their day is half over while mine has just begun.  It's a retirement thing and also one of the reason I'm not a farmer.



Market day is one of the best things about winter in south Florida.  Produce booths are stuffed full of tomatoes, squash, lettuce, bell peppers, red peppers, corn on the cob and the sweetest onions this side of heaven.  There are oranges, grapefruit, mangoes and strawberries, stands with artisan breads and cheeses, and bouquets of fresh flowers for $5 a bunch.  Last week I went in a driving rainstorm because I just had to have more of the feta olive mix an aging hippy serves up each week.



The market is always a hotbed of activity but this week it was crazy busy.  There were so many people crammed into one small parcel of land that I was afraid the bottom might fall out of the island and everyone would disappear into the Gulf of Mexico.  By the time The Kid and I arrived, after the coffee, the dog walk, the breakfast, the bed making and the shower, parking spaces were at a premium; and people crowded around produce booths pushing and shoving their way ever closer to the coveted grapefruit.  It was market mayhem.



Me, I strolled the grounds and took a few photos before being forced to make a mad dash for the car.



Apparently those two elderly women I "accidentally" knocked over getting to the last tomato wanted revenge.