“Solstice idling and buying among farmers“
June 15, 2018
The Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust’s Farmers’ Market at Crystal Spring Farm is an iconic market that we are proud to visit each Saturday. Our Farmers’ Market was recently featured in the Times Record, recognizing this beautiful place and strong community that provides great, healthy food and lots of smiling faces!
Some, though, will linger, exchanging news with neighbors and comparing finds. It is a market truism that you can find whatever you want out at Crystal Spring, but that’s no accident. Koopman, who composes the market from the healthy interest shown by local farmers, intends just that. “We strive for a balance of offerings and now that we have the basics (meat, fish, cheeses, produce etc.), I seek producers of less familiar items such as miso, real almond milk or chaga tea,” she wrote me a few days after my June 9th visit. She also cites, “an opportunity to educate the public about healthy local food, and I take that seriously.”
As I wander back and forth watching and buying, I feel a dynamism in this marketplace, which rises in its clustered tents early each Saturday, and then by mid-afternoon is a whistle clean space that promises return in a week. Yes, it deals in and with the basic fuel of life, but the voices, gestures and laughter point to sustenance equally vital. As Koopman pointed out, “We prefer local smallscale vendors for whom the farmers’ market is their primary retail venue.” That preference emphasizes community and local enterprise, in short where and how we live best.
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