Mother's Day Farmer's Market

This morning I went over to St Paul to go to the Farmer’s Market to satisfy a definitive hankering for fresh, locally grown strawberries. I’m not sure where that particular desire came from, but for some reason, the California grown strawberries I saw in our local supermarket just wouldn't satisfy, even though they smelled fabulous.



Tim told me that it was too early here for strawberries, but I couldn’t be dissuaded. After all, what’s a Farmer’s Market without strawberries? Well, I found out this morning, because the market was filled predominately with flats of flowers and herbs, and not fresh produce. Ah well. Tim’s right again.



But I did have my camera in hand, and it turned out to be a spectacular (though slightly chilly and windy) morning, so I continued on my photo expedition, despite my strawberry purchasing failure. We came to this part of town a couple weeks ago for an Arts Crawl, so I wasn’t particularly on new territory. But aside from these two trips, I’ve only been to St Paul one other time, so I don’t really know how this area fits in with the rest of the city. At any rate, there are beautiful old brick buildings throughout the area. When we went before, we saw the insides of the buildings, which have incredibly beautiful old-growth timber structures -- huge beams that are a foot or two deep. Those kinds of buildings just don’t get built anymore.

It looks like the area is just on the cusp of becoming a hip new part of town. There are a lot of developments turning old buildings into new lofts, some restaurants (one particular udon place that was out of this world -- Tanpopo), some night clubs, and of course the Farmer’s Market. I’ll be curious to see if the area takes off or not, but I’ve heard that the mayor is doing all the right things (whatever that means), so people are expecting good things to happen.



In the meantime, I’ve heard that the area always has the feeling of a desolate ghost town. All the time. I definitely felt that today. Even a half block away from the Farmer’s Market, the streets were deserted, with maybe one or two people walking about. It’s strange to see city streets that quiet. I wonder how it feels during the week?

Happy Mother's Day everyone! Here's the full set of photos. Have a good week!