big time at the round barn

our own farm market, just a bit down the road, is in a real live round barn. this is not the only reason we go there. the sweetie can be convinced to mosey on down there almost any saturday as long as someone mentions the word cheese. this is where we buy our summer cheese, or really, most of our cheese from midmay to midoctober. there are cheeses with beer and hops and jalapenos and some with raspberries and blueberries. so we are stopping by on the way back from looking at rain barrels, which i have been howling after for a very long time and which the sweetie decided were perfectly fine as soon as he saw one sitting at the corner of our maryland folks’ house.

so we stop and the birds of prey are there right at the entrance but i am looking for peas. you know, the kind where you just snap the end of the pod and unzip it. there are plenty of things you can do with peas like this but really, mostly you should just shove them, podful after podful, into your mouth. if you have folks around you, you can share at your own discretion. i spy the peas on the outskirts over across from the birds of prey but we head on into the barn first. this is how you do it. you graze the barn, then wander on out to see what else might be waiting for you.

we get our cheese and stroll over to the potato chocolates. now, i’m not going to argue with you about something you don’t know anything about so you’ll just have to trust me. these folks make plenty of chocolates but the best, by far, is something like a peppermint patty, only sassier in the mint department, and made with potatoes. that’s right. the white minty insides are potato based. so while i am forking over my dollars for the potato mint chocolates one of the women behind the counter asks the sweetie if he likes bacon. i tend to think this is a foolish question, but she waits for him to nod and say yes. she offers him a white chocolate bacon bark with some sort of hot spicy stuff sprinkled throughout. i know the sweetie and i know he hates the white chocolate. certainly this is a foolish way to live but it is one of his few flaws so i have chosen to overlook it for now. but he tosses back a piece of this concoction that should have a warning: may cause heart failure, stroke, blindness or hysteria. and suddenly the man who has waged his own personal campaign to eradicate white chocolate and to end the suffering it causes is pulling dollars out of his pocket and nudging me to pick up a container of this stuff.

the goat and sheep guy is around past the chocolates and he has a giant cooler full of tasty packets of both animals. i am looking at the yarn. kid mohair. it is expensive but plenty worth what he’s asking. i will come back, will save it for a reward. but the sweetie is bent on getting something from the goat and sheep guy (who has a lovely accent that sounds a little bit belgian) and the next thing i know he’s handing me a neatly wrapped package of goat for the grill with the promise he will have goat milk in spring. i am thinking about the goats i know and worry they might think me a traitor. do not tell them.

we head back over to get peas on the outskirts. the sweetie runs off and when i have paid for the little basket heaped with peas i wander around , trying not to look over at the soap lady because the sweetie and i are both suckers for this soap and sometimes accidentally end up going home with enough soap for a year, in flavors like tomato and coconut lime that will make you sniff the air around you all day in surprise at your own prettiness. he is in line over by a tent with a pig on it, a plate of two fat ribs in his hand, waiting for a plate with a pulled pork sandwich and fries. there is an african musician in the tent next to the ribs playing some sort of piano like instrument made of a bowl or maybe a gourd and nails. we sit on a picnic table at the top of the hill and listen to the music and eat. the storm that pulled the nearby rivers back up to respectable levels last night seems to have brought reinforcements but mostly the purplish clouds just hover, making the mountains hunched under them look even more dramatic.

because eating ribs isn’t something you do without a drink i go for tea. i am halfway down the hill when a little boy, maybe three, leaps out in front of me like the troll under the bridge. i think he is moving to get out of my way but as i dodge him he is right there between me and home made iced tea again and again. he looks up, arms outstretched and says, “please stop. please!” and i stop and look down. “why?” i ask him. it seems like a good question. “because i said, ‘please stop.’” hmmmm. i ask how long i will have to stop, thinking of all the nearby roads washed halfway out that are now single lane with those stoplights at either end of the damaged section. sometimes waiting is necessary. another child, similar enough in size and shape to be maybe a twin, comes barreling along and leaps on my leg, clutches it the way i’ve seen children do when parents are leaving them at daycare. “five minutes!” says the first child who then flings himself on me as well. the woman who is with them turns to see her two children wrapped around my legs and apologizes profusely. but five minutes seems like a reasonable time, especially since i know how long five minutes takes for small children. they take turns letting go, then clinging again to my legs. i ask if the five minutes is up and they say yes and release me. the empanada place at the bottom of the hill is out of iced tea but i get water and it is plenty cool and goes just fine with the fat ribs and the few pods of peas i’ve shelled out onto my plate.