Alas, Hillstead Market....we shall miss you

So, yesterday, I got an email from Hillstead Museum saying that there would not be a market this year.   Apparently they had received help from the state in the past, which is not currently available for them this year.   I find this a tremendous pity, and a real loss for the town of Farmington.   But not only a loss for the town, but also for those farmers who depend on the market.   We need to support small farmers, this year more than ever.  With drought in California, with food being trucked in, shipped in.  With chicken now being processed in China, and the small farms losing a foothold, we need to support those small farms.  We need to support the locally raised chicken, the heirloom beets and radishes and kale.   At the last market, last year, there was a new farmer.  Who had some really neat heirloom produce.  I was looking forward to buying more from them.  But I don't remember their name, their farm name, anything.  

I enjoyed the variety, the new vendors...  I gave up my CSA share for the summer because I had wanted to really support the market this year.  (Only so many veggies a single gal can eat!)  I got quinces last year at the market!  QUINCES!  Yes, I can go to Costco, get the mega-bags of kale, or Whole Foods, and the kale from California.   But Whole Foods has a very different idea of "local".  I got my maple syrup, my honey, from the market.   

And now I feel bereft.   I am a woman of simple pleasures, and one of those is fresh, local foods.  Meeting the people who grew my food, knowing that it is simple, fresh, natural.  

I don't want to live in a world where the only food I can get is either industrial or self-grown (I am NOT a gardener!).   I love that I eat the majority of my food from local farmers.   And this has just made that that much more difficult to accomplish.  I loved that there was only one day a week when there wasn't some sort of market.  (Wed, FYI).   But the Hillstead market was what a market should be.  

I realise that there was a lot of wear and tear on the grounds, and of course it was expensive.   Maybe the town could have helped out a bit.  Parking elsewhere and a shuttlebus, or the off-duty police volunteering a couple of hours to direct traffic?  I just feel that there has to be a solution other than not having a market.  There was an article in Patch, maybe a year ago, where the market obviously played into our town's food safety/food security rankings.  Without it, we would have been a lot lower on the list.  

If we aren't going to have a Hillstead market, then where are we going to have one?