Local Love!

Happy Sunday, little local market of love customers!!

Today, in our continued series of Local Love via our vendors, I am excited to bring you, Joe and Charlene of Swisher Hill Herbs!! You know Charlene as one of your assistant managers of this market, she has been a driving force in this local movement when it was really, simple…just local. Before we had to make it an actual movement, just to get it all back on track.

Here you go…Local Love…

The Question put forth to all vendors of the Champaign Virtual Market is
Why are you part of this Local food movement? Speaking for one half of this Swisher Hill Herbs
partnership it is easy to answer, but hard to write about. Perhaps you have heard the term “You
can take the girl off of the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the girl.” I truly believe that
being raised on a farm and the life skills and work ethic instilled in me by my parents and family
have grounded me throughout my entire life. When you live with fresh from the garden to the
table, gathering the eggs, helping your father in the milking parlor and having to help scrub
down the milk house, help with planting the garden. Dad assigned you a row in the unplanted
prepared garden, hand you a cupful of bean seeds, gave you planting instruction and informed
your butt was a lot closer to the ground for perfect placement of the seeds.( message received”
Don’t mess this up !”) Life wasn’t always easy and at times there would be grumbling in the
ranks about chores. My father and mother’s simple statement is always with me. “Grow where
you are planted.” It seemed everything was a community effort. Neighbors helping neighbors,
word of mouth through the church, and other community leaders we were informed of families in
need. We learned to share with others what we had in excess.
My husband Joe and I during our first 20 years of marriage moved from one side of the United
State to the other and back. We spent 4 years in Germany and traveled throughout Europe with
our little family of 5. We lived in the small village of Igstadt for 2 years. We were the only
American family in that village. The local residents embraced us. The village had a flower shop,
bakery, grocery, meat market, and a drug store. I shopped 3 times a week in the little village and
enjoyed the benefits of supporting the local economy, learning a new language and meeting my
neighbors. Every move we made, everywhere we lived we planted a small garden, whether it
was on the second floor balcony of an apartment or a small section of yard by our house and we
would seek out Farm market stands and other sources of fresh local baked goods, fruits,
vegetables, eggs, and meat products.
Supporting your local Farmers Market’s help…
Enhance local economy: By purchasing produce and other items from local growers you are
providing stability to your local economy through the support of local businesses.
Save natural resources: Buying locally makes you an invaluable link in the process of saving
resources such as fossil fuels and packaging materials. We are right here in your community so
the expense of transportation and delivery is kept to a minimum.
Provide learning opportunities: Locally Grown supporters provide member growers the
means to help educate our community about the importance of sustainable agriculture.
Supporting a way of life: When you their food come from as well as helping to preserve the
Family Farm an honest and worthy means of making a living.
Take Thyme,
Joe and Charlene Stapleton

Take It Easy

Take it easy, take it easy…
Don’t let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy…
Come on baby, don’t say maybe…
I gotta know if your sweet love is gonna save me…
(Take It Easy-The Eagles-Glen Frey vocals)

So, little local market of love customers…another market is in the books, and it was one of those markets where your managers all got to spend time, together, laughing, planning, and setting the market up. We have quite a few events, sponsorships, outings that we will be keeping you up to date just so you can come out and support us.

This market is always like that…peaceful, easy, groovy, and fun. As each vendor dropped off, we got to spend time, chatting, and touching base with all of them.

Our market depends on the ease of the flow, the vibe between managers, vendors, customers, and the YMCA. I love the market nights when I have the chance to chat with each and every one of you! I love this market, and I love being such a hands on manager. You all make this market what it is, you make the market successful, and you help us take the whole local rock star scene to new and exciting levels.

Thank you, to all of you, for your continued dedication to making this market such a strong force in this community.

It’s been a very weird week, we lost another great one in Glen Frey of The Eagles. The YMCA/Art Affair On The Square/and myself, personally, lost Betsy Bohl, and my emotions have been in overdrive. It was so nice to be able to open the market, tonight, with so many smiling faces, loving feelings, and familiar surroundings…

We all need that peaceful easy feeling just so we can all take it easy…

Go, show some love, be kind, and always show your lovelight to anyone who may need it.

I am now opening the market for the week. Take It Easy…and let us help you…

Peace, Love, Good Vibes…
Cosmic Pam

Hey, Now!!

Just checking in, and letting you all know that it is Tuesday evening, the market closes at 10pm, and I KNOW you don’t want to miss out on any of the goodness that comes with this little local market of love!

Go ahead…it’s too cold to be outside, so make us your shopping experience of the week!!

Give us some love…

Peace, Love, Good Vibes…
Cosmic Pam

Changes

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…
Turn and face the strange…
Ch-ch-changes…
(Changes- David Bowie…insert extreme sad face)

So, first off, don’t let the title of today’s Weblog throw you off your game. The market is not changing, so no worries…and, it’s open, and it’s Sunday, the perfect day to order!! You all have helped us keep this market up there in astounding numbers and sales…we can’t tell you how much we love you in this market family!!

I guess the changes mood I am in encompass my deep sadness of losing David Bowie, this past week, and the changes that I am experiencing, and loving in the Cosmic Charlie world.

I couldn’t let myself really absorb the passing of one of the most talented musicians of our time, until I was with friends on Friday night. We were sitting around their familiar dining table, strewn with snacks, cheeses, salads, olives, wine…I grew up with one of my pals, and I have known my other pal for years and years. We have these impromptu cocktail nights, often, and on Friday, we finally let ourselves listen to all Bowie tunes, and talked about the sadness, about the changes that we have witnessed, over the years, in all of us. How change is good, how change can be bad, or how it can be sad. Change…it’s necessary but always bittersweet. With most changes, a new wind gets ushered in, showing you the light that you may not have seen, otherwise.

Driving home, I thought about our talk, about how change can be scary but also exciting, especially in business decisions. The leap into the new, the leap into the unknown. We all take the chance, and we make a go of it.

That’s how this little market of love came to be. A jump into the unknown, so many years ago. A change to the norm. A mere vision. Good faith, blind faith, and a commitment.

And, look at us, now. How far we have come, how much of a driving force we are in this local struggle to bring nothing but grower/farmer/artisan produced products to you. We have the powerhouse of local, right here, in this little market.

Change is good, change is hard, and sometimes change will drive you mad…but when something becomes a huge success with the change, then you know it was all worth it! Every minute of angst that goes with the change.

And, so, I leave you to order, to think about changes you could be making in your nutrition, your weekly food bill, your loyalty to local. We can take care of all of it for you…

Peace, Love, Good Vibes…
Cosmic Pam

Piece Of My Heart

Have a, have another little piece of my heart now, baby…
You know you got it, if it makes you feel good…
(Piece Of My Heart-Janis Joplin)

Well, we just put another amazing market in the books!! Thank you, so much, for making this little local market of love, your shopping choice!!

Each of us brings a special little piece of ourselves, to this market. The vendors bring their products, the customers bring their love, their story as to why they choose to shop our market, and the YMCA, to oversee us, and to make sure we all are able to run this market, efficiently.

If you love us, we thank you! If you haven’t tried us, yet, go ahead…place that first order. It’s easy, it will open up a whole new door for you, and, you will feel proud that you are supporting your local growers, farmers, and artisans. You get our hard work, our farm to market goodness, and you get our word that this little market will always stand strong on what we do.

It’s Thursday evening, I am now opening the market for another week of ordering, and we urge all of you to give us a piece of your heart…the market will make you feel good…

Peace, Love, Good Vibes…
Cosmic Pam

Hazy Shade Of Winter

I look around…
Leaves are brown, now…
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter…
(Hazy Shade Of Winter-Simon and Garfunkel)

Yes, my lovely local market of love customers…we are now smack in the middle of wild winter weather!!

Just last week, I was skipping around, a sweater over one of my hippie sundresses, so excited that we might be skipping winter weather while I was skipping around in my outfit.

Not so much. It’s here, it’s loud, and it’s cold! And, snowy! But, don’t let that be a negative to getting your orders in, think of all the positive spins to this!

You still have until 10pm, tonight, to leisurely place your order. You get to stay cozy, and warm, and stress free while you do that! You can do it while you are keeping warm with coffee, tea, or a glass of wine, or bubbly, or whatever you feel like! Right now, your market manager is enjoying a glass of Cabernet while dinner is in the oven. I have placed my market orders, I know that I won’t have to fight the crowds, the snow, the wind, or the cold, to schelp around a large store, just trying to shop, quickly, so that I can be home.

When we shop quickly, and stressed out, and without poor planning, we buy all the wrong things, we spend WAY too much money, and chances are, you want to be done SO quickly, that you hit up the bad food choices. The foods that will be the quickest, fill the void, cheapest…OR SO YOU THINK.

Not so much. Here, at our little local market of love, we want you to shop in the comfort of your home, office, apartment, car (while not driving)…we want you to select our amazing products. We want to help you get breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the table. We want to save you money. AND, we want it to be all healthy, all local, and all packed up with love when you come to grab those orders!

Where else will you be able to find this kind of tender love and care? Only with us…

So, bask in this hazy shade of winter…it’s only temporary, but we are forever, and we want to take the haze out of these cold days!

Order, now, make your life a hazy shade of happiness!

You have until 10pm…AND, we are once again poised to have an outstanding market!! What are you waiting for??

Peace, Love, Good Vibes…
Cosmic Pam

Local Love!

The Local Lovefest continues in our series of featuring our market vendors, and their views on what being a local producer means to them…

Today, I am excited to introduce the duo of Mad Sweet Heat!! They are more new vendors with an amazing product!

If you haven’t already tried Mad Sweet Heat, or purchased, make sure to change that…

Here they are…bringing even more to our local fabric…Thanks for joining the market, Mark and Debbie!

We’ve all been asked to assess our thoughts on what being LOCAL means to us and those we aim to serve. Also, what does it mean to be part of a local movement, what makes us passionate, and how do we value Real Food vs. Processed Food? Let us start by telling you a bit about MAD SWEET HEAT.
MAD SWEET HEAT is a small local family business, who had their first retail sale in June, 2015. This was of course; proceeded by 11 months of learning the correct process of how one would take their prized recipe to the next level.
MAD SWEET HEAT is very passionate about making and eating sliced candied jalapenos! Being a local producer gives hope that we can make more of an impact on our own local economy which in turns helps everyone along the local supply chain. When one completes the steps necessary in creating a quality product from end to end, then you can’t help but have passion for the product(s) you create.
We all eat processed food at some point or another so knowing how your processed food is made and what ingredients go into the making of that product should concern us all. You can still get a great quality product that is all natural and contains no preservatives in a “processed food” such as MAD SWEET HEAT.

Your Song

I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss…

Well a few of the verses well they’ve got me quite cross…
But the sun’s been quite kind…
While I wrote this song…
It’s for people like you that
Keep it turned on…
(Your Song- Elton John)

It’s one of those January Sunday mornings that greets us with wind, snow, cold. While many people find this scene quite comforting, all curled up with coffee or tea, watching the snow, reading, doing whatever they do during these kind of days, I am all restless, crazy, and immediately in need of warm sunshine, warm breezes, and outside activity with markets, festivals, events.

This is the month when people don’t want to be out, in town, either. They don’t want to venture out to the shops, or to walk the lovely sidewalks to shop in the lovely shops. The Cosmic Breads and Threads Shop, included.

So, on these winter days, I spend time planning, organizing, baking, dreaming, and scheming all new things for the upcoming season.

But, I also am able to just concentrate on this little local market of love. The goodness of it, the map of where we are going, the pride in the market, the vendors, the customers, the YMCA, and the community that supports us. It’s like this is our song, and our gift to the community. The gift of keeping it all real, all local, and bringing you the best of the best, each and every week!

Friday evening, I was able to break away, for wine and dinner, with a good friend, at a local place. It was a night of heartfelt chats, good wine, and just much needed girl chat time. This song was in the background, at one point, and for some reason, I have been singing it over and over. I kept wondering why it’s been stuck in my head.

At first, I thought it was because I’ve always found it so beautiful. Then, I thought it was because it was one of my very first pieces of vinyl that I ever owned, and still have in my possession. Then, it hit me…Your Song…it speaks to all of us, about different things, in each of our lives.

As I said, this market is our local song. Our song that we sing, weekly, and with much pride. We all bring our own song to this market. The products, the vendors, the customers, the Y…we all bring a variety of verses to make up the entire song.

And, we thank you, each and every day, for helping us to keep it turned on…

It’s a perfect day to sit and make your list, and get your orders in for this week’s market. Such an easy way to do your shopping, keep it real, keep it affordable, keep it local, and to create your own blend of orders to sing your own song…

And, you can tell everybody, this is your song…

Peace, Love, Good Vibes…
Cosmic Pam

Local Love!

The first in our series of writings from market vendors!! We are a large part of your local fabric in Champaign County. We are passionate about what we do, how we live, our food philosophies, our dedication to the local struggle, the local food movement.

This morning, we welcome Brandi, of Women That Farm! They first applied to our market, back in August, and Charlene, Mark, and I were finally able to catch up with them, in November, at The Clark County Food Summit. They are a perfect example, as are all of our vendors, of the local producer struggle…and joy! Right now, they have select cuts of meat on the market, and will be expanding to offer assorted cuts of chicken, goat, and lamb, in the spring!!

Here we go…as we begin our ride through the exploration of what it means to be a local producer…

What it means to be a local producer: I am proud to be a local producer because I have gained the knowledge about cattle/livestock starting as a young kid growing up on a dairy farm. You learn from a very young age what it takes to make a farm operate, the financial side was learned after college, and boy oh boy there should be an award for the cash flow game for young producers You learn that vacations only come every once in a great while because you have clocked into a 24 hour/365 days a year job, you just never knew it!! And you will never truly clock out! The love, time and money you put into your stock only a farmer will ever understand, no matter how you try and put it into simple terms. No matter what people say our animals receive the best care around, our calves normally get better treatment than we provide for ourselves! But as local producers we all need to realize the need for EDUCATION. We have people, even in our rural communities, who do not understand what we do and how we do it. Lets not even get into what it takes (time and money investment) for us to do what we do. As a local producer we not only give our livestock the best of everything, but that also includes a humane end of life, lets face it this is where a lot of scrutiny comes into play. But not all animals will make it, no one has a zero death loss, but I guarantee we give them even the best at the end of life. Local doesn’t always mean more expensive, local means come and see where your product is produced :-)

What it means to be part of a local movement- To be part of a local movement is important because if we don’t let consumers know we are here they will continue to purchase from a chain and never know there is another option and normally a higher quality option closer to home. Not only another option but an option where we can explain what or what does NOT go into the finished product! There again to be part of a local movement=education!!!!!

What makes me passionate about our part in the local game- The number one reason I am passionate about our part in the local game is the simple fact that I have two young girls, and three young nieces. I never want them to grow up not learning what I grew up learning. Hard work never killed anyone, early mornings didn’t either, birthday’s and Christmas will be in the house after chores and what you learn now you will carry with you forever. Going off to college in Toledo and rooming with girls who didn’t know what corn and beans looked like in the field, to not really knowing where milk came from made me realize I grew up pretty privileged even though I didn’t have the newest car, best clothes, a pocket full of cash and someone paying for my college.

Having a part in the local food movement is important because we are not only proud of our end product, but how we get there and how we are raising our families!!!

Brandi Anderson- Women That Farm Quality Meats

“Opportunity is missed by most people

because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

I Guess, You Say, What Can Make Me Feel That Way?

I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day…
And when it’s cold outside…
Well I’ve got the month of May..
(My Girl- The Temptations)

So, here we are again, ready to reopen this little local market of love, tonight!!

We are twirlin’ right into January, but as I left the market, tonight, after closing it, I was pleasantly surprised at how light it was, outside, AND, how warm and sunny it was!!

If I had my way, we would just glide right on, from here, to the warming up months! But, I will take what we have, right now, and be happy that it was still light at 6pm, with a ray of sun still peeking through, and a tiny bit of warmth.

It’s like how I feel about this market. It’s like walking into a ray of sunshine when I hit the market, each Thursday, to get ready to greet the vendors, and then the customers. You each add your own ray of sunshine to my day. To the market. To this local fabric that we are weaving.

One of the things that I have asked each vendor to do, is to write about what local means to them. How it feels to be one of the Rock Stars Of Local? What are they doing in this local scheme of goodness?

I will begin posting their thoughts, their passion, their hard work, their triumphs, and their heartbreaks. It’s not easy being a local producer. It’s back breaking, hard work, total dedication, open as much to failure as you are to success! We are all out there, in the trenches, fighting the good fight that we call…Local Love.

Tomorrow, I will bring to you, the thoughts from Women That Farm! Brandi sent me a very heartfelt write up, that I can hardly wait to share!

But for now, I open the market for all of you. As a customer, please think about why you shop us? Why does local matter to you? When did you decide to pledge your love? We want to hear it, and we want to see it…let us know that you love our little local market of love by placing your orders!

Local Love…our market makes loving local so much fun…

Peace, Love, Good Vibes…
Cosmic Pam