Keady Market

Yesterday we headed out to the locally famous Keady Market, where you can buy just about anything under the sun.  Keady Market started out as a livestock market, which it still is, but now vendors can rent space for stalls selling everything from fruits and veggies (which is what we were after) to sunglasses, hats and sheets.

It still is a livestock market, and the auctioneers sell everything from rabbits to cattle, outside for the small animals and poultry (this is the auctioneer) and inside for the large animals.  This is the place to come, whether you're a farmer who has cattle to sell, you want to buy a few rabbits for your backyard or your teenager wants to buy a calf to raise and show at the fall fair.

It was the crowds that worried us.  Driving a wheelchair through crowds is never comfortable, and main street at the market is crowded!  We were both a little anxious about how it would go.

We were here for the fruits and veggies (and a little baking).  So we worked our way down main street and managed to get what Mrs. F.G. needed to make her antipaste, one of our delicious treats.  And we only succumbed to a little baking, a cherry strudel and some delicious Calebrese bread.

There were lots of fresh veggies, but we found the prices absurdly high this year.  This is not the place to come for cheap produce, nor is it necessarily local, though most is.

   

It isn't just fruits and veggies, as I said.  There are several aisles of stalls selling crafts, clothing, sunglasses, hats, and just about anything else.  We deliberately did not drive down any other aisles, sticking to the fruits and veggies.

We passed a couple of busking musicians.  I normally don't take pictures of people, but if they are there to perform in this setting, I make an exception.

Much of the fruit here, especially the peaches, will have come from the famous Niagara area, but if that's the closest place you can successfully grown peaches, then I consider it local.

There were quite a few flowers and plants, though we didn't buy any.

And at the end we drove back through the small village of Kilsyth where my grandparents ran this general store in the 30's and 40's.  Mrs. F.G. and I lived in the family home one summer after my last relative living in the village died.  Great memories!

Going to Keady Market was an interesting challenge for both of us.  I think we were both anxious about finding a place to park and unload me, about riding down the busy main street and about how other visitors would behave towards me.  It was a fine balance between waiting for people to get out of the way and just barging ahead!

The anxiety could easily have been enough to keep us at home, but we went and we conquered it successfully.  I just figured I had as much right to be there as anyone else, and I tried to drive slowly and safely.  I didn't use my shrill horn even once.  I'm finding that there's a huge tendency to become a hermit if you don't make the effort to get out.  Keady was a good reminder that you need to keep getting out and about!