Here’s a market in the shade, and on Sunday. Hope Farmers Market is under the trees; and adjacent to it is Pine Street Station, under a roof, and complete with indoor restrooms (some know it as Fader Fort).

Among those represented today were Engel Farms and McKemie Orchards from Federicksburg, Royal Indian Foods, Chaos Cards, Texas French Bread, Johnson’s Backyard Garden community-supported agriculture, and many more. The atmosphere was greatly enlivened by Christy Hayes and her Sunday Best, encouraging us to step lively to the excellent music in what seemed to be an alt-country vein.

We brought home locally grown celery (!), peaches, heirloom tomatoes, four kinds of squash, a baguette of Texas French Honfleur, fresh naan, fine yellow onions, potatoes, and more. Others were drawn to the orchids and herb plants. KO-OP radio was soliciting memberships (and KO-OP t-shirts make fine Austin–or Hornsby–souvenirs for your out-of-town friends).

The Chaos Cards people had inspired frame-worthy serigraphs on paper (just three dollars each–lone stars, playing-card personalities, Indian deities, famous Western masterpieces such as the Mona Lisa and Boticelli’s Venus imagined in bold new colors) and also intricately silk-screened t-shirts that are beautifully imagined; step indoors to see these and the work of other artists and craftspeople. Don’t miss the handsome posters promoting Hope Farmers Market; these also make wonderful souvenirs of Austin.

Find all this at 414 Waller Street at East Fifth. Summer hours are from 10 am to 2 pm. See some photographs of the market today, taken before we looked in on the Mexico-Argentina partido. At Buenos Aires Cafe Este, those in attendance were elated; at Takoba (which had its large parking lot at Navasota completely filled), the mood was less jubilant. Even with all the Copa Mundial action today, it was easy for people to park near the Hope Farmers Market, and in the shade.