Nancy (standing) and Florence Stoddard of Sugar Island oversee their fresh vegetable booth at the weekly Pickford Farmers Market behind the Pickford Township Hall Thursday, October 1. About 20 vendors sell their goods at the market each week. Owing to a reduction of tourism and increase in afterschool activities, vendor and shopper attendance at the market has been down the past few weeks. Nine vendors set up booths during the first market of October. Brenda Meloche and her mother, Eleanor Wark, both of Trout Lake, have spent every Thursday evening since June in the parking lot behind the Pickford Township Hall selling homemade baked goods. The mother and daughter team start their Thursdays around 5 a.m., baking pies, loaves of bread, brownies, and rolls to be sold from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. during the weekly Pickford Farmers Market. They consider the market venture a great success. The event was revitalized this year after a multi-year hiatus.

The two bakers also attend the farmers market in Sault Ste. Marie on Wednesdays and Saturdays. They enjoy the market at Pickford because of its more relaxed atmosphere and vendor camaraderie.

The bakers, along with about 20 other vendors, set up their tables and booths at the Pickford market each week to sell a wide variety of fresh vegetables, fruits, baked goods, eggs, meats, and cannedgoods. Market Master Sheila Bergdoll said the market averaged about 100 customers each week from the Cedarville, DeTour, Sault Ste. Marie, and Kincheloe areas.

"We had a lot of local people. I think the community was very interested in seeing the market here," she said. "I think the community was very supportive. I do feel like the community really did embrace it."

Market attendance, however, has declined in the last couple weeks owing to seasonal residents leaving, summer tourism dropping off, and the beginning of the school year and school activities, she said. The Pickford market is scheduled through Thursday, October 22, and will re-open for business in June 2010.

Tammy Obermiller of Pickford can attest to school and its activities taking time away from the market in the past several weeks. She was at the market Thursday, October 1, watching her daughter Alyson's booth while she was at a school function two blocks away. Alyson, a 10th grade student at Pickford High School, makes, sells, and repairs beaded jewelry at the market, as well as sells vegetables grown in her garden.

"I'm amazed with some of her creations," Mrs. Obermiller said about her daughter's work. Working at the market "has made her grow up real fast, especially with learning how to handle money."

Alyson has set up her Aly's Lil' Bit of Everything table at every market this summer. Mrs. Obermiller said her daughter plans to participate in the market again next summer.

Mrs. Bergdoll said she is strongly considering scheduling the market earlier in the afternoon next summer to better accommodate vendors and customers.

"We noticed our crowds significantly dropped off by 6:30 p.m.," she said. As for the vendors, some of whom start their days in the early morning, she said, "It's a long day for someone to sit there."

Betty Jones of Cedarville, who sells fresh vegetables grown in her small garden, said Mrs. Bergdoll emails vendors each week to keep them up to date with market information, makes sure to talk to each vendor during the Thursday markets to see how they are doing, and promotes the market.

"She's super about communicating with us," Ms. Jones said. "It's been a very successful market... There's a good relationship among the vendors, too."

Ms. Jones, who joined the market in mid August, sells flowers, peppers, gourds, squash, onions, sugar beets, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, and Indian corn. She said as the market winds down each week, vendors have been known to trade items so that one person is not going in with an excess amount of one item and nothing goes to waste.

“"There's no competition” among vendors, she said. “It's just like, ‘I'll help you, if you help me.’”