My wife and I visited Morningstar Marketplace Saturday.
We hadn’t been since at least last year, but I have a back pack that lost a clip on its waist strap, and I remembered there was a display at that particular market that probably would have it. So off we went.
Morningstar is on U.S. 30, about a mile east of the Thomasville airport.
It’s a combination farmers market and flea market. The selection of stuff for sale is amazing. Along the drive into the parking area is a selection of sheds, pergolas and other wood yard furniture. Elsewhere are myriad displays, in the large building, or outside in booths, under tents or parked in the open — like the couple selling jewelry from the hood of their 1991 Buick Regal. Stuff on tables, in bins or sorted (sometimes unsorted) into cardboard boxes.
The offerings cover everything from flowers — live and cut — to ax and plow handles. Toys and tools. Mauls and wrought iron hangers. Peaches, apples, asparagus, cabbage, and numerous other examples of farm produce in season — or at least in demand. Antiques, some actually old, and a framed poster from Sandra Bullock’s movie, The Blind Side.
I found a camera tripod I didn’t need, but just had to have. It’s like a tool set my wife has that on first glance looks like a hammer. But you unscrew the “cap” at the end of the handle and you’ve got a screwdriver. Unscrew the cap on that handle and there’s a smaller screwdriver.
The camera tripod was like that. At first glance, it was a monopod — a single leg about 10 inches long, with a screw on top. Inside the was another leg, and a third inside that. And finally, a remote shutter plunger that old film cameras once used to press the shutter button without bouncing the camera.
I found a booth where the owner did not, at first, want me taking pictures. Her husband does the wood carving, and she does the painting — and some people, she has discovered, take pictures of things they like and get someone else to copy them for less money or to sell in another booth. Tacky.
I’ll say this: her paintings were pretty nice, in frames, on a handmade chest, on doorknob hangers.
A few booths away I found a guy re-caning a chair, and I learned that rattan is a grass that looks a bit like bamboo, except it’s not hollow. For woven chair seats, the skin is peeled off and stripped into a lace. The core then can be steamed and bent into shaped frames for chairs and other furniture.
Apparently, some people confuse rattan with wicker. They are different materials. And chair “caning,” the fellow emphasized, is a style, not the material.
We spent a few hours wandering among the offerings, past several “restaurants,” a coin dealer, and a couple of candy stands.
We picked up some apples, peaches, bell peppers and bananas.
And yes, I found the clips I wanted, three for a buck.
It’s an enjoyable way to spend a Saturday morning while finding some fresh groceries — and that trinket you didn’t know existed, but discover you cannot do without.