Small farmers’ market offers big variety with laid-back feel

SPIRIT LAKE – The Spirit Lake Farmers’ Market offers artwork, varied products, interesting people and a friendly atmosphere.

Just off Highway 41 on Maine Street, the fledgling market is already showing signs of success, said Russ Spriggs, market manager and Chamber of Commerce president.

“It’s working and everybody is happy – the property is cleaned up, people that would not normally be able to sell things they make can come out here for a reasonable price, set up and have at it,” Spriggs said. “It’s affordable, fun and gives people a chance to meet each other.”

The vendors seem to agree.

“I live in Post Falls, but I love this little community, and want to help support it,” Mark Freber, of The Fresh Spice Market, said.

“It’s a nice little farmers’ market. Customers are wonderful, the whole town turns out – it’s a nice little spot to hit before you go out to the lake.”

Freber a former chef and restaurateur in Anchorage, Alaska, offers dozens of fresh spices he selects himself from 16 greenhouses in the Sandpoint area.

Small, colorful bags of spices fill the table in front of him as he shares the knowledge he gleaned from his 22 years in the kitchen.

He also sells low-sugar jams and jellies, fresh teas, dip mixes and homemade chips.

Freber’s wife, Heather, displays distinctive beaded jewelry.

“I get most of my patterns from the Ukraine,” she said. “I e-mail back and forth with a lady from there.”

Heather makes special-order beaded necklaces to match wedding dresses or prom dresses and says she recently finished a custom necklace for Orange County Choppers – ordered over the Internet.

Claire Horton sells miniature wooden cottages decorated with natural materials like moss and pine cones; Rozanne Thompson, who painted the mural in the park across the street, sells paintings and cards; and Becky Van Dyke sells hand-crocheted, knitted and sewn items, including, she says, “the best hat in the world,” as she points out an Icelandic lopi wool and sheepskin hat.

Down the way, the wares of three friends share one space.

The jewelry of Jenny Barwise sits next to the cedar and tile camping boxes of Wanda Coffee and the herb boxes of Kelly Byrd.

The three friends say they are having fun.

“We’re kind of low-key out here – laid back. We’re enjoying visiting more than worrying about selling anything,” said Barwise.

A shady corner of the market holds Paula Flodquist’s lavish display of hanging flower pots, tomato plants, lavender plants and even Zone 4 coffee bean trees.

Flodquist raises 100 varieties of lavender and operates a large greenhouse at Rock on Greenhouses, just outside of Spirit Lake.

Hanging baskets, at $14, are her best-selling item, she said.

Kelly Larsen, of Sleepy Kettle Cabin Gear, offers metal art, bath soaps and kiva ladders.

Steve, a former logger from Sandpoint, artistically arranges his Adirondack-styled pictures and mirrors for sale on his old flatbed truck.

Steve started working with wood during recuperation from cancer.

“When I went through chemotherapy I figured, I might as well do something, so I used a laptop and learned off the internet, from the Smithsonian, mostly.”

Each piece is a patchwork of tree bark and branches, teamed with reproduction tintypes, mirrors or prints.

Local residents Walter and Dorothy Porter donate the profits from their sales of collectibles, jewelry, glitter totes and “a little bit of everything” to the Spirit Lake Food Bank.

“We’ve done this for years,” Walter Porter said. “We’re retired, so it gives us a way to meet people – we enjoy people. We picked this market because it’s local and its Friday and Saturday. We don’t like to do Sundays because we go to church.”

Establishing the Spirit Lake Farmers’ Market has been a community effort.

When resident John Semprey offered a building at Highway 41 and Maine Street to the Chamber of Commerce for use at no charge, the Chamber was grateful, Spriggs says, but members realized they needed money for renovations.

Their idea of raising the funds through a farmers’ market came to a reality once Semprey approved use of the vacant field behind the building.

“The market,” Spriggs says, “has been well received in town. We have the support of the mayor and everybody is working for this. We’re getting people walking around the town, shopping and spending money. They’re finding out about our great pizza place, the Mexican restaurant, and the Hideaway Café.”