Give me any farmers market.. any roadside produce stand, I'll stop.  Anytime. 

This is the best time of year for food in the Midwest.  Besides what comes out of my own garden, there is nothing better than the best of what's in season, taking it home and either eating it right then and there, raw (beans, grape tomatoes and sugar snap peas never make it back into the house).. or making some sort of masterpiece in the kitchen. 

But if I am in town and have the choice, there is one place I make sure I am every Saturday, it's the Downtown Madison Farmers Market.  I have followed the crowd like a lemming now, for years.  I love it and have a few favorite stops each week.

So do you.. it's obvious thousands of you love the ritual as well.

But while we're all moving and slowly making our way past the organic lettuce, onions, fresh jams, flowers and honey.. and caught up in the slow lane of rush hour market traffic, there is one stop off the beaten path, that just may be the best of all.

The climbing tree.  (For kids only, btw.)

Typically, with a jam packed Saturday on tap and the market just a small part of it... I don't know about you, but we're usually not in a 'let's hang out for awhile and just chill' mode, even at the Market.  We'll mosey but its on a schedule so that we can be wherever we need to be next at the very least, not more than a few minutes late.

But I am reminded each week of the value of not just slowing down, but stopping, to let whatever kids may be in tow - the time and space and freedom to hang out, literally, just a while, on the tree.  And take a breather myself.  And a reminder that a jam packed day can wait.  Some of my best memories of childhood were of the tree we always used to climb in the backyard.  

Too bad the tree at the Market can really only hold the kids...