The Heroes of the Farmer's Market.

No matter how tough the growing conditions are, these are the warmest, friendliest and most caring people. Today, along with the images, I'd like to share some sage words from Joel Salatin, the founder of Polyface Farm, first made famous in Michael Pollan's seminal book 2006 about food, "The Omnivore's Dilemma." and now an author in his own right.

“A farmer friend of mine told me recently about a busload of middle school children who came to his farm for a tour. The first two boys off the bus asked, "Where is the salsa tree?" They thought they could go pick salsa, like apples and peaches. Oh my. What do they put on SAT tests to measure this? Does anybody care? How little can a person know about food and still make educated decisions about it? Is this knowledge going to change before they enter the voting booth? Now that's a scary thought.”
― Joel Salatin, Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens,
Healthier People, and a Better World

---

---

Dejon "DJ" Gill of Swanton Berry Farm in Davenport.

---

---

Didar Singh Khalsa of Guru Ramdas Orchards in Esparto

---

---

Sunny Shin and friend of Solano Mushroom Farms in Vacaville

---

---

Jesse Kuhn of Marin Roots Farm in Petaluma.

---

---

Shelly Arrowsmith of Arrowsmith Farm in Sonoma.

---

---

Elisa Weber with her dad Edmund Weber of Della Fattoria in Petaluma.

Ed, Elisa, and the rest of the Weber family with the builders of their brick ovens made by the artisans at Turtle Rock Masonry Heat. These ovens, which produce the most amazing bread in the world, are fired by unwanted and invasive Eucalyptus wood that is removed from the California forests to control fire danger.

---

---

Dennis Dierks of Paradise Valley Produce in Bolinas.

---

---

Margaret Crane and Sheri Williamson of Williamson Farms in Woodland and Watsonville.

---

---

The boys from Iacopi Farms in Half Moon Bay and Prisma Creek.

---

---

Selling organic flowers and butternut squash along the Embarcadero at the SF Ferry Plaza.

---

---

The SF Farmer's Market happens on Thursdays and Saturdays, and I get there by hopping on the fast ferry from Larkspur near my home in Marin County.

---

---

Another of Joel Salatin's quotes that I love:

“A farm includes the passion of the farmer's heart, the interest of the farm's customers, the biological activity in the soil, the pleasantness of the air about the farm -- it's everything touching, emanating from, and supplying that piece of landscape. A farm is virtually a living organism. The tragedy of our time is that cultural philosophies and market realities are squeezing life's vitality out of most farms. And that is why the average farmer is now 60 years old.
Serfdom just doesn't attract the best and brightest.”
― Joel Salatin, Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front

---

---

Featured chefs of the day!

Dan Baker from Marche aux Fleurs in Ross

---

---

Max Newman, Joe Wolf, Nicole Walsh of Maria Bakery Restaurant in San Francisco.

---

---

Thanks for watching.

I have a long history of inventing tools for animators and also making films and photographs. My wife, daughter and I live at the foot of beautiful Mt. Tamalpais on the San Francisco Bay and I've been using technology to tell complex stories for a long time. My biggest claim to fame? Leading the team that created Autodesk 3ds Max... the most popular 3D animation tool of all time. When I sold the Yost Group to Autodesk at the end of the last century I jumped headfirst into pursing my original love... photography and filmmaking. Now I spend all of my time exploring the mysteries of my world with my cameras, and revealing what I find in my images and films.

You can find my verification post here.