For country shopping for distinctive items in a small-town atmosphere, visit Darby Farmers Market, open 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. every Tuesday through Sept. 14 at Main Street Park.
Last week 14 vendors provided casual but quality small-town shopping. Each week vendors pay $5 and select their location on a first-come, first-served basis. Locals eager to visit with friends and tourists passing through town on U.S. Highway 93 often crowd the market.
Darby Parks and Recreation Committee Chair Teri Mountford is in charge of the friendly country market.
“We’re a voluntary advisory committee to the town,” Mountford said.
A couple of years ago the committee decided to help the staff facilitate the market.
“We show up and help the vendors get set up. I sent out the initial postcard asking for vendors,” Mountford said. “We have to follow county health rules for those who are selling food, but otherwise it is very informal.”
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She said the farmers market has grown since the Parks and Rec committee has been overseeing it.
“Last year we had 10-12 vendors per week,” Mountford said. “I’m continuing to get emails requesting people to come. We will have someone coming to do produce and we’d like to get more produce vendors. Cultivating Connections came last year — they were very popular.”
She said Tuesdays are an unusual day for a market but weekend activities during the summer were a conflict.
“We get quite a bit of tourist traffic in the summer,” Mountford said.
Trish Becker, of Wild Turkey Acres, had a full display with new apron fabrics featuring horses, dinosaurs and designs including a Japanese-style reversible apron with large pockets. Little Tin Cup Goat Milk owner Dana Stelatto was selling her colorful and fun-scented soaps.
Vendor Patty Conn lived in Darby for 26 years before moving to Hamilton and this is her first summer at the Darby Farmers Market. She sells a variety of items including decorative pillows with wild fabric and birds, home-sewn table runners, placemats, polar fleece quilts and floral arrangements.
“This is home to me,” Conn said. “I’m here to see people that I know and it is good to visit with friends. I’ve made hundreds of fleece blankets that sell well in the fall. I brought some of the ones that might go well in the summer.”
Woods Creek Soaps owner Susan DeGeus, a retired journalist, is selling homemade soaps and skin care products from organic goat milk.
“I have goat milk lotions, hydration cream, body oils, solid lotion bars, salt scrubs and lip balms,” she said.
When her seven children were at home they had goats, ducks, rabbits and pigs, and she felt tied to home. When the children left home, taking jobs across the country, she and her husband downsized. Now they have a few chickens and support a local goat.
She calls herself a “scentaholic” and all her wrapped soaps have a hole on the bottom for better sniffing.
“I can’t stop making different scents,” DeGeus said. “When tourists come because they think they are going to see the Dutton Ranch, they buy anything with a Montana theme or that says, ‘Made in Montana.’”
DeGeus also sells her products at the Stevensville Farmers Market on Saturdays.
Friendship Muffins Bakery owner Wendy Blake Embree has delicious scones and cookies and has added homemade cards to her inventory.
“When I closed the Friendship Muffins Bakery I had to do something with my creativity,” she said. “I really love making beautiful cards.”
This is her second year at Darby Farmers Market and said she enjoys the sales and visiting.
“It’s a good way of getting the creativity out,” Embree said. “I enjoy it, it keeps me busy.”
Allison Dunn owns Classy Cowgirls and has sold jams, jellies, syrups, sauces, honey, crafts and jewelry made from Montana rocks for many years.
“A lot of the Montana Agates were found over by Yellowstone,” Dunn said. “The rhodolite garnet glows with light behind it — we found it when fly-fishing so it is naturally smooth. The hardship is waiting on my bottle and jar order. It’s been delayed and now the shipping costs more than the jars.”
Visit the greenery-covered table of Rowena May and Crystal Chaffin for fresh eggs, and herb and vegetable starts.
“I have mint mojito, orange mint, spearmint, peppermint, chocolate mint, cabbage, rosemary, spicy orange thyme, raspberries and a couple of trees I dug up,” Chaffin said. “The rhubarb starts sold quickly. These are all medicinal, they are all good for you.”
Chaffin is a familiar face at the Darby Farmers Market. During the school year, she works at Darby Elementary School in the special education department. She lives up Tin Cup and has a greenhouse for starting plants early.
Cynthia Hansen is selling jewelry she made, and a book written by her mother-in-law called “Mollie Chronicles – Rescued!” For every book sold, $2 goes to a local dog shelter or an animal rescue to help. It has a sequel.
Most of Hansen’s beads are salvaged.
“I just love finding something and making something new,” she said. “The seed beads I could buy, but I just love to find new and different ways to do them.”
She has been at the Darby Farmers Market for years but missed the last two years due to COVID and related issues.
“I come whenever I have time and items made,” she said. “I work full time at the school. This summer I’ll be here nearly every Tuesday.”
Mountford said that once the weather gets nicer more people will shop at Darby Farmers Market.
“I like how we do it,” she said. “Everyone gets along and everyone helps out. People are appreciating it.”
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