One Little Patch Went to Market

You can tell fall is just around the corner at the Glen Ellyn Famers Market on Main Street. Orange and yellow gourds, pumpkins and apple cider now sit alongside tomatoes and fresh strawberries.  And for the first time in a long while, some shoppers were seen in long sleeves.

The Glen Ellyn farmers market has a wide variety of items available for purchase, most of which you would expect to see at any famers market, but also some that you would never have considered. 

Kathy Moseler, also know at "The Robot Lady" sells robots for example. At her farmers market stand, the tables are noticeably absent of fresh produce. Instead, her stand is covered in robot bugs, robot building kits, robot lawn movers and even a board game that incorporates lasers.

"I worked for a major corporation, but I found it was not fun," Moseler said. "So I started Paradise Robotics."

Although Paradise Robotics is based in Barrington, IL, each week Moseler comes out to the farmers market to show off her wares, which include a wide array of robotic products—from the simple and fun, to robots designed to make your life easier. Big-ticket items include the Litter-Robot and the LawnBott. The Littler-Robot automatically cleans your cat's litter seven minutes after use, keeping your litter box clean and dumping its contents into an easy to dispose of container. The LawnBott, a kind of Roomba for your lawn, comes in a variety of sizes and keeps your grass cut constantly, instead of letting it build up over time, resulting in the need for a weekly mow.

On the smaller side are build your own robot kits and robot bugs call Hexbugs. Hexbugs come in a variety of styles and react to different sensors that make the robo-bugs sensitive to light, sound or touch.

"The kits are great, because they encourage children's fascination with science," Moseler said, obviously fascinated with them as well. Apparently once you build your own robot, it's hard to stop.

Of course, the Glen Ellyn Farmers Market isn't all hardware. Kristen Srail, 25, was working hard bagging produce at her family's farm stand. Srail is the daughter of the owners of Windy Acres Farm Stand, based in Geneva, IL.

"We're a family farm, so all the kids help out," Srail said as she weighed out a bag of Honey Crisp apples for a customer. "We've been coming to the farmers market since the beginning. Everything is really fresh because we pick it within 24-hours of selling it."

Srail said that now that fall is getting closer, she's excited to display the farm's apples, concord grapes and apple cider, all new this week at the stand. As a treat, she mentioned that soon they'd be selling caramel apples are well.

One item that never goes out of season is some good, old-fashioned kettle corn. It's one item that keeps longtime Glen Ellyn resident Mitzi Kuta coming back every week to the market for another batch. Cooked fresh on the spot by Dave Imbody from Kernel Dan's Kettle Corn, the corn comes out popping and rouge kernels litter the ground around the kettle.

"I've been in Glen Ellyn for 110 years," Kuta joked. Each week she makes the trip with "The Mr." whose interest is in the fresh produce, but it's the Kettle corn that keeps Mitzi coming back. "There's something about it that makes it stay fresh for a long time and it's fantastic."

"She's a great, regular customer," Imbody agreed.

The Glen Ellyn Farmers Market runs until the end of October.