Joyce and Tom Arnold of Sykesville usually travel on summer weekends, so it was unusual that they found a Sunday afternoon to shop the stands of fresh produce, art and crafts during the town’s Apple Butter Market.
The market, which opened for the season Sunday, offers a mix of farmers, artists, antique dealers and vendors selling everything from herbs, fruit and pies to art, candles and pottery.
The Arnolds said they heard about the market from fellow church members, and decided to explore their ‘‘backyard” for a change.
‘‘This happens to be the first weekend we’re home, since we do a lot of camping on the weekends,” Joyce Arnold said.
Organized by Destination Sykesville, a group of volunteers dedicated to drawing more visitors to town, the market started two years ago.
The Apple Butter Market is held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. the last Sunday of the month, July 27 through Oct. 26, at South Branch Park, a sliver of land across the Patapsco River in Sykesville where an abandoned apple butter warehouse sits. The site is more commonly known as the apple butter property.
The Arnolds admired handmade jewelry and learned more about the state’s new child booster seat law from the Sykesville Police Department’s booth, they said.
Nearby, vendors took respite from the heat under white and blue tents lined up in a grassy area in front of the shuttered, brick warehouse.
A steady crowd of families strolled past the stands as the Carroll Jazz Singers from Carroll Community College performed jazz standards.
Across the river, Aw Boys Fries from Reisterstown sold beverages and large and small baskets of french fries, cooked in peanut oil.
On one side of a tent, Gale Ratley, an artist and Sykesville resident, arranged several postcard-sized prints and larger reproductions of her artwork for sale. Some of her mini watercolors and hand-painted tiles were also displayed among her collection.
For Ratley, the Apple Butter Market is a family affair, since her siblings were also selling handmade items. ‘‘We’re just a whole family of talent,” she said.
Her sister from Salt Lake City, Utah, crafted necklaces and earrings made from gemstones from her travels in the American Southwest.
On the opposite side of the tent, her brother, Harry Evans, sold handmade, fragrant gel candles. Evans, also a Sykesville resident, said his candle scents range from peppermint patty to cucumber-melon and clove.
With the back of his car raised for some shade, Wiley Purkey’s selection of hanging floral baskets, moss rose, zinnias and succulent plants spread before him in neat rows. Purkey of Sykesville said he signed up to sell at all of the Apple Butter Markets this year and at the upcoming Sykesville Farmers Market, starting July 17. ‘‘I will have different stuff every time,” Purkey added.
Greg Thorne, a sheep farmer from Westminster, sold bunches of cream-colored, grey and dyed wool yarn and flats of large bell pepper plants, cherry tomato plants, cinnamon basil and ‘‘Green Zebra,” a tangy salad tomato plant.
Thorne welcomed the start of his third year at the Apple Butter Market, and noted that many customers seemed to be local. ‘‘I thought it would just be a good place to sell my products,” he said.
Sykesville Concert in the Park 2008
7-9 p.m., Millard Cooper Park, Springfield Ave., Sykesville
Free admission and parking; no pets or alcohol allowed
Schedule
July 11: Radio Mosaic
July 18: Mason Porter
July 25: Moe Stringz
August 1: Pet Rock
August 8: SnorkelKat
August 15: RedLine
