Farmers market has full harvest of offerings

Peggy Stewart is finishing up her 16th summer as market manager of the Superior Saturday Market held on the old Superior School lawn along River Street.

The maple trees that have provided shade over the summer are beginning to change colors and vendors are wearing layers of clothing, but there are two more weeks remaining for local produce, meats, eggs, knitted clothing, jewelry, soaps, baked goods, breads, wooden novelties, raffle tickets and whatever goods you’d hope to find locally.

At her vendor booth, Chris Hitchcock explained what rendering was and the end product. 

“You take the fat, heat it up to release all the liquids in it. You’re left over with the little cracklings in the lard and you use this to bake with or fry replacing Crisco or butter, and this is so healthy,” she said. “The pigs are full of vitamins and minerals. It’s the good cholesterol and it’s the second-best source of vitamin D next to cod liver oil, because a pig will lay in the sun and soak up the rays and that’s where they store it, in the fat.” 

Hitchcock’s pigs are black so she laughs as she said they really mop up the vitamin D. Then there is leaf lard she has as well which is the fat that is inside the ribcage around the organs which is an even a healthier product. 

“When I get my pigs processed, I just have Jerry (Superior Meats) separate the two fats and I process it into lard and leaf lard.” 

Heritage Premium Pork is in Tarkio currently has over 40 pigs including 22 piglets from two weeks ago. Her Berkshire and Meishan pigs are cross bred and considered the Wagyu of pork, she divulged. They are licensed to sell whole, half, quarter and separate cuts which requires a special FDA permit. Hitchcock says that there are lots of new faces this year at the Saturday Market because of tourists and new residents but she feels the Shyrock Community has been a driver of her sales this year.

Michelle Leitinger, with Sunleit Family Farms in St. Regis, is also a pig farmer and producer of non-GMO organic pork who sells by the cut, quarter, half and whole hogs that are pasture raised with their other livestock and fowl. 

“There’s no corn or soy in our feed. There is genetically modified feed but that’s not our way of raising animals. We try to do everything very clean and use Superior Meats as our processor as it must be processed by a USDA facility and it’s wonderful that they are so close,” she said. 

Many processing facilities with their capabilities and prerequisites are hours away.  They’ve been in business for three years and are grateful and excited for the growth as they expand and experiment. 

“I finally grew my own pumpkins this year,” as she points to the three remaining on her side of the table. 

“A big fall weekend festival at our farm has always been my dream for families to come and enjoy hot cider and games with pumpkin picking for kids and baked goods from Ashley and a coffee trailer another friend has and wagon rides. So yeah, I have a good vision so one of these years it will come to life.”

Leitinger was performing double-duty running her table along with Ashly Dillon who had other obligations Saturday morning. Dillon has Little Huckleberries Daycare but she bakes breads, cookies and custom-made cakes. 

“By trade, she went to chef school and loves it but she just loves the little kids in her daycare as much, no, probably even more!” Her cake business is called Lillys Sweet Treats, “And she can make a cake look like whatever a person wants. One of those types of talented bakers. And she is now discovering the joy of sourdough baking,” Leitinger smiled.

Patty Pickering was selling raffle tickets for a 1/2 beef as a fundraiser for Pool in the Park and said the organization has hired an engineering firm. “Once we have her make a rendering of what the facility is going to look like, I’ll get a copy and share just how great this project is coming along,” she beamed.

As a horticulturist for a wealthy rancher in the Paradise Valley, Jill Davis had been taking literally tons of produce to the Livingston Farmers Market for 16 years and loved her job more than one could even image. A bad back came from the hard labor but a good marriage brought her to Superior where she does a little gardening to scratch-the-itch. Her husband is in construction and has a plasma cutter, so she traded in a garden trowel for an acetylene torch. 

“He used it for his construction projects like hinges and braces and brackets for custom jobs and then it just sat there so I began playing with ideas,” she said. “And this is what I make along with custom gifts and signs for people. I take designs and input them into the computer, and it cuts through metal like butter with clean edges and I can then paint or add the pieces to wood backings.” 

Her side of their shop is called Wood and Welding Custom Metal Signs and is on Country Lane in Superior. She enjoys brainstorming with people and coming up with items she, or her husband, didn’t think was possible from the machine.  

Lisa Doramus shared a table with her husband Richard where she had sweet-looking goodies, and he had small vases and candleholders from Montana Maple. 

“Our neighbor had to take it (the maple tree) down and I asked if I could have a branch. He said I could have a branch, but I had to take the whole tree so I have more maple than I’ll ever use,” he laughed. 

He has a big lathe "somewhere in storage," Lisa said, but a few smaller ones he plays with for unique little nicknacks. They participate in the Alberton Farmers Market on Thursday afternoons and said that one will close in October but reopen on the first and third Thursdays inside the Alberton Community Center from 3 to 6 p.m. or maybe 7 p.m., at least through December.

“I’ve sold out every week,” said Traci Miller who admits she only started five weeks ago but has seen an increase in foot traffic every Saturday. 

“I do this for fun because I love baking and being out in the community and meeting new people,” she said. 

They’ve been in Superior for two years, “because my husband has always wanted to live in Montana, and we love the cooler climates. We love the smaller community lifestyle.” 

Along with banana bread, cookies and Rice Crispies Treats, bags of dog treats were for sale. 

“We love our dogs, don’t we? Which is another reason we moved here.”

Stewart is grateful the market has gone so well for as long as it has. 

“It really picked up after Covid,” she said. “I think that being cooped up, people needed to socialize and enjoy themselves outside as I’ve had more vendors since. When it started years ago on the other side of the (Clark Fork) river, there were four vendors, and I was one of them.” 

She’s planning on next year and would even take requests for space at (406) 822-3333 or even if anyone is interested in the next two Saturdays.

    The Superior Saturday Market closes Sept. 28, and Jill Davis, owner of Wood and Welding Custom Metal Signs said that this year has been good for her business. Once a commercial gardener she went from farm equipment to plasma cutting when she moved to Superior. (Monte Turner/Mineral Independent)
  

    Chris Hitchcock with Heritage Premium Pork in Tarkio has been a staple of the Superior Saturday Market and said that this year has been her busiest believing that the Shyrock RV Community off of east Mullan has been a big factor in her sales. (Monte Turner/Mineral Independent)