• Toledo Farmers Market
• Bench's
• Food Truck Festival
• UT Football
• The Attic

Notes - Sat, Sep 20, 2014

• Toledo Farmers Market in the morning
• Bench's produce stand at mid-day
• Collingwood Arts Center Food Truck Festival in the afternoon
• University of Toledo football game in the early evening
• The Attic in the late evening

Toledo Farmers Market

We bought for "normal" consumption:

• eggs
• soft pretzel
• tomatoes
• eggplant
• herbs
• apples
• lemon cake
• goat milk soup
• and probably a few other things that I cannot remember

For making and canning corn salsa, we bought 14 pounds of tomatoes from the Greek farmer. The young guy, maybe the son, recommended the larger, round tomatoes over the plum or roma tomatoes.

We bought red onion and different kinds of peppers.

Info from business cards for two relatively new and interesting-to-us vendors at the market:

• Parrish Pork & Poultry
  • Purebred Duroc Pork & Other Meats
  • Edon, Ohio

• Simply Nikki's Natural Products
  • "We provide natural, safe, & effective products for skin, body, and home without harmful chemicals or artificial ingredients"
  • http://simplynikkisnaturals.com
  • Lyons, Ohio

At the Toledo Farmers Market next to Swan Creek in the Warehouse District.

It's great to see the market crowded with both customers and vendors. Nearly every possible space available contains a vendor now. Peak time. The market continues to grow. More makers, farmers, and producers want to sell at the Toledo farmers market.

Bench's

We bought the sweet corn for the corn salsa from Bench's produce stand, located along Route 2 east of the road to Maumee Bay State Park. We've been big fans of Bench's sweet corn for the past several years.

We bought three bags, and I think that each bag contained 14 ears. In the husk, of course.

We also browsed the little antique store connected to Bench's produce stand, buying one small item. For our garden this year, we bought some of the plants back in the spring and early summer from Bench's greenhouse, which at this same location.

Food Truck Festival

Several food truck vendors set up shop from 2:00 to 7:00 p.m. next to the Collingwood Arts Center. The CAC also offered tours of the building.

The whole thing was a fundraiser for the CAC. We bought food from Black Kettle Bar-Be-Que and from Toledo Hot Dog.

We were at the festival from approx 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.

Food truck festival at the Collingwood Arts Center.

Unfortunately, the Ottawa Tavern's Wanderlust truck was closed because their cooler broke down.

Walking back to our car, we admired the mural on the side of the building, near the location of the Black Kite Coffee shop.

UT Football

Ball State vs UT at 7:00 p.m. This was more about the weather than football.

Toledo won 34-23, but we only saw the first few minutes of the game. A line of storms moved through, dumping only light to moderate rain and very little lightning over Toledo, but the game must be suspended if lightning exists in the area. Areas to the north and south of us got hit a bit harder by the storms.

My microblog notes :

Seated in stadium at 6:10 pm for Ball State vs Toledo football game. Dog Day Cicada sings near south end of stadium.

At 6:16 pm, comfy weather. High and mid level cloudiness causing frosted sunshine. Temps in upper 70s. Light to moderate breeze. But line of storms in IN could disrupt second half.

A severe thunderstorm watch was issued at 6:20 pm and it includes the Toledo area.

Dragonfly zipping about over our section. Williams County under a svr tstrm warning.

6:56 pm received Yo from my weather app for heavy rain in Toledo area soon based upon forecast io data.

UT got ball first. Touchback. Five play drive for TD.

We left stadium at 9:10 pm with game still delayed because of occ lightning. I'm guessing play will resume between 10:00 and 10:30 pm and end around 12:30 to 1:00 am. We went to The Attic.

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/gamecast?gameId=400548111&version=mobile&date=20140920&groupId=80
- 13 hrs ago - # - reply

http://www.toledoblade.com/sports/2014/09/21/Rockets-top-Cardinals-in-marathon-game-34-23.html

I emptied the rain gauge when we got home later that night, and the gauge measured only 0.10 inches of rain. The infrequent lightning fouled up the game.

Here's info from a severe thunderstorm warning issued for Lucas and Wood counties:

severe thunderstorm warning
national weather service cleveland oh
709 pm edt sat sep 20 2014

the national weather service in cleveland has issued a

severe thunderstorm warning for...
lucas county in northwest ohio
wood county in northwest ohio

until 815 pm edt

at 708 pm edt...national weather service doppler radar indicated a
line of severe thunderstorms capable of producing damaging winds in
excess of 60 mph. these storms were located along a line extending
from 15 miles northwest of sylvania to 11 miles northwest of
whitehouse to 20 miles west of custar...and moving east at 40 mph.

locations impacted include...
sylvania...
waterville...
custar...
toledo...
bowling green...
whitehouse...
holland...
weston...

Walking to the stadium, we passed several area high school bands who were scheduled to perform at half time, but unfortunately, that did not happen. We were looking forward to seeing the field covered with marching bands.

This is the Start Spartans High School marching band. The school is located near our home in West Toledo.

Toledo warming up. I like watching teams go through drills. But I spent most of my time prior to the game checking weather info.

My Instagram comment with this image: "Rats. A line of severe thunderstorms could disrupt tonight's Ball State - Toledo football game." - I was wrong about that. The game got interrupted at the early part of the first quarter.

Before game time, the sun got clouded over.

It was an active evening. The SPC issued multiple mesoscale discussions for different parts of the IN, OH, and MI region.

UT band performed before kick-off. Upside down T. Our season ticket seats reside on the visitors side of the stadium.

Band formed a star while playing Stars and Stripes.

UT.

My Instagram note: "Early first quarter. Toledo scored TD on its opening drive. Storms on radar don't look bad, but now we're under a warning. Still playing football for now."

UT got the ball first and drove 75 yards in 5 plays for the TD. Then UT forced Ball State to punt. UT ran maybe one offensive play on its second possession, and then the game was suspended.

Still playing ball in this photo. Probably one of the final plays before the game got suspended. My Instragram note: "Tornado siren is now sounding at 7:20 pm. Some lightning to north. And now game has been suspended. Fans leaving."

My Instagram note: "That's a first. After the siren ended, an automated voice came over a PA system outside stadium saying that a tornado has been spotted."

By this point, the field was evacuated, and we were told to exit the seating area.

My Instagram note: "Based upon my sources, no tornado warning has been issued for the Toledo area. A severe thunderstorm warning was issued at 7:09 pm. Heaviest weather is to the north of us."

My Instagram note: "A little rain shower now at 7:35 pm. Nothing bad. Don't know why a severe thunderstorm warning was issued."

My Instagram note: "Fans waiting out the rain."

It rained off and on from approx 7:25 p.m. to 9:50 p.m. Rain intensity was mainly light with some occasional light-to-moderate episodes. Very little lightning, but enough existed to keep the game suspended.

My Instragram note: "It has been raining off and on. Some lightning. I think players enter the field 30 minutes after the last area detection of lightning."

My Instagram note: "Players returned to the field for warmups at 9:00 pm. It never stormed. Just some rain."

My Instragram follow-up comment to the above image: "Another lightning flash at 9:10 pm sent the players to the locker room and delayed the game at least another 30 minutes, so we left."

The game was about to start when the lightning flash occurred at 9:10 p.m.

According to the Blade story, the game resumed at 10:01 p.m.

According to NCAA rules, players can return to the field when 30 minutes have passed after the last area lightning flash. Then both teams engage in 10 minutes of warmups before play resumes.

At 9:10 p.m., I knew the game would probably not restart until 10:00 to 10:30 p.m., and then it would take at least 2.5 hours to finish the game.

Interesting experience. A first for me with all the football games that I have attended.

We spent two hours underneath the bleachers by the food stand. We shared a big soft pretzel with cheese.

Here's a TT comment that I made from my iPhone while we waited under the stands. I posted it at 9:04 p.m.

I'm surprised the NWS issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Lucas and Wood counties. While warnings were issued for northeast IN and Williams County in northwest OH, the weather did not look severe on radar as it approached us. The heaviest weather was in southern MI.

I'm at the UT football game. We've had some off and on light to moderate rain showers.

The game got suspended because of nearby lightning. Some occasional lightning still occurs, so it will be a while before the game resumes.

The tornado siren did sound outside the stadium, and then an automated voice came over some kind of PA system that sounded like it was located outside the stadium. The voice began immediately after the two- or three-minute siren blast. I think the voice came over the same system as the siren. The siren sounded different too. Maybe it's a new setup.

Anyway, the voice said a tornado warning was issued and/or a tornado was spotted in Lucas County. I'm guessing that it was programmed to say that.

Of course, I found no official mention of a tornado warning, but the automated announcement about a tornado warning excited the crowd.

If it's a new outdoor warning system, then it's flawed because no tornado warning was issued.

This is the second time this season when the tornado sirens were sounded in Lucas County based upon an alleged sighting of something.

The sheriff does not have to wait for the NWS to issue a tornado warning before sounding the sirens.

But spotters should be trained to know the difference between a funnel cloud and scud or other bizarre cloud formations that associate with a thunderstorm.

It's good to err on the side of caution, but if the county is not posting details on their websites, then that's a failure.

The game is still under a weather delay as of 9:00 pm, but the players have returned to the field for warmups. Light rain is falling.

My next TT comment, posted at 9:13 p.m.:

Oops. Another lightning flash at 9:10 pm, so the restart has been delayed another 30 min at least. We're leaving.

While walking back to our car, we saw jagged line of lightning race across the sky. Impressive. That occurred at 9:20 p.m., so another 30 minutes added. And then we heard thunder a few minutes later. The system seemed to fizzle, severity-wise, when it got close to Toledo, but it was wide enough and slow enough to provide the annoying, occasional bouts of lightning.

The Attic

We drove from the UT campus to The Attic on Adams Street for a beverage and some grub.

I drank a Bell's Best Brown Ale, which was very good. And I ate a meatloaf sandwich with cheese and thick bread. Delicious little sandwich. Just right.

DD drank a quad beer by Stone, and she ate a pulled pork sandwich.

We were at The Attic for a little over an hour. It was around 11:15 p.m. when we got home.

While at The Attic, I watched the end of the Miss St - LSU game. Amazingly, Miss St nearly produced one of the biggest collapses. In only a few minutes, they nearly blew what seemed like a comfortable win. LSU got to try a Hail Mary pass attempt on the final play for the win, but it was intercepted. It incredible that it got to that point.

Despite the weather at the football game, it was another fine day in the Toledo area.

#event - #food - #art - #college - #sports - #football - #blog_jr