July 20, 2008

Family Day Field Trip

Today was fun. Despite the high gas prices, we loaded Seven into the truck and set out this morning with no particular destination. Our first stop was the Blacksburg Farmer’s Market, which was PACKED to the gills. There was also an art exhibition/sale going on at the same place, so lots of activity. I think either I am A) too poor, or B)not crazy. i am hoping it is the latter. Let me explain why I bring this up. One was the price of Blueberries. $5.50 per PINT. Now, just last week, I picked blueberries at the blueberry farm. $1.75 per pound. Yea, yea, I know time is money. But I would rather just pick them myself. Jon says I should pick them next year and peddle them to the suckers paying $5.50. Hmmm. Not so sure. Second was the bread. Yes, the vendor who made it was a hippy type, and the bread was good. But I can make it myself. I can! $6 will buy me alot of ingredients to make any bread I want. And third, though it was in a nice glass bottle, isn’t $6 for a bottle of Peach lemonade a bit steep? Has it been that long since I left the house?? 30 oz. for $6 to me seems way over the top. So I’ll take the free sample and go home and make it myself, thankyouverymuchandhaveaniceday.

So, I bought rhubarb. Rhubarb I do not grow myself, so this was a well thought out expense.

After the market, we drove out to a little bakery and picked up boxed lunches. We made a quick stop by the house of one of Seven’s nurses (who we loved dearly) so that she could see how much he has grown since she took care of him in the hospital. (he got an infection right after he was born and we had to take him back to the hospital for 10 days…she was our favorite although all of the nurses were great…she has even babysat for us! Super nice.)

So after we left her house, we drove through the mountains and along the New River, finally finding a nice spot to pull over and eat our lunches…Seven even took a little dip at the edge to cool off his feet!!

From there, more backroads led us to the community of White Gate, where the Amish have a great store full of spices and baking supplies…pretty much anything you can imagine! I bought us a homemade strawberry ice cream cone to share (and lots of other baking goodies!) and again, we were off!

Next stop was our friends Ray & Marlene (the grandparents of Rikki, our former housemate) who live in Wilburn Valley. They have a beautiful farm out there with stunning views. They hadn’t seen Seven since Christmas, so we dropped in for a few minutes to visit….