Farmyard Connection

Happy MEMORIAL DAY weekend! Hopefully, like ourselves, you are enjoying a well-deserved-and-badly-needed three-day weekend...we haven't been doing too much relaxing though, as this weekend has been pretty busy so far. One of the things we've been busy with is tweeking the look of the RANCHO COOCOA blog...it's not quite done yet...also, we've been house sitting and dog sitting for our friends... Yesterday, we forced ourselves to get up early in order to beat the crowds to the ATHENS FARMER'S MARKET at BISHOP PARK, which is within walking distance (15-20 minutes) from our house. Last weekend, we got to the inaugural market much too late and swore to make up for it this weekend. Hopefully, a walk and a visit to the market will become a weekly routine for us...



On our way to the market we stopped to check out the ice cream truck that belongs to one of our neighbors...for months, this old ice cream truck with the words "SNACK OASIS" had been sitting in the front of this house on our street. The other day we noticed that they had re-painted the truck. Where it used to say "Snack Oasis" now said "BRAIN FREEZE", with a pink brain frozen in the center of a block of ice (they've since added the requisite ice cream price stickers to the side of the truck as well)...



I've always complained of never seeing an ice cream truck in Athens since I've moved here from California (we had AT LEAST three different ice cream trucks roll through our neighborhood on a daily basis, year round), and now we have an ice cream man living on our street!



This orange kitty came down the driveway to greet us:









The firestation (Fire Hall #4) right around the corner from our street...it's good to know help is close at hand...



Soon, we were at the park, ready to do some shopping...





Some bumper stickers we saw in the parking lot on the way in:









One one side of the pavilion was reserved for all the bakers and coffee brewers...you could easily fix yourself up with some breakfast and kick it at one of the picnic tables...we ended up buying a loaf of sliced HONEY WHEAT BREAD and some DINNER ROLLS...















We found all the produce set up on the other side of the pavilion...









Missy ended up buying a HEAD OF LETTUCE from this table:





Then, Missy bought some FRESH BASIL from this table:





A HOSTA plant and a TOMATO plant was bought at this table, but not before Missy consulted the fact sheet:









We bought a pound of POTATOES from here...





...and then, we went back to the "bread side" of the building and bought a couple of scones to take back for our breakfast...



We headed back home, satisfied with our buys and with knowing that we were able to support local farms...







When we got back to the ranch, Nilla was waiting for us in Missy's closet window:





(wintertime scarves hanging up in our pink mudroom)



Later, we went out for brunch with JAY AND TERRI to celebrate Terri's win (she won the This Is Blythe photo contest that Missy also participated in!)...I would have took photos, but I didn't want to torture you with another photo of yet another breakfast burrito at THE GRIT (actually, I had an omelet and broke the streak!)...spent the rest of the day playing with the new Wii (Simpsons game!) and bumbling around the house. That evening, we headed out to the local art-house movie theater, CINE, to see our friend PAUL THOMAS perform and show some of his multi-media art...he projected movie trailers of 60's and 70's sexploitation flicks, while he provided an ambiant-noise sountrack with various keyboards, effects boxes and pedals...some of the movie titles and previews were hilarious, even without being able to hear the original voice-overs...some of my personal favorites were "The Adult Version Of Jekyll And Hyde" (where Dr. Jekyll turns into a voluptuous young women and gets turned on by him/herself), "The Erotic Adventures Of Zorro", and "The Curious Dr. Humpp" (a film where the aforementioned Dr. Humpp turns hapless victims - men and women - into sex-starved zombies trapped on his island castle...and yes...TWO "P"s!)...

(Paul and his friends setting up for the performance)