This morning my alarm went off at 7, and it confused me. What the hell is that noise? The alarm? Do I need to go to work? Why? Can't I sleep some more? Oh yeah... we set the alarm for the ungodly Saturday morning time of 7 so we could make the farmer's market and do some estate sale shopping. Damn.
So we got up, went to the corner store for coffee with Prisilla, our friend who works at the corner store and runs the flea market on the last Saturday of each month, which we have a booth on reserve for this month. We had some questions about tables and stuffs, and we just like to go have coffee with her. We usually walk there, but today we drove. We stopped in quickly, got some coffee and squared away our table needs for next week, and agreed to do a plant trade at the market next week. She has some passionflower vines I want to plant to grow on our lattice over by the kitchen, and we have some exotic pepper seeds she wants to grow.
We zipped into town, and I drove to where I assumed the Farmer's Market was. I do this a lot. I think I know where something is, and when I get there, find out I'm wrong. A half hour later, we had gone to my office and found directions on the internet, and made our way there. We had never been very far away, afterall. I had just confused two very similar downtown parks. We started by having some breakfast tacos at the Market, and walked around to look at produce. Charley wants some sauteed greens for dinner, and I wanted some of the fresh local peaches that were for sale. We got what we wanted, and even tried some Buffalo Jerky and got some local honey to boot. We met a nice lady from Turkey and tried her spanikopita and beet salad. It was pretty good. Frankly, I make a better beet salad, with fennel and apples and feta and yoghurt and a wee bit of vinegar and lemon juice. It all turns a wonderful beet purple color and tastes so fresh and delicious, I could eat it by the bucketfull. We were really suprised at the prices of produce at the Farmer's Market. Granted, we were in Austin. But we spent $50 on squash, beans, chard, peaches, & honey! I do beleive in buying locally, but I think that was a bit on the expensive side. I think we'll start looking around in the smaller communities out by us and see if we can't find something a little more reasonably priced and similarly chemical free, locally grown, and delicious.
Then, we headed out for the Estate sale. What an excellent time we had there! I found a beautiful hand knitted shawl for $1.50, and we found a really comfortable chair for $10! It's somewhat hideously floral and green, but I think a slipcover will fix that. It was REALLY comfortable, and it is probably going to be 'my' chair. What we really need now are some side tables so there are surfaces near the chairs we have. We will be on the hunt in the next few weeks. Charley also got some antique papergoods and I picked up a lovely orange linen tablecloth ($1) that will match the placemats and cloth napkins Charley brought back from Guatemala for me. They are purple and orange and pink and really cool. I also got to use the bag he got for me in Guatemala, a really psychedelic blue woven pattern, at the Market for the vegetables. At various other garage sales we found some star wars figurines for a friend, Charley got an old cigarette tin, and I picked up a set of really fabulous fake eyelashes for my mermaid costume, and a wall map of Guatemala.
Our real goal of the day was to end up at Sears, and Charley got himself a brandnew table saw. The old one was failing, and taking way too long cut stuff, and lordy, do we need to cut stuff. So, we got him a new one with my favorite feature - an attached bag to catch the pile of sawdust that comes out at the bottom! Within 5 minutes of getting it home, he had it put together and started to rip apart the wood for the kitchen screen project. I won't be able to tear him way until they are finished! I understand, though, I like to play with my new toys right away, too.
We have to head into town for a birthday party next. I took a few minutes to wander in the yard and saw the following butterflies: Questionmark, Comma, Red Admiral, Painted Ladies, and a huge Yellow Swollowtail! There are spiders on all of our Agaves with striped legs, that make a web with a zig-zag stitch in the middle. They are really cool little spiders, and one of them was feeding on a rolly polly. The flowers are beautiful, still blooming like crazy, all sorts of colors everywhere, and it did actually get down into the high 70's and low 80's today! Hooray! I"m going to grab my sun hat and see if I can get Charley to put on a Party Shirt and head back out! Good day to you!