A Pleasant Summer Day

Last month we were sweltering like everyone else in the country. We had multiple days over 100. I don't think that's fair since we also deal with -30 temps in the winter. I guess we moved to an over-achieving state.
But just like last year it looks like August will be wonderfully pleasant. In July I kept reminding Chris "remember last August I wore a cardigan to the state fair and rode my bike to work almost every day." This week the highs are in the 70's-80's. Perfect! don't get me wrong...I love hot days where the only place you can be is near a pool, but a nice 75 degree Saturday in August makes me giddy.

This morning when it was a brisk 60 degrees I convinced Chris that we should bike ride over to Zumbro River Cafe. We've never been there and all of you know how much I love trying breakfast places. So we put Penny in the burley and were on our way. 90% of the ride was downhill. The moment we got there Chris and I both looked at each other with the same thought "We have to find another way home. There's no way we are going up those hills" After a scrumptious breakfast we decided to follow the trail along the river. We knew at some point it would get us to the Farmer's Market downtown and we had to pick up our CSA box anyways. It was a beautiful ride!! Next time I'll have my camera with me. I did take a shot of a few of our goodies when we got home:

In today's box we got carrots, onion, garlic, tomatoes, broccoli, hot and sweet peppers, shitake mushrooms, pea shoots a pound of potatoes and ginger. It's interesting how often the boxes change. Last week we had green beans, squash, eggplant, and chard, but no broccoli, tomatoes or pea shoots. It's nice that our farmer mixes it up some. Some of his crops haven't been doing great due to the July heat so he has to decide what he'll put in the CSA box vs sell at the market. Only CSA members have been able to get broccoli because most of his crop failed. I really like being part of the CSA and I'd highly recommend others to try it...but get a half share! I do admit we've had a few things go bad because we don't eat it fast enough.

Now back to our bike ride adventure. As we headed home from the farmer's market we passed a garage sale. I stopped to see what they had and noticed a baby doll cradle. Penny's baby has a shoebox bed so I thought this would be a good switch. It was too big to sit in the burley with Penny so we tied it onto the back with the bike lock. I noticed quite a few people pointing from their cars. Chris asked me "Do you feel like you've turned into your mom now?" I said "Nope. She put a half dead rattlesnake in her bike carrier. I have a kid's toy, a bouquet of flowers and a backpack of veggies. she still wins."

Here's a photo of the cradle strapped to the Burley.

And it's only 3:00 as I'm writing this...who knows what else we'll do on this beautiful day?