Me and My Shadow

Lucy and Mrs. B enjoying a late afternoon walk in sunny Ocala Florida 3.18.11.

A Full Day of Family

Meant, of course, in a POSITIVE way!

This morning, I went to the Farmers Market with Nathaniel, Analee, Kendal and Holly. They picked me up around 10 and off we went.

Despite it being a tad chilly at first, it was a lovely morning. And, the market was PACKED (turns out it was the first day of it being open from 8-12).

My primary reason for going was to pick up a few items so that I can try my hand at cooking something for Monday's book discussion group from fresh and local produce. I figured I should since it's the books theme, after all. And, I've got some time on my hands to be creative.

So, we wandered around; tons of people, dogs, strollers and an Easter egg hunt going on to boot.

I ended up buying:

1. Butter leaf lettuce

2. Radishes

3. Kale

4. Green Garlic (I THOUGHT this was a huge bunch of scallions....not)

5. Eggs

6. Farmer's Cheese

7. Cranberry Nut Loaf

8. Wine

Obviously what I concoct won't be made 100% from local ingredients, but, it'll be over 50%. I'll keep y'all posted on what I end up doing.

Anyway, here is a nice picture of Kendal (although I cut off a bit of his head; hard to take pictures with a cell phone into the direct sun):

When I got home, my other SIL contacted me and asked if I wanted to stop by later that afternoon for a cocktail on their sunny front porch. Sure!

So, after checking on the townhouse (new tenants move in Thursday), off I went, Lucy in tow.

We ended up sitting outside for several hours sipping our drinks, chatting, and watching the girls play. Lucy did really well with them; they LOVED getting Lucy kisses!

Here are pictures of the girls with their mom and dad (Jon with Sophie and Shannon with Jacqueline):

All in all (and, in fact, the past few days), I've felt blessed to have my wonderful family nearby to hang out with and keep me from being a lonely CPA "Widow".

BTW, Mr. B IS alive and kicking. Tomorrow begins the final 10 day shove. His life is pretty much the same from day to day and night to night. His big excitement was a deer ran into his car the other night while he was on his way home from work. Thankfully, he wasn't hurt, the deer walked away, and the BMW wasn't overly impacted (thank GOD it wasn't our TBD new car!)

Mrs. B

Cork and Pork Festival

Cork and Pork Logo

Yesterday was Rock of Ages Winery 2nd annual Cork and Pork festival. Rock of Ages is a fairly new winery out near Hurdle Mills (about a 45 minute drive from our house). We stumbled on it quite by accident last year and discovered that their wines are actually more than decent. Even the semi-sweet ones (using the muscadine grape). Anyway, we decided to attend this festival since it seemed like a nice way to spend a sunny afternoon; listening to music, drinking wine, eating BBQ (although we never got around to eating BBQ).

Scenic, huh?

We spent some time talking to the owner, Kevin, who explained to us the ins and outs of opening up a winery and how, if you want to have wine available on the day you open, you typically have to use someone else's grapes and make the wine somewhere else. Which is what he did (using Chatham Hill, which explained the mystery of why Chatham Hill Winery was on the label of his 2005 Merlot and Shiraz).

Mr. B

At the festival, Kevin introduces new releases; this year, it was another release of Cork and Pork, a semi-sweet red which was concocted to specially go with their BBQ sauce. Also introduced this year was a semi-dry Riesling and another semi-sweet red called Bushy Fork Red. Knowing that we planned on buying a supply of wine (we want to share it at our family reunion in August), we sampled quite a few of the wines available.

Mrs. B

Even though I don't usually like sweet wine, the Busy Fork Red went down refreshingly smooth in yesterday's afternoon heat. Judging from the crazy dancing antics of two of the ladies sitting in front of us, they'd been helping themselves to a lot of vino throughout the day! They were really amusing to watch.

Crazy Dancin' Fool Ladies

Most people, though (like us) opted to stay sitting on their butts (and not shaking them). It was a perfect day weather-wise for sitting outside and sipping wine and the winery is quite lovely.

Biker People w/ Winery in Background

We listened to both of the bands, Pizazz and The Castaways; before finally leaving around 4:00 or so. We ended up buying a case of wine, too (which we will do our very best to hold onto until August!)

Our Bounty!

Unfortunately, we didn't eat any BBQ; we had a cheese and cracker plate and MEANT to go back to get BBQ, but, satisfied ourselves with more wine.

But, hey, we can always go back to the winery and buy some of that sauce as it is yummy. And more wine too, of course!

Mrs. B