Doing Spokane things!! -finally!!

So this past weekend was too good not to write a bit about what we have been doing.
It started on Friday (Martin's day off) when I announced that we would be going to get cherries from an area called Green Bluff. It is located about 40 mins away from home. If we took a better route it might even be closer. My idea was to get cherries because I love the taste of cherries in the summer, and raspberries because we need jam for the winter!! I scouted out where to go and we headed for a farm that only puts organic products on their trees. The drive was beautiful (after getting out of the city). Warm weather and lush fields and sunshine. When we arrived at the farm we discovered that the cherries(only pie cherries left) and raspberries were all gone. However they had beautiful apricots!!! hooray!! the Other taste of summer!!! We picked lots and lots. Everyone enjoyed the picking and tasting :)(Timo included!). We decided to eat lunch at their little cafe which was nice to have someone else make lunch.

 Then we set off to find some cherries and raspberries elsewhere. We made "wrong" turn and ended up going to a farm that I had read about that looked interesting. It was a u-pick veggie garden with a "mad scientist" farmer, growing nutrition boosted veggies (using garden tea) on a beautiful property and a Canadian to boot! We spent quite a long time at his farm -Looking at the emus, sheep and poultry, petting the cat and the collie dog on site- as well as picking cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, broccoli, basil, strawberries, and golden and black and wonderfully purpley raspberries. I plan on visiting that farm many times this summer and into the fall. He is growing Kabocha squashes that are to die for!!

squashes and cucumbers growing...

in one of the green- houses- Timo is sampling celery.

We came home and had a left-over salady meal and then I headed out with my friend Dawn to attend a concert that her friend was singing. It was part of something called "first Fridays" in Spokane. First Fridays is a chance for people to get out and enjoy art and music all over the city. It is a very popular Spokane thing to do! The location of this concert was just on the north side of the river (you could see some falls from the concert) at a place called Chateau Rive. It was a promotion of this new(ish) event space and the concert took place on the grass in this picture.

this photo is from the internets!

The band played from almost where the photo was taken and the river is right behind the photographer. On arrival we discovered that wine was complimentary as well as veggies and humus! It was fun to be there with Dawn as she was awaiting the arrival of her Kiwi partner- excited anticipation/whiling away the hours until it was time to go to the airport...

It was fun to see a slice of life that I don't get to see much of...

Dawn is a very attractive woman who used to be in broadcasting so many people remember her from her time on the local news. I wondered about how many people attend this sort of event in hopes of finding someone to hook -up with. Sure enough Dawn was hit on at least a couple times! I realized how bad I am at making people (men) feel comfortable in this sort of situation!...So after the concert was over we wanted to check out the building and the various businesses that make it their home. The most important one to us was the "Chocolate Apocothary" where we had to sample chocolate covered almonds and then have some double chocolate gelato. Poor us. :)

next stop, Saturday!!