A Love Affair

Meet my new friend Natalie:
She is pretty rad. She is from Austin and an Americorp member. We had a great day together in San Francisco. A lady date if you will. If man dates are coming back, I am starting lady dates back. Here are a few reasons Natalie and I are friends:

1. Natalie is this excited about the pie we are about to eat2. Natalie loves local beer (at Magnolia Brewery)

3. Natalie is in an ice cream trance

4. Natalie did all this with me in one afternoon while thrift shopping. She doesn't mind eating pie, then french fries, then ice cream and to top it off tacos. Yeah, not many people will eat that many different foods in an afternoon.

Delicious pear and raspberry pie we ate at Mission pie!

I love ice cream, big time.
One scoop salted caramel, one scoop brown sugar ice cream with ginger swirl.

Daily Work

Last week I had a pretty good week at work. I got to go to Davenport, which is just north of Santa Cruz. My boss and I went to talk to a farmer about possibly supplying produce for a school district. Before our meeting we stopped and had lunch at this great bakery called Whale City.

It was a great place and they put leeks on hamburgers. So I love them.

The views were horrible.

What was even better was the farm we visited, Swanton Berry Farms. They are like the farmers I imagine I would be, if I was a farmer. They have a little store where you can buy pies, jams, and fruit. It's all based on the honor system so there is just an open till and you put in money for what you bought and take your change. The farmers were also super nice and told us everything we should do to get more produce into schools. Their advice was to find "one of the young kids who wants to farm" and rent 2 acres out to them to grow produce to just the school. I thought this sounded like a pretty sweet life. Living in Santa Cruz, farming 2 acres, selling to schools. Too bad my boss poo-pooed it as soon as we got in the car. I will keep on dreaming though. Two acres is such a manageable size and I could still have a llama and a goat and Cricket to herd them/eat grass with them. Here are some pictures from their store.

So Cute! Notice the guy laying down on the bench right there? He just biked really far and then ate some pie.
Kids Corner. The whole meeting I just wanted to play with those dinosaurs.
Take your pick!

They also have pick your own kiwi in December. Do you know how a kiwi grows? Tree? Bush?

Crickets Cushy Life

Cricket has the hardest life; 1,000 pets a day, hanging out on a farm all day, two doting parents. And now she gets biked to work in her personal doggie trailer. Yup, she's livin the hard life.

She is still a little nervous in it.
And she is really fat and heavy, at least my legs will look good.