While looking in the Texas Monthly Magazine (
http://www.texasmonthly.com/) Norma came across a small piece about a bicycle tour of the "urban farms" in Austin, our state capital. This sounded interesting so looking at the website we thought why not, assuming weather would permit us to do this in relatively good weather.
Having a family member in Austin for the past five years surely would help with the gathering of information so a grand daugther was contacted and asked about this bike ride. She had never heard of it.........
We registered on line and drove to Austin on Friday Nov. 30th. The next morning we meet Danielle and had a good substantial breakfast since we were going to be touring for quite a while.
We then went to the check in point at the Farmers Market at 400 Guadalupe Street; there were already many other bikers.
Enjoy the tour of the Farms in Austin Texas.
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| The early morning view from the Hotel Balcony. |
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| Here we are in the official yellow T shirts ready to take off. |
As with such events it is easy to get to get people to take one's photo, but can they do a "good job" is another question, as they generally chop off either feet or heads in the process of framing the photo.
Interesting people are usually part and parcel of an event such as this, and several were met along the way, and a few were photographed, with their permission of course.
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I just had to have a picture with the lady in the fruity hat -
this is Suzanne from Sustainable Food Center (on the right).
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Since a large number of bikers were involved mechanical support was provided and a number of bicycle mechanics were on hand to take care of minor problems. One such mechanic was Tim on his bikecycle.
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| Tim on his "rescue" bicycle. |
The tour covered a large area of Austin and it is hard to imagine that there are these small functional farms within the city limits, scattered here and there throughout the neighborhoods.
Unfortunately the map doesn't have a mileage scale, but it covers a large area. We bicycled the areas that are numbered starting at # 2 (in a Star) and ending back up there at the finish several hours later.
We visited all the farms that are numbered on the map as well as farm K (the only one that was a bit of a disappointment as my vegetable garden looks better kept than that). I just discovered looking at the map that we missed farm # 8 way out at the end of the green marked road. Now we have to go back and do that at another time.
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| The official tour map. Two routes or tours were provided. |
At first the track took us down to a trail along the banks of the Colorado River (a future canoe trip seems to be in the making). Then along the river for a while and then to the various farms. I did not note which photos are from which farms and so they are just placed here in the order they were taken.
Enjoy the photos, the people and the vegetables. It was a very good way to spend a day.
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| Going downhill to the river. This was rather steep. |
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On level ground along the river.
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We found the final resting place for "Jardin Comunal".
May he or she rest in peace and in very good soil and grow good, strong, tasty and nourishing. |
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It appears that those good people in Austin have even found a way
to go organic on plastic and grow it themselves. |
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| Veggies of all sorts and shapes and colors, but mostly green. |
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| You know it is a flower, I know it is a flower. Does it matter what kind of flower? |
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| A nice starbust or rays. |
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| Danielle admiring the radishes, which were giants, next to rows of carrots. |
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| Biking on the the next farm. |
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| Some of the farms had fauna as well as flora. Chickens, rabbits, goats, and donkeys. |
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| Do you like my profile? |
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| Should I smile? |
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| Cooling off with a "home / farm" made concoction that was very good. |
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| Way out on the other side of the "back 40". |
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| Rows upon rows of vegetables. |
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| Another tasty tidbit made from farm fresh ingredients. |
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When one is out in nature, as in touring urban farms, and there are lots of people doing the same,
it is important to have the facilities to take care of Mother Nature when she calls.
We understand it is used frequently by politicians as they are know the be full of "stuff". |
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| More vegetables. |
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| Norma taking a short break by the old farm shed. |
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| Butterflies and bees are so important for polination. |
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| At the entrance to Springdale Farm. |
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| Hot stuff. |
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| Good looking peppers. |
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| A basket of goodies, apples, lemon, bell peppers, other peppers, bananas. |
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| A field of pretty blooms. |
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| It has nothing to do with drugs; it has everything to do with eating healthy. |
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A sample of deer meat chorizo in kale soup with Christmas beans and turnip.
It was very tasty. |
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| A small sample of a lettuce wrap. |
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| A basket of goodies. |
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| Farm # 7 on the trip. Taking a break with the rooster and chicken. |
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| The break continues. See what I mean, people cut off legs and feet when they photograph you with your own camera. |
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Should we move to a farm, have a swing bench in a tree and sit out here in the afternoon?
Sounds pretty good but tell me, where is the nearest salt water? |
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| The would be farmer in front of his would be truck. |
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Good looking field, good looking truck, dare I say good looking "farmer".
Perhaps it is a good thing he is so far away so one can't really tell! |
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Some of the offerings at Farm # 7, the "Rain Lilly Farm."
These are empenada's with vegetables. |
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| A very nice custard dessert. |
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| Just another pretty bloom. |
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Austin is a hilly city, so about half the ride was downhill, meaning the other half was uphill.
Austin is also know for its very hot air, but that usualy ccomes from the politicians and is therefore so much closer to the State Capital |
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| The usual source of most of the hot air in Austin and for that matter in the State of Texas. |
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| Almost at the end of the trail, this is the "Old Farmers Market", map location # 1 |
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| Done, back at the car, wondering if we are going to have aches and pains tomorrow. |
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| Danielle and her granddad (me). |
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The day ended with a nice dinner at the Buenos Aires Cafe, but unfortunately
this is the only picture from there as the camera battery said enough for one day. |
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| The evening view from the balcony of our room. |
A great time was had on this excursion and I am very glad we did it. The next morning I did actually have aches in muscles I didn't know existed. The total trip was about 19.0 miles (30.6 km).
The picture below of the GPS information does include 8 miles from a previous trip as well as 1 hour of time from that same previous trip.
The route was, in order from start to finish and with map points listed; (Star 2) SFC Farmers' Market - Republic Square Park, 4th and Guadalupe streets. The first stop was at (L in a diamond) Festival Beach Community Garden at 35 Waller Street, then on to # 2, Hope Community Farm - 1908 Haskell, # 3 Hausbar Farm at 3300 Govalle, # 4 Boggy Creek Farm - 3414 Lyons (Sounds like the name of a scary movie from Alfred Hitchcock, # 5 Springdale Farm - 75 Springdale, # 6 Urban Roots Farm - 7651 Delwau, # 7 Rain Lilly Farm - 914 Shady, # 1 Hope Farmers; Market - 414 Waller.
And of course we cannot leave a couple of restaurants out. We had lunch at Hoddoddys' Burger Bar before heading back home -
http://hopdoddy.com/
Prior to the bike ride we had our really good solid breakfast at Kerbey Lane Cafe on Guadalupe Street, just a short distance from the bicycle ride starting point -
http://www.kerbeylanecafe.com/menu/
