Urban Farm Bicycle Tour

 

     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.

The early morning view from the Hotel Balcony.

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.

I just had to have a picture with the lady in the fruity hat -
this is Suzanne from Sustainable Food Center (on the right).
 

     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.

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.

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.

Going downhill to the river. This was rather steep.



On level ground along the river.



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.

It appears that those good people in Austin have even found a way
to go organic on plastic and grow it themselves.

Veggies of all sorts and shapes and colors, but mostly green.

 

 

You know it is a flower, I know it is a flower. Does it matter what kind of flower?

 

A nice starbust or rays.

Danielle admiring the radishes, which were giants, next to rows of carrots.

Biking on the the next farm.

Some of the farms had fauna as well as flora. Chickens, rabbits, goats, and donkeys.

Do you like my profile?

Should I smile?

Cooling off with a "home / farm" made concoction that was very good.

Way out on the other side of the "back 40".

Rows upon rows of vegetables.

Another tasty tidbit made from farm fresh ingredients.

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".

More vegetables.

Norma taking a short break by the old farm shed.

Butterflies and bees are so important for polination.

At the entrance to Springdale Farm.

Hot stuff.

Good looking peppers.

A basket of goodies, apples, lemon, bell peppers, other peppers, bananas.

A field of pretty blooms.

It has nothing to do with drugs; it has everything to do with eating healthy.

A sample of deer meat chorizo in kale soup with Christmas beans and turnip.
It was very tasty.

A small sample of a lettuce wrap.

A basket of goodies.

Farm # 7 on the trip. Taking a break with the rooster and chicken.

The break continues. See what I mean, people cut off legs and feet when they photograph you with your own camera.

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?

The would be farmer in front of his would be truck.

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!

Some of the offerings at Farm # 7, the "Rain Lilly Farm."
These are empenada's with vegetables.

A very nice custard dessert.

Just another pretty bloom.

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

The usual source of most of the hot air in Austin and for that matter in the State of Texas.

Almost at the end of the trail, this is the "Old Farmers Market", map location # 1

Done, back at the car, wondering if we are going to have aches and pains tomorrow.

Danielle and her granddad (me).

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.

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.

 

     Here are links that I found to the various farms; http://sfcfarmersmarket.org/, http://festivalbeachgarden.org/, https://www.facebook.com/HopeCommunityFarm, https://www.facebook.com/hausbarfarms, http://www.boggycreekfarm.com/,

http://www.springdalefarmaustin.com/about-us.html, http://www.urbanrootsatx.org/,

http://www.rainlilydesign.com/, http://hopefarmersmarket.org/
and last but certainly not least; a link to Hillside Farmacy - http://hillsidefarmacy.com/

 

     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/

 

     We had our nice dinner the evening before at the Buenos Aires Cafe - http://www.buenosairescafe.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/

The Fall (failed) Vegetable Garden

     We have not been to the veggie garden since May or so, at least that is my recollection. After a good summer there was some harvest of the usual stuff; tomatoes, carrots, bell peppers, hot little peppers, radishes galore, and other things that slip my mind right now. In other words, the garden did fairly well with the amount of rain we had this year, so much better than last year.
     In mid August, for the third time in the past nine years, I had good soil with plenty of compost added to the garden. Each time I have ordered 3 cubic yards (27 cubic feet per cubic yard = 81 cft3). For those of you that work in the metric measurements this is 2.3 m3. In other words, it fills up a small truck and is quite heavy. Some of this soil has always been used to build up the flower beds and the balance, usually about 2/3 (or about 54 cubic feet) for the garden. Now in order to move it to the garden it has be moved by wheel barrow about 33 meters, not much if it is done in one or two wheel barrow fulls, but quite a bit when one had to move it in multiple loads. I have noticed that over the years, this soil, which is identical to the soil ordered previously, has gotten considerably heavier each time or is that a result of the mover of the soil having gotten older, each time about 3 years older, so by a factor of 3 times x 3 years interval x 13 wheelbarrow loads (117 times older???????? or is this what is called faulty math or self-serving math????).
      Anyway, after the soil was put in and tilled in with the existing soil, it was allowed to rest for a couple of weeks and then a fall garden was planted with winter squash, carrots, beets, red cabbage, cilantro, Italian parsley, fennel, spinach, onions, garlic and cauliflower.
      It appears that the soil is way too acidic, in other words, too much compost, because many of the plant began to develop nice leaves that then just withered and turned brown. Much of the rest of the stuff that survived is not really growing, it seems to have been arrested in development and is just sitting there waiting for something to "kick" it off.
      A few of the carrots seem to be growing, at a snails pace, as do some of the beets. Out of the 8 winter squash plants that survived 4 are developing fruit, one of which should be ready to harvest the end of this week. The rest of it just sitting there waiting for something.
      Here are photos of this sad tale of home grown veggies.


A view of the mostly empty garden plot with the surviving carrots in the foreground.

The beets, only half of the seeds developed to this point.

One of the four surviving Winter Squash plants with blooms and fruit as seen below.

This particular squash should be ready to harvest in a few days.

Out of six fenned seeds only three survived and they look kind of anemic.

The Italian parsley, which just sits there at this size, not doing anything, except looking like it really needs something,
perhaps it needs to be transplanted to Italy so it will feel at home. Other  years the parsley has grown almost to bush like proportions.

     As seen in the parsley above, the Cilantro is just as anemic. We have not had a tremendous amount of rain this fall, but have had some rather warm days and adequate water. It may be that I will pull everything there when ripe / ready, then till in a lot of fallen leaves and then let the soil rest for one year. We shall see as I have not yet made up my mind.

Go West .... (12) Loretto Chapel

     After our excursion to the Salinas Trail Missions we needed a day or two to unwind which was done in Santa Fe. If I have mentioned this before I apologize for repeating myself but ---- our trusted 2004 Subaru Forester must have felt like it was at a family reunion, it seems that every 4th or 5th car in Santa Fe was a Subaru of some sort, either Outback or Forester plus a few others.
    I may also have mentioned that we have switched from Windows XP to Windows 7 (Win 7 and I do not get along very well), meaning that our trip notes, which were saved on Win XP, suddenly have turned into "machine language" and they are no longer readable by ordinary human beings. As a result I have to rely on memory, which is a most dangerous thing at my age, as I have a number of fairly regular "senior moments" but can't remember why they occur.
     Our first stop of the day was at "Santuario de Guadalupe", which is the oldest sanctuary in the United States dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe. The church itself is typical Southwest and not very imposing. There were some helpful people inside and a rather small gift shop.
     One should note the various links to additional information about this particular church;
http://www.yelp.com/biz/santuario-de-guadalupe-santa-fe
http://www.bing.com/attractions/search?q=Santuario+de+Guadalupe%2c+Santa+Fe&qzattrid=w294718&qpvt=santuario+de+guadalupe+santa+fe&FORM=DTPATA
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=santuario+de+guadalupe+santa+fe&qpvt=santuario+de+guadalupe+santa+fe&FORM=IGRE

         Then we went on to that absolutely must see place in  important place in Santa Fe, the place with the miracle staircase that has been the main "actor" in a movie or two; the place everyone knows about - Loretto Chapel.
        Rather than giving you, the reader, a lot of details about this chapel I will add links to the various websites dedicated to the chapel and its history, however, in the context of American (US) history it is important to note that Santa Fe was established as a city 10 to 11  years before the Pilgrims, those of our nations founding myth, even left Europe. The links will follow after the photographs however I need to recommend that you see the 1998 movie "The Staircase" with Barbara Hershey and Diana Ladd. I seem to also remember a much older B/W movie from years ago on the same subject but can't find it by "googling".


The Altar area of Loretto Chapel

 



A view of the famous staircase as it looks now.

The choir loft which necessitated the staircase as previously
 the good sisters had been using a simple ladder to get  up and down.

Another look at the staircase.

 

Loretto Chapel from the outside (that should be obvious).

Another view of Loretto Chapel.

And the promised links which offer much information.

http://www.lorettochapel.com/history.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loretto_Chapel
http://www.philipcoppens.com/santafe.html
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/ghosts/loretto.asp
http://www.lorettochapel.com/

     It is rather difficult to put into words the images and impressions one gets from a location like Loretto Chapel, it has to be experiences, preferably not as a "tourist" having to see this and that, and then checking off a list of "I have been there and there and done this and that. Rather it should be a spiritual journey walked with those early sisters as they struggled to build this place and to make it function.
     When you go to Santa Fe, make this a stop.