Woodswoman Extraordinaire

Following our Farmers' Market excursion in Ithaca, we decided to take advantage of some of the wonderful places around the area for a walk. The Ithaca area is full of gorges, created long ago by glaciers. Many of the gorges have parks and hiking trails. Hence, the most classic of all Ithaca bumper stickers:

Very punny.

We selected one of our old autumn favorites: Taughannock State Park, off route 89 just outside of Ithaca.

Most people seem to walk the Taughannock Falls gorge trail, right up the bottom of the gorge and to the base of a picturesque water fall that is actually higher than Niagara Falls (but with a lot less water). While that is a lovely walk, it's short, and we tend to prefer a little more solitude for our woodland wanderings. Instead, we usually walk the rim trails - this time the South Rim.

It was a perfectly lovely autumn day, although deceptively brisk. The hounds, of course, thought it was a great romp. Well, Lucy did, anyway. I think Simon did not much relish certain parts of the experience.

You can't see them well in this picture, but can you spot the group of people on the trail ahead of Spouse and hounds? It just so happened that the SUNY Cortland women's hockey team was engaged in a team-building scavenger hunt along the upper trails as well. So, we repeatedly ran into groups of 5 or 6 young women at a time, who squealed with delight over our pair of goofy, wrinkly, droopy basset hounds. Lucy's response to attention is to to try to slurp and climb inside the skin of every person who will pay attention to her. She just eats it right up.

Poor Simon. This is generally how he feels about strangers:

Our kids were rescues from the local Humane Association shelter, and given how skittish and hand shy they were we assume they were abused before Spouse and I adopted them. Lucy has recovered just fine, but my sweet Slimy just tries to hide from strangers. Poor kid. He spent parts of the walk wishing Spouse's and my legs were larger and better for hiding behind.

It was no Adirondack High Peak and wasn't much of a workout, but it was incredibly beautiful and nice to get outside. I'll leave you with one of my more favorite shots of the day. No idea who created him, but I suspect he may have been one of the objects to be found in the scavenger hunt:

Bat with some frightful fangs? Angry bunny with a chin hair problem?

Spouse and I used to live in Ithaca, New York. It's a fascinating place, and while we certainly can't say we loved everything about it, it is a great place to spend a day. So, Saturday morning we ventured to the Ithaca Farmers' Market, which in my world is THE Farmers' Market, against which all others are measured. Thus far none others quite match it.

First, in order to understand the Ithaca Farmers' Market, you need to understand a little bit about Ithaca. It is an extremely liberal little city, crunchy-granola to the core, and its citizens are remarkably politically active. In fact, Ithaca can almost be summed up by one bumper sticker:

Yes, I would definitely say most true Ithacans both eat tofu and vote. Seriously, half the fun of the Ithaca Farmers' Market is reading all the bumper stickers on the cars in the parking lot.

Anywho, the Ithaca Farmers' Market is so fabulous for so many reasons. There are food vendors serving all sorts of organic ethnic tasties and the whole place smells delicious. Better yet, nearly every farm booth sells organic produce, and it is a requirement that all vendors only sell food grown or raised within a 30 mile radius. Inside the market:

Plus, remember that Ithaca is in the Finger Lakes region which is famous for its wines, so there are plenty of wine merchants with free tasting, as well as my very favorite hard apple cider vendor ever, Bellwether Hard Cider. That stuff has an amazing knack of disappearing from our wine rack.

Spouse purchasing organic broccoli raab from one of the many picturesque booths:

By comparison, the Regional Market in Syracuse (which we do our best to support anyway) has one consistent organic fruit and veggie vendor, and I'd guess that nearly 1/2 the vendors are merely importers rather than farmers. (Lemons in Syracuse in October are a dead giveaway that the produce isn't local... The Regional Market does, however, have some awesome meat vendors for organic buffalo, lamb, veal, and eggs.)

On top of all the amazing food vendors at the Ithaca Farmers' Market, the place is aesthetically pleasing. The building is lovely, is nestled right against beautiful Cayuga Lake, and is peppered with local artisans selling jewelry, hammocks, photographic prints, paintings, ceramics, glass beads, silk screened clothing (all organic cotton, of course), and other lovelies. And then there's also musical entertainment:

I spent way more money than I had planned, as always happens when we go there, but as also always happens, left with outstanding stuff: beautiful fresh greens, crisp apples, huge pumpkins, hard cider, and some artisan gems.

As if that wasn't enough to put me in a fabulous mood, on our way out, we spotted this Ithaca bumper sticker gem: