Apples, Beer & Open Streets

This week has been going well without a car. Although now I take the car to work on Mondays and Wednesdays. Even still we've only gone 90 miles with the car since we got back from Milwaukee. I wish we had kept track of how many miles we were biking verses using on the car. Next time I will try to remember to do that. 

We had a fun filled weekend starting with having dinner with Cevonne and Jose at their house. 

Jose made us his homeland specialty of Arepas. They were so good.

I could go for some right now.

Madeline loved them too. 

It was even warm enough for us to hang out outside.

I brought over ground cherry pie made from all the unexpected ground cherries we grew in our garden. We headed back inside for dessert. 

We cut the pie like it was our wedding cake.

Scott had made cookies last week and I brought some over for them. They ended up making ice cream with it.

Of course we ate it.

Then we remembered the real reason we came over, to help them make their next batch of beer. 

I tried to figure out the instructions.

Mmm...malt syrup.

We had to wait for the mixture to cook for an hour. By this time it was getting late. We thought we would take a nap until it was done. 

It was really getting late so we gave up and headed home. 

I was selling my photos at Open Streets Harvest Fest in the morning.

The entire North Minneapolis stretch of Lowry from the parkway to the bridge was closed for the day.

The closed street is open to pedestrians, bicyclists and gawkers, thus Open Streets.

I borrowed my neighbors canopy tent and hung my two recent projects: Mapping Disaster and Midwest.

The fest attracted more than 5,000 attendees. I had at least 500, if not a 1000, people come through my tent. I only sold one photo, but people really dug my work. I'm blaming the lack of sales on the fact that most people were on bike.

After work I joined Scott only to catch the tail end of the fest. I wish it would have lasted an hour later so I could have seen the rest of the stuff.

It was probably the best event to hit the Northside since we moved up here. It was a really great day.

The next day I had (surprise) oatmeal for breakfast. 

We were meeting up with Cevonne and Jose again to go apple picking. 

Earlier this week I ended up biking all the way to Cevonne's kind of by accident. I suggested we bike there today to see how long it would take in one ride.

We found out that our year old bike pump is not functioning properly.

On the way Scott complained that we never use our car anymore and said what was the point of having one if we are making payments on it when we don't use it. I tried to explain it to him that we use it all the time for long trips and we will be using it a lot more when it gets colder out.

I've been loving commuting by bike. Scott has been doing it since we went down to having only one car so I understand if he gets frustrated when he could use it. 

I was really just annoyed by the rattly cage on her bike.

Oh yea, he told me I needed to take it off. I told him I wouldn't carry his groceries anymore. 

About an hour later we made it to their house. 

Jose had made the decision that he wasn't going to go and neither was the baby. We tried to convince him, but he had made up his mind. 

We try to go someplace different every year and this year we choose Thompson's Hillcrest Orchard. This one was actually at someones farm. I liked it because it didn't have many people and there wasn't any goofy hayrides or playgrounds. Just straight up apple picking. They also had raspberries to pick, but with the recent frost the picking season was over. 

Cevonne picked first, but we helped her out a little. 

"Look at this good one."

"Pose for me on the pallet"

After posing on pallets, we got back to picking.

She only got a 1/4 peck. 

She seemed happy about it.

Then it was our turn.

I used this funny step ladder to get the good ones.

We got a whole peck. Scott always thinks the bag is full when I can usually get 2 or 3 more apples in it. 

I was really hoping we could have gotten raspberries too. The only "entertainment" they had was watching them making cider from their old machine. 

We tried to brag to Jose about how much fun we had. He didn't buy it. 

Scott was hungry for ice cream.

I knew it hadn't been touched since we last stopped by, so I was in.

Did you notice I got a new hat. I forgot to mention that.

Dunkan was hungry for Scott's shoe. 

I showed Cevonne my new Alleycat website. 

(P.S. You should hire me for you wedding or other shindig!)

Meanwhile, I entertained Madeline. 

They're besties now that Brooke is her nanny.

Cevonne and JT had afternoon plans so we biked back to Minneapolis and said so long to St. Paul.

With all the vegetables we have from our CSA and garden we haven't been grocery shopping much this summer. I realized we never used our quarterly discount at our co-op and today was the last day. We thought we'd go there and stock up on some staples. 

We were ready for lunch, but I was carrying our apples with us. I didn't want to keep transporting them around so we decided to eat at the coop.

I feel like the Seward Co-op takes business away from neighboring restaurants  but I caved in. I had a yummy chicken and pepper sammie.

We stocked up on the bulk necessities.

I was worried we got to much stuff and that we weren't going to be able to carry it all. Especially since we had to get cat food and Scott got a bunch of meat for making sausages (It was on sale!), but we were able to get it all into our bags and on my bike. Still want to get rid of that rack Scott?

We had to detour around the West Bank since parts of Riverside were closed, but we made it home.

Either my glasses are falling down or I was tired.

I overheard the neighborhood kids say "What is that?" I looked outside and saw them looking at the ground. Then one of the kids said, "It's a dead bird!". Then they all screamed and ran away. 

With frosts coming up we had to harvest everything from our garden before it was too late.

Not bad. Our most successful summer to date despite being on our honeymoon and having little rain.