Both the Woodinville and Redmond Farmers Market opened Saturday May 5^th. I was really curious about the Woodinville Farmers Market because they said that they had relocated to the new Woodinville Village site... which is still under construction and pretty much just flattened earth with plumbing and electrical runs.

So, I jumped in the Subaru Saturday morning and shortly saw, yes, they had relocated. On a section of field, right off of RedWood Road.

So, I bought some flowers, a loaf of bread, and a medium bag of Kettle Korn (my summer-time vice). I dropped those off at home and then headed to Redmond. The Redmond Farmers Market was going full swing, too, with a bit of a change: the parking lot right next to the market is totally secured now, I assume by one of the Marriott buildings nearby, so there's no right nearby convenient parking. A quick view:

(The elderly lady all the way to the right sitting down has been at the Redmond Market since it opened.)

No lettuce yet, though lots of veggie starts and some interesting decorations for the outside (I'm trying to think of what to hang along the small trail in the back of our property to help blaze where the trail leads when things are a bit overgrown). I'm pretty use to the Redmond market and there are plenty of familiar vendors setup in their usual spots.

To top off the afternoon, I went by Red Hook Brewery's pub and sat outside (the outside seating area is already open! Although the resident black birds have been causing quite a mess.) and had a California Burger and Blackhook on nitro while reading the Saturday Wall Street Journal. Very nice. After that, I went for a walk around the buildings to enjoy the sunshine and decided to take a picture of the carbon overflow spouts that occasionally erupt with berry smelling foam:

...looks like it must have happened recently because the ground underneath looks pretty moist. Happily moist, I'm sure. I walked some more and noticed a lady park in a curious out of the way place back near the break-area of the Red Hook. Soon, she was out of her car and catching up to me as I walked along the back way to The Barking Frog. I looked over and it was Carrie Van Dyck of The Herbfarm Restaurant. (!) I shared with her that I realized it was just over two years now since I'd been to The Herbfarm. "What are you waiting for?!?" she kindly replied. We had a quick chat and parted ways.

I wrapped up my walk by looking over the Challenge Course down the river from The Willows Lodge. First, I looked at the loop challenge, quite happy that I accomplished that part on my trip to the zip-wire descent. Though I needed some advice to swing once I reached the mid-point. Then I looked at the one challenge I had to back-off of: the individual, hanging swinging steps. The trick was to move to the next one by swinging your free leg behind you, getting some balance, and then cross over your other leg quickly to the next step. Easy to think about.

And with that, I called it a day and headed home to chill with Bella.

(Started within Word 2007 but that hung trying to post [bucket 342245435], let alone being unhappy with my inserted pictures. Let's try Windows Live Writer and see how things go... wow, that was fast. So fast that I doubted it actually published! Okay, time to strip out two of those "..." auto-corrections from Word and publish again)

Woodinville - Redmond - Farmers Market - Red Hook - The Herbfarm