Sustainable Saturday - Baby Ducks, Garlic, White Currents and Dragon Boats

Today, July 14, would have been my father's 98th birthday.  I dedicate this post to my father, a 100% lover of life in New York City.  I'm sure he never quite understood what drove his daughter to leave the City as soon as she could, led her to life in Florida, Texas, Kansas and then rural life in Arkansas for a few years, and then to upstate New York, (although by the time of my return to New York he had passed away).  But he supported me every minute of it with his love. Happy birthday, Dad!

Today was a Dragon Boat festival in Ithaca, in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, and about an hour from where I live.   Our first stop, however, was the Ithaca Farmers Market, across an inlet from the festival.

We alternated between looking at produce and looking at the dragon boat races.

To my delight, adolescent and baby ducks were also watching the races.

At one of the entrances to the market, we are encouraged to Buy Local.

One of the booths featured red currents, white currents, black currents, pink champagne currents (the ones at the end of the display) and gooseberries.  We bought a container of the pink champagne currents, which are so sweet you can eat them raw (although they have a lot of tiny seeds in them.  My spouse plans to cook them into a sauce to be served over grilled salmon.

 

Continuing the trend of early produce, the garlic is ready!  There were a number of booths featuring large and extra large bulbs of various garlics.  We bought 4, including 2 of spouse's favorite:  Music.

And last but not least...

Here is one view of the dragon boats.  (What a beautiful view from the farmers market, isn't it?)

I will blog more about the dragon boats and the festival later this month.

Are there dragon boat races in your area?  They seem to becoming more popular.