Well, we had an eventful weekend around the Pants household, what with lavender farming, attending a tribute to a comedian taken before his time, and getting into a high-speed highway crash from which nobody even contracted a case of the whiplash. (Yet. And maybe more on these later.) Plus, we rented and watched Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (HORRIBLE!!!! HATE GWYNETH!! HATE!) and Troy (Pretty good!).
As you are probably unaware (we definitely were until recently), the Hill Country plays host to a bunch of lavender farms. There was a festival this past weekend in Blanco, a town of about 1500 west of Austin. We decided to head out, and had a great time.
Mr. Pants Pickin'
Moi in action
We first went to Blanco's Market Days, which was basically a bunch of vendors sitting around the courthouse, and poked around some. It was mostly cheap jewelry -- a couple of neat vendors, but nothing much. We did buy for-real kettle corn, which was being prepared in a giant hot black kettle (in 97-degree heat!), and we bought some fig preserves and apricot/jalapeno jelly from a nice lady who was pretty hard of hearing. As we were paying, some guy all in khaki, with a long ponytail, came up and began questioning the lady as to what ingredients she put in her preserves. So not the point, when you're buying hand-labeled preserves from a woman sitting behind a folding card table! He asked what was in the peach and cranberry jam (sounds yummy) and she looked at him and said "You want to know what jam is?" "No, what's in it?" Eventually (and it did take a while) she told him "Peaches, cranberries, and sugar." (DUH.) He looked at her, said "Sugar... hmmmm" and turned around and left. Meanie. What does he think goes in a jam, anyway? Must be from Austin.
After Market Days, we went to a very packed lavender farm where they sold products shipped in from out of state (huh?) like lavender pillows, cooking lavender, lavender soap, and so on. Then we went to a newer farm where we were given a pair of scissors and a basket and sent out into the fields to cut little bunches of the sweet purple flowers, so now we have a little bunch of lavender buds drying in our guest bathroom.
Unfortunately for the organizers of the first annual lavender festival, our spring has been unusually cool (coulda fooled me) and humid, and those conditions coupled with our annual spring smoke from Mexico have made for a late blooming cycle this year. So, there were almost no blooming lavender plants for the lavender festival. Oops! At least it was 97 degrees outside. With the clear skies and heat we've been enjoying the last few days, we should have lovely fields of purple sometime soon.
We'll definitely have to go back.
Girlie
