B and I were itching to get out of the house today so we headed on a drive to Bosque Farms. My initial goal was to stop by the DeSmet Dairy, but we ended up making some extra stops.
The DeSmet dairy sells fresh milk (raw or pasteurized), eggs and yogurt. It’s a low-key operation. The little store is pretty much help yourself. Payment is on the honor system: you put cash in the box or run your own credit card and leave the receipt with your signature. But if they are out of something and you call the owners will drive over to restock the fridge.
The first time I went, I took along my sister, and her two pre-teen kids. The kids were thoroughly unimpressed with our outing even though we did run into one of the owners and get a tour or the milking room. The building in the picture above is mostly all there is to see other than some green fields for the cows to graze in.
Frankly, I’m not quite comfortable with where milk comes from. I still drink it and as long as that is the case, I do like the idea of fresh milk.
B seemed to think it was very good milk. After we got home, S poured himself a cup but let B have a drink of it. B gulped down as much as he could and then threw a fit when S took the cup away. (B is freshly weaned this week.)
I have to agree that it is very good milk too.
On the way to the dairy, we saw signs for a Farmer’s Market so we had to go check that out too.
We came away from the Farmer’s Market with 4 dozen eggs, one large zucchini, tomatoes, plums, lemon cucumbers, normal cucumbers, a clove of garlic and a lavender plant for about $25.
I paid $2 for the zucchini though and it was definitely a rip-off. A booth a little ways down was selling similar ones for $1. I knew it was a bad deal even before I saw that: I know zucchini grow like weeds once they get going. And they’re not even really that good. The thing was that I had already picked it up and told the guy I would take it before he quoted me the price. I didn’t imagine that it would be so much, but I didn’t want to back out. So I just paid the $2.
We also drove by this big flea market on the way to the dairy so I decided I wanted to get out and look around there. It felt very flea-markety. Lots of little booths selling stuff that was mostly junk plus some nice tools. I seriously considered tool-hunting, but decided I wasn’t sure I actually needed any right now.
But otherwise, there was a wide assortment of well-used stuff: pans, clothes, toys, an old-school trike that I considered buying for B, weird things like packs of diapers and toiletries, gum and old license plates. It was dusty and the cigarette smoke was thick, despite being outdoors. I heard more Spanish than English.
I ended up buying a knitted snake finger puppet and small toy dump truck and bulldozer for B. The dump truck and bulldozer are already at work out in the sand box. The snake has eyes that I’d worry about B trying to eat, so I’m not sure he’ll get to play with it unsupervised any time soon.
So my take away from the day was this pile of loot and a few lessons learned. First, ask how much the zucchini is before deciding to buy. Second, survey all the booths before making purchases at any of them. Third, flea markets are a good place to buy toy cars.
One Response
Very interesting outing. Some of the things I’ve seen on your website are strikingly familiar. Like the dairy house and flea market you drove up to.
There was a picture in one of your earlier posts that had a sign reading “Black Hole” … A place in Texas I named when I was much younger that only two other people knew about. I made a visit to a farmers market there in New Mexico a few years ago, that I have fond memories of. I’ll always remember the fragrance of fresh fire roasted green chiles.