Saturday, April 20, 2013

#30DaysofScootering: Issaquah Farmers Market


I have to be at work at 10:00 AM, but the first Issaquah Farmers Market of the year opens at 9:00 AM at the Pickering Barn, so I scooter on over to check things out.


On the way, I spot a Steller's Jay (if you look at an embiggened version of the picture, you can see him in near the center of the above photo).


A bunch of saplings in pots that will be planted later today.


The Farmers Market covers much of the Pickering Barn parking lot.


These llamas seem content to watch all the people watch them.


The Issaquah planning folks are there with their maps for people to mark up with comments about what areas need improvements to make for better walking and biking.


Lots of flower and veggie stalls at the market.


It's still too early for the big pig to be serving BBQ.


The lady from the Forest Fairy Bakery is here and I buy a bag of cookies to take to work.


There are lots of craft booths as well.


And even more fruits and veggies.


I buy a cup of tea from these folks and it is really good. The blend is called Rainier and it's composed of Black Tea with Blackberries, Marionberries, Boysenberries, Cedar Berries and Cedar Leaf.  The warm tea is very welcome on this cool morning and I wind up buying a small envelope of the tea to take home.


This booth will be a bit busier later when folks gather to go plant those trees.


As I've noted elsewhere, I'm a sucker for art. I love these funky sculptures made from old metal bits.

I scooter off to work.

4 miles of scootering today.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson
Issaquah, WA USA

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kent, you are always so careful to tell us how far you scooter each day. How do you track distance on your scooter? Gps? ~ Mark

Kent Peterson said...

Hi Mark,

I'm keeping track of the miles so at the end of the month I'll have a total After the #30DaysofScooter, I'll probably won't track every mile.

As for my method, I don't use a bike computer or GPS. Instead, I punch my trip into Google maps. Often I can just put the end points of a trip in and use the "Walking Directions" option. Sometimes I have to drag the route a bit to fit where I actually scootered, but often the walking directions are good scootering directions. And Google Maps gives me a good mileage numbers.

A cell phone or GPS would probably work well. I played with an app on my Android phone and it seemed to do well in terms of speed & tracking. A cycle computer is problematic, the scooter wheels are too small to fit the normal programmed range of most computers, there is no easy way to mount a wheel magnet and I think small errors in the wheel size would propagate.

My map solution has the least fussing. While I'm scootering, I'm thinking about where I am and what I'm doing. When I get home, I figure out how far I went.

Anonymous said...

"These llamas seem content to watch all the people watch them."

what llamas do in Issaquah? are they for rent?

Kent Peterson said...

Those particular llamas grow wool and are at the market to draw attention to the wool yarn and other goods for sale. There are some places that rent out llamas as pack animals.