Sunflower Picking at Hana Field

This week we went and picked our own sunflowers!

This trip was so much fun, we drove out to neighbouring city Irvine to a place called Tanaka Farms where they had a huge field filled with all different types of sunflowers. There were ones with giant blooms (which unfortunately didn't look so pretty, but maybe they would have if we'd caught them a week earlier) some smaller and medium sized ones and they had so many different colours! They ranged from a pale buttery yellow to a dark orangey red, and we tried to pick one of each! 

We paid $5 to get in and then bought a special keepsake plastic vase which we were allowed to fill with fifteen blooms (although no-one was counting so we definitely could have snuck in an extra few). We spent about an hour there and had a great time looking at all the different varieties and trying to get some really good pictures. 

Yes I wore the yellow dress specifically to blend in with the flowers

It was pretty hot on the way back, but they survived and now we have some lovely sunshiney flowers on our dining table. We also have a lot of pollen on the table as they seem to shed it at an alarming rate.

The farm had sunflowers ready for visitors at its satellite Hana field this week, and in a couple of weeks it will be a pumpkin patch too! On their main site they have regular melon tours in the summer and pick your own vegetables all year round so we are excited to try out all of their experiences.

On Monday it was labor day so Mitchell had the day off! We decided to celebrate and go out for breakfast. Unfortunately, labor day also means that a few places are closed and we couldn't go to Smokey Canyon BBQ like we planned. We instead got the much healthier option of a smoothie bowl. These are very thick smoothies you eat with a spoon which are covered in granola and even more fruit. Mine was dragonfruit with coconut and pineapple which was very tasty and very pink, and Mitchell got the safer blueberry and banana which turned his tongue a lovely shade of purple. 

A lot of fruit was harmed in the making of these

In the evening, Mitchell had to pop into the lab so we headed up to campus a little early and had a sunset picnic on the grass by the bell tower. As it was getting dark, we saw so many bats flying around. I still can't get a good picture of one, but I did get a blurry smudge on the walk home.

That tiny smudge you see in the sky is actually a bat

On Wednesday, after I had finished in the gardens for the morning, I met Mitchell and his lab group for lunch. It was really nice to finally meet the others I hadn't meet at afternoon tea and I am now offically in the bookclub group chat. I think I'll try and make it a regular thing as I often finish my herb garden project work just in time for lunch. 

Friday night we went for date night at the drive-in movie theatre. I brought some dinner and snacks and picked Mitchell up from campus ready for a double feature. It was fun, although I'm still jealous of those people in trucks who basically bring their own patio along. The second movie finished at about 12:30 so we got home pretty late, but not too bad. 

Parked up and ready to watch through a mud spattered windscreen

Our plan for Saturday morning was to go and visit downtown Riverside and the farmers' market. We (I) slept pretty late after our late night movie, but we made it just before noon and picked up some of our favourites from last time. 

The pretty Spanish inspired downtown area

We got some pistachio and some raspberry yoghurt, a loaf of garlic and cheese sourdough bread and we found a tamale (te-mah-lay) stall which sold veggie tamales! I tried the soy chorizo and Mitchell the cactus and peppers tamale (also called nopales). They were both very very tasty and this was the first time Mitchell had had a tamale so it was very exciting. 

Let's find some food!

Just in case you haven't had a tamale before, it's a Mexican food cooked by spreading corn flour dough onto a corn husk, filling it with toppings and then rolling up and steaming. You then peel off the corn husk and eat!

Tamales!

We're off for a Halloween inspired hike tomorrow (yes it's early, but I want pictures without other tourists) so we will let you know how that goes next week!

Lots of Love,

Emily and Mitchell