Super Saver Saturday

Since we're going to be traveling three out of the next three months, and I don't get paid when I don't work, money for luxuries is pretty tight right now. At the same time, all work and no play is no fun. So Matt and I set out today to have as much fun as we could, close to home...for free.

For whatever reason, northern Virginia (and Virginia on the whole) has a ton of wineries. They vary widely in their level of swankiness and how much they charge for a tasting. Our favorite ones have tastings for free.

Today we checked out two. The first was Fabbioli Cellars, a small family-owned winery which is now a new favorite.

We arrived at 11, right when they opened, and were treated to a friendly, low-key, informational (and most importantly, free!) tasting of of several (probably 8 or so) of their wines, from white to red to a port-style pear wine. In addition to grapes, they also grow their own pears and blackberries, which are also featured in some of the wines. Delicious! Like our old favorite the Gray Ghost (whose tastings are also free), we liked just about everything we tasted. We've found that this is kind of a theme; either we like everything at a given place, or nothing. There's rarely an in-between.

The second place we went to was Tarara, which is a winery as well as a bed and breakfast, and offers things like private paddle and wine tours on their manmade lake. It was nice, but clearly catering to an upscale clientele--not really our kind of place. The tastings cost $5-10 per person and since we weren't in the paying market today, we just strolled the grounds a little bit before heading back out.

While we were out and about, we were fortunate enough to stumble upon Temple Hall Farm Park, a working farm which specializes in preserving heritage breeds of animals. AHHHH! Talk about right up our alley!

Me with the aptly named large black hog

Trying to keep up with this peacock, who wasn't so interested in being photographed

Hog nose!

We didn't take part in the pony rides...

but that didn't stop us from getting up close and personal with them!

A friendly goat

An assortment of squash (or are they gourds?)

We spent an enjoyable hour or so interacting with the ponies, goats, chickens, pigs, and turkeys, before we ate the lunch we had packed--Mexican casserole.

Mexican casserole has recently been declared an official binge food,
necessitating consumption with chopsticks

We then hit up a couple of antique stores, not because we planned to buy anything, but just to browse. And take silly pictures.

A few other images that money can't buy:

This evening, we made salmon patties for dinner (more on that later) and then went for a stroll down to Lake Anne. We took in a the sights and visited the Reston Used Book Shop, where we used a store credit we had to buy a used copy of A Sand County Almanac, a hippie classic. Here are some images of Lake Anne at night:

The final tab for the day? $0!