Gnawing on chunks of blue feta cheese while holding a baby goat in your arms. Buying spring greens so fresh they still wear soil on their roots. Tasting a little gewürztraminer at a Fraser Valley vineyard.

If that is your idea of a great summer day, you are ready for the new Circle Farm Tour organized just across the border in Abbotsford, B.C., where many small specialized farms have moved in to compete with the big commercial farms that feed Vancouver and most of British Columbia.

To access this tasty day trip from Whatcom County, cross the border at Sumas and do a circle tour or wander home via the Aldergrove/Lynden border crossing. Sumas Way crosses Vye Road, also known as Huntington Road or 8th Avenue, just north of the border.

Turn east (right) and follow signs about six blocks to great ice cream at Birchwood Dairy, 1154 Fadden Road, or west (left) two blocks to the Fraser Valley Trout Hatchery, 34345 Vye Road.

Sumas Way goes north through downtown Abbotsford, but you can avoid that by continuing west from the fish hatchery and turning (north) right on McCallum Road. Tourism Abbotsford is at 2478 McCallum.

On Saturday mornings, continue north on McCallum to Essence and turn right until you see the red balloons flying over colorful tent tops at the small Farm & Country Market at West Railway Street. The market is open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. through Oct. 8. It hosts about two dozen vendors now, and will grow tent by tent as the field crops come in.

This is a self-guided farm tour, but here is a possible itinerary. Follow your Circle Tour map west and north from the market to McLennan Creek Dairy, 30854 Lund Road. Three generations of the Watkiss/Tyn-dale family raise 150 goats, plus a few chickens, ducks, steers and pigs around McClennan Creek.

Pass the yellow Goat Crossing sign and you will find Jill Tyndale feeding the baby goats in a big red barn, tending mama goats uphill beyond the family home or selling the farm's award-winning goat cheese in the small market store. Try the Blue Capri and the Cranberry Caprabella feta cheeses. The farm also sells goat's milk and yogurt.

Do a self-guided tour of this farm free. If you want a "deep tour," or to arrange to milk the goats yourself, you can call ahead and pay $4 adults, $2 children, $10 family rate for the more time-consuming privilege.

Lynn or her staff will point you down McLehman and Downes roads to the popular Tanglebank Country Gardens, open Monday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 29985 Downes Road.

You must arrange a U.S. Customs inspection before you can take plants across the U.S. border, but you can enjoy strolling through this colorful cottage nursery, with their demonstration gardens.

You've missed the Mother's Day Tea in the Garden party, but mark your calendars for Art in the Garden Aug. 6-7, and the Outdoor Christmas Fair November 18-19.

The U.S. Customs office tells me that you can generally bring anything grown in mainland B.C. across the border into Whatcom County. You must not bring beef, but other meats, fruits and vegetables are usually acceptable. Call U.S. Customs if you have any doubts. Otherwise just eat the produce on the spot or take it to a picnic table at Mill Lake in downtown Abbotsford.

At the end of the day, you deserve a stop at Lotusland Vineyards, where Liz or David Avery will let you taste test their wines. The gewürztraminer is especially popular on a summer day.

Lotusland is one of several vineyards that take advantage of the warm days, cool nights, sand-and-gravel soils of the lush Fraser Valley. Save a few strawberries from The Fruit Basket farm or from the Little Farm House Country Market, and you can let the strawberry juice run down your chin and onto your shoes while sipping a little cool Fraser Valley wine.