Bucket List before autumn

20. You know summer has arrived when you hear the screen door creak open at the Dry Creek Peach & Produce’s farm stand at 2179 Yoakim Bridge Road in Healdsburg. Inside the rustic store, you can purchase tree-ripened peaches, peach jam and heirloom vegetables. Hearing the screen door slam shut? Priceless.

21. One of the summer’s cheapest thrills is finding the sweetest, juiciest blackberries, growing wild from Spring Lake’s Blackberry Island to Coleman Valley Road on the coast. Bring kitchen tongs to lift up prickly branches, then forage away. If you don’t pop them all in your mouth, bake the bounty into a cobbler.

Classic lawn games such as croquet not only are easy and good for family gatherings, but add to an otherwise ordinary party. (Crista Jeremiason/PD)

22. Croquet anyone? This genteel game, bumped out of England’s famed Wimbledon fields by tennis, has survived as a back-yard pastime as well as a fiercely competitive sport. The basic rules and setup are simple, requiring only an open field and a croquet set consisting of two stakes, nine wickets and a couple of mallets and balls.

23. Dangling can cool you off, as you sit by a stream and let the water trickle over your feet. Dangle to your heart’s content at Santa Rosa’s new Flat Rock Park, located at the confluence of Brush and Santa Rosa creeks. Native Pomos used to dangle a fishing line there and, as the story goes, an Indian maiden named Rose was baptized there, lending Santa Rosa its name.

24. Family-friendly fishing holes are few and far between in Sonoma County. The folks at King’s Sport & Tackle in Guerneville recommend Riverfront Regional Park, just west of Windsor at 7821 Eastside Road, where you’ll find two lakes stocked with bass, bluegill and catfish. You can access the Russian River through a trail between the two lakes, but the rules are different there. To help save the endangered steelhead and salmon, barbs must be pinched and you can only use artificial lures, no live bait. Open from 8 a.m. to sunset daily. $7 per car.

25. One of the most undiscovered drives in Wine Country is the stretch on Coleman Valley Road between Occidental and Bodega Bay. Once you’re barefoot on the beach, uncork a rosé. Great producers include Bedrock Wine Co., Quivira Vineyards and Lasseter Family Winery.

26. Meet your partner on the dance floor at Bistro Sabor for salsa. The Napa restaurant stays open until 2 a.m. on Saturday nights, and it offers up tasty “street food” with Latin American dishes from $4 to $12.

27. Don’t miss sunset on the deck of the Alexander Valley Bar with the house special the Rye Knot?, a unique cocktail with sake and ginger beer in the mix.

28. Unwind with a Cedar Enzyme Bath & Wrap so you can feel like a noodle al dente. It’s the signature treatment at Osmosis Day Spa in Freestone and the only place in the Western world where you can experience this Japanese-styled bath.

29. Drink in Shakespeare at Sonoma’s Gundlach Bundschu Winery and be sure to bring a picnic. Performances of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” run Aug. 15 through Aug. 31. www.sonomashakespeare.com

Staff Writers Crissi Dillon, Heather Irwin, Meg McConahey, Peg Melnik, Diane Peterson and Dan Taylor.