Neighbors go Winning

Lorri, Mary and I went to Michigan for a Wine day. The drive to Berrian Springs Michigan was beautiful. The trees were changing into the most magnificent colors of fall. The reds looked like fire the oranges looked like pumpkins and the sky was beautiful blue and white clouds. In no time we felt like we had been transported to somewhere like California's Napa valley..The Land of Wine and Food. Only on a small scale. . We visited 5 wineries. The tasting was fun. We are not big wine drinkers.. .. But... we have found that we have been drinking the wrong wines for our taste. It is fun to get the education about how wine is made, when the grapes are picked and that it can be sweet and spicy. It is hard to believe that Michigan has so many wineries. It is very pretty to see the rows and rows of grape vines. I want to go see it in the spring. I found my favorite at the first stop. (Lemon Creek) This picture was take there. The bottle is the one I have griped in my hand. The young lady serving us was so fun. Right away Lorri said she never new wine could taste sweet. We decide we like sweet wines the best. Our next stop was Tabor Hill. This is where we came back to eat lunch. The menu is full of interesting dishes that we don't find at home. The Round Barn has a nice set up. They also make Vodka.. (my drink of choice) Wow it was expensive. The beer was good too. I really don't like beer. It did taste ok. I just didn't want to mix all that up in my stomach. I held my self back from buying the vodka. All three of us bought more then one bottle of wine at the Round Barn.. We really liked the Cranberry. I think we will be having that for Thanksgiving.. (I already drank one bottle with my friend Grace) woops had to share with her.. Free Run and , Domaine Berrien were nice too. You can see the storage vats at Domaine Berrien.

FABULOUS FALL DECOR AWARD

Given to me by Sue at Oodlekadoodle Primitives I'm so excited! Thank you so much Sue! You've made my day...Isn't it awesome? I'm suppose to pass this along to 6 people......So here are my picks....Drum Roll Please!!!

http://barnhousebh.blogspot.com/2008/10/barn-house-season-finale-part-1.html

http://bittersweetpunkin.blogspot.com/

http://lavenderhillstudio.blogspot.com/

http://lonadawn.blogspot.com/

http://rabbitruncottage.blogspot.com/

http://mirrorlakebb.blogspot.com/

The rules are to grab this award pic and post it on your blog, and nominate 6 of your choice for the same award! Of course, you have to tell the winners that they have been chosen.....

Just and Jots of October

One last trip to the Clear Springs Auction.
This is a beautiful box of Cock Comb. The colors are vibrant.

Indian Corn

Warted Pumpkins.. kind a pretty in an ugly way.. Pumpkins were once recommended for removing freckles and curing snake bites.
This cute cart of Flower (Mums) sold for $ 3. each. You had to buy the cart load. Brittney and I bought a car load at $2. each.

It is so easy to get carried away when the auctioneer is talking so fast and the excitement of winning the bid is so close.

Above is a bunch of flowers that look like cabbage. Ornamental cabbage . Brittney bought three swan gourds. She hung them in the garage to dry out. I think she has some creative idea to make something out of them when they are dry.

Harvest Day, Dirt Roads and Busy Dogs

Dogs are very important on our farm.Work Dogs and Watch Dogs.

This is Scooter. He is Kenny's right hand man. Scooter goes every where Kenny goes. He is wonderful company and entertainment. Every day he goes to work.

This is Cally. She is a blue healer. Cally takes hand directions very well. She can herd up any animal just by her instincts. She is actually my daughters dog.. But she also goes to work with Kenny every day also. They are very funny to watch. She is only 2 years old but looks like a more mature dog. I am taking them to the other farm where they will be running beans and trucking the beans back home to put in the bins.

Kenny, Scooter and Cally looking over at the field to see how things are going. Cute how Cally has her head turned just like Kenny.

Harvesting Beans on a Sunday.. That really is taboo. This is something that we have found very hard to deal with. My husband was brought up not to work on Sunday.. To keep the day as the day of rest. As the bible says. This comes from his wise and cautious fathers and family tradition. When I came to the family I had a hard time with this. His parents would take naps on Sunday.. They milked cows on Sunday. Like every other day. Twice a day.. That was still working.. Only work that was necessary. I never new that adults took Naps. My parents worked hard all week at there jobs. Sunday was the day that they did chores at home.. Let me tell you this is one thing that I really enjoyed about learning about my in laws. I like taking naps. Yea.. But.. I hate to say that we have had to work some Sundays. My husband, son and daughter-in-law all feel guilty..... but.. now a days we can not farm without having jobs other then farming.. When the crops need to harvest or planted we have to work it in around our other jobs. My husband drives school bus. We need that job so we can get insurance through the school. He has many other jobs also. He cooks whole hogs for wedding and graduations, has and ice cream machine that he rents out, we rent out deep freezers to Amish and does custom work. I do hair and sell grave plots at the cemetery. I am a coordinator for CETUSA exchange student program. Tanner is care taker of the cemetery and sexton. My son the grave digger.. My daughter-in-law works away from home and cooks a lot of the meals for the guys when they are in the fields. She also helps out a lot..!! Kenny loves her cooking.

We have to drive dirt roads to this farm. Right next to the field is a beautiful Amish house. It is a log home with a fabulous grand front porch. While I was waiting for Kenny I watched the children play on the steps of this house. They love to watch the big tractors and combines. While I watched them they watched us. All on a Sunday after noon. The small children were dressed in coats for the cool but sun shinny day.The smallest boy must have be 4 and the youngest girl 5. He had a little dark hat that fit tight to his head and tied around his chin. The little girl had on a white head scarf. Up and down the stairs the went. The little boy could not walk down the stairs he just scooted step by step on his butt.

Soon the rest of the family came out and they loaded up in a little open wagon pulled by a cute pony. Later as I was going back home I seen passed them all walking down the road. Everyone waved at me. and waved and waved and waved.

In front of a friend house is this fun fall decorations.

Harvest Days, Dirt Roads and Busy Dogs. Next Sunday maybe we will take naps.

Clear Springs Auction

I went to the Auction today. This auction is held 2 to 3 times a week. It is out in the middle of the country. Anyone can bring there produce here to sell and any one can get a number from the desk and bid to buy. I wanted to buy some flowers and pumpkins. It was such a beautiful day. The items that were being brought in were just fabulous. The sight had to be shared. I ended up spending all my time taking pictures and enjoying the people, sights and amazing colors of the fall. My friend Kathy was leaving just as I arrived. She had brought in 6 bags of a beautiful smelling plant.Sweet Annie. .It made the market smell wonderful.

The horse drawn wagons were lined up around the building. Two hitch wagons with Amish men driving them. On the wagons were pumpkins, melons, tomatoes and usually on the back a group of mums.

This is a beautiful box of Cock's Comb flowers. They get that name because they look like the comb of roosters. The colors of the produce were glimmering in the light.. I wish you could see them. I think of all the hard work it takes to plant, weed, water and harvest all this. I am not the greatest gardener. I know this had to be hard work. Most of the items in the sell were grown by Amish families.

The horse drawn wagons were lined up around the building. Two hitch wagons with Amish men driving them. On the wagons were pumpkins, melons, tomatoes and usually on the back a group of mums. I wanted to take a picture of a little boy about 5 years old. He was Amish so I ask his dad if I could take his picture. (because Amish adults do not want there pictures taken) The little boy was around 5 years old. He did not talk English yet. His dad ask him if it would be OK for me to take his picture.. The boy said no.. I don't think he understood what was going on. He looked so cute from a distance. When I got closer to him to talk, he smiled, all of his front teeth were rotten.. It was a sad thing to look at.

On the way home I took some pictures. This is a small market. I like to buy from this little market. They have a good variety and the price is usually right.

This is an Amish grave yard. The stones are simple. As there life is simple. In the back is a little building. That is the out house. It actually has one side for women and one side for men. There is a fence going all around it. I have a girl friend who belongs to a ghost hunting club. I will be posting pictures of grave yards for her.

4th Annual Camping and Horse Riding Weekend

Each year it gets easier and easier.. But... I am getting older and older..
We usually have 10 girls riding. This year we had 8. Even though I love to ride I am not always so sure I am doing every thing right. Dawn and I got help from Brittney.. Thanks Brittney.. (we did pay her well) What a hoot we had.

The girls all divide the meals up. By pairs we plan and provide for all. Dawn and I had breakfast. Biscuits and gravy. My favorite camping breakfast .

One of the high lights on our trail riding is in the river. We had a river race. Rhonda won.. My camera got splashed by Ronda's horse because it likes to splash everyone just like a kid playing in the water. This picture is kind of blurry. We left some great memories there!.

I am not sure who had more laughs, us laughing at each other or the horses seeing more then they had before. We were very very silly..

Dawn and are ready to go. My horses name is Chase. Dawn is riding her horse Star. The weather was just beautiful. This is on the hill behind our house. Our camp consisted of 4 horse trailers rounded up in a circle with our camp fire in the middle. Rhonda made p.j. pants for us. They are great to hang out in after a long
day of riding. (Thanks Rhonda..)

Not sure what meal this was..

This is Kathy.. She has a Great Bed and Breakfast at her house.. Themed around a cute Bunk house. Check her blog out. She has more pictures and stories about our ride. http://www.mirrorlakebb.blogspot.com/

We did good girls! We came out OK.. Just a lot of sore butts and knees.. Remember .. jump in the lake ..or river.... do something you have never done before.. live life .. have an adventure... feel the breeze .. make memories that will set you free...

Thanks to my friends for a great Camping and Riding week end.. can't wait to till next year..

Load um - up, haul - um out....