Anniversary Trip

As you know, last week was Mr. Cleaver and I's one-year anniversary. As part of our celebration we returned to the site of our "first" date: Bradbury Mountain. We call it our first date now, but I use quotation marks because at the time I didn't realize it was a date. This was not the first time I went on a date and didn't know it either. That probably tells you a lot about me right there. But I'm more than happy to call it a first date in retrospect. 

It was a beautiful day. The color was in it's early stages (it's peaking gloriously right now), but it was beautiful nonetheless.

Oh and stay tuned this week for a new sewing project reveal and a surprise!

Taking in the Season

I am not alone in my love of fall in the blogsphere. It seems ever blog I read in is love with the colors, flavors, textures, and crispness of fall. 

I love fall for all the usual suspects: apple cider, the sense of renewal, school supplies, the scent of the air. I also have a bonus reason to love fall: it's when I both met and two years later married Mr. Cleaver. So the fall is very special to us both.

So this past Saturday we engaged in some traditional fall activity and went on our third annual apple-picking trip. We really liked the orchard we had been going to in Illinois, so the standards were high for our first Maine venture. It had so have a few things: 1 - a wide variety of apples, 2 - pumpkins, and 3- (most importantly) apple cider doughnuts. Seriously, I live for my once-a-year shot to eat apple cider doughtnuts hot out of the fryer. I keep thinking about trying to make them on my own, but I think it might take something away from the experience. That said, and I'm not promising anything (having still not posted an actual S'more pie recipe), don't be surprised if apple cider doughnuts appear on this blog in the next month or so.

Ricker Hill Orchards was a hit on all three points. Crisp juicy apples (organic and non), delicious hot doughnuts (weekends only), cheery pumpkins, and amazing views. Not to mention the fantastic play area.

Oh, and this is pure genius, they had giant slingshots for the rotten apples. See if you can spot Mr. Cleaver's apple in the photo above. The boy below's name is David (I didn't catch the irony until I was captioning the picture) and he asked me to take a picture of him, so I was happy to oblige. 

We got lost in the corn maze, but did solve it on our second try.

But Mr.Cleaver holds a grudge, so after we got out, he decided to mow it down.

(Totally kidding on that)

We also both gave a go at the obstacle course. Look at the following images while humming the theme to "Rocky" in your head, it makes it better.

 

 

 

 

Who do you think won? 

Not that I'm a biased judge or anything. :)

Oh and we did pick a bunch of apples too.

Fair Weather: Part II

About four days after visiting the Common Ground Fair upstate, Mr. Cleaver and I stopped by the Cumberland County Fair on Wednesday.

This was much more similar to the fairs I grew up with. There were rides:

(I totally loved this girl, her poor car kept getting stuck, which is totally what would happen to me.)

There were games:

(Neither of us hit the bell)

There were prize-winning livestock:

Giant vegetables:

Oxen Pulls:

and a blacksmith demonstration:

(The smithy even gave us one of the hook he made)

The weather was again, perfect and I had a fantastic time. Even though I ate too much fried dough, my faith in the county fair is totally restored.

Next up on the fall activity list: apple-picking!

PS: As always, these are only a portion of my photos, if you're interested in seeing more, you can check out my flickr.

Fair Weather: Part I

I have to admit that growing up I hated fair season.  

To me it meant nothing more than dancing on hot concrete stages that were every form of uncomfortable and I never got to do any of the fun stuff, like rides or games - except for once. Of course the piece de resistance of bad fair experiences was in high school when I volunteered to do a "Say No to Drugs" Puppet show, only to arrive at the booth to discover that I'd have to spend all afternoon sitting under a table next to the Vote No on 9 people. Not cool.

Nevertheless, when Maine fair season kicked off last week, I was thrilled and have now gone to not one, but two fairs. Since I took hundreds of photos, I'ma gonna break this up into two posts.

First, Marjorie, the woman who essentially taught me to knit, called and asked if I'd like to go with her to the Common Ground Fair. Run by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardens, this is meant one thing to us knitters: fiber, yarn, and the creatures that wrought it.

We had beautiful warm weather and a fantastic time.

There were pie cones:

Lots of fiber:

 

Spinning (which I really really want to learn, weaving too):

Llamas:

Sheep:

Sheep Herding:

And it wasn't all about knitting-related things, we also saw Native american dancers and drummer, chair makers, basket weavers, and boat builders.

But we did both some some lovely golden yarn from Enchanted Knoll Farms. Because really, it's all about the yarn, right?