October's flying

I'm back at the farm after a family wedding this past weekend in Illinois. Tomorrow a former teaching colleague arrives for a few days, so I'm taking advantage of a pause to post a quick summary of the past two weeks.
Wednesday the 10th I had a lovely long visit with my Amish friends. While there I got to play with the two youngest and then have a visit with all the older ones as they arrived home from school. I wanted to hear all about Lovina's auction experience of the weekend before and see all her new things. She told me about her "mistake" and took me out to the shop to see a lovely cabinet she wouldn't be able to keep. I told her I thought it would work in my sewing room and told her not to sell it until I talked to her again. 
Thursday the 11th a new acquaintance and I went on the autumn quilt shop hop of the 5 quilt shops that are closest to Viroqua. It gave us a chance to get to know each other better and see what's new in each of these shops. Along the way I took her to the cross stitch shop in LaCrosse to pick up this year's Prairie Schooler Santa, and to the international garden that's there in the park along the Mississippi.
Jerome arrived Sat. the 13th. He stopped at the farmers' market in town and spoke with all the Amish families we have come to know and delivered the oils he had picked up for one of them for her soap making. While there he told Eli we would buy the cabinet and asked if he could deliver it since it is too large for either of our cars.
We were in the midst of our first rain in weeks.

Despite the weather, during this visit we:
cleaned up the gardens, mowed all the grass and gathered the leaves and clippings for the vegetable bed, put away the hoses, attended a quilt show (my first time as an exhibitor), went to our town's third annual harvest parade, added 4 shelves in the middle basement room for my canned goods, put up peg board and a work bench in the east room of the basement, protected the basement windows, added a line in the chicken house for feeding greens to the chickens indoors this winter, repaired some of the gingerbread trim on the back porch, set out and filled all the winter bird feeders, rearranged the garage, helped Eli set up the new cabinet then sat down and had tea with him and Lovina, started the snow blower and practiced using it a bit, dropped off my car for its appointment to have the deer damage repaired, picked it back up again 2 days later looking absolutely marvelous, cooked and ate several meals together, managed to fit in a bit of Qi Gong, and more. All too quickly he was gone again.
Since then I've been to my quilt guild and helped present a session, attended my fiber arts group where I shared some of my crocheted doilies and was asked to teach a class, drove to and from Illinois for the wedding, met with the librarian at the local middle school/high school and set up my volunteer schedule and the first two projects she'd like me to tackle, and just last night had dinner with neighbors.

Above you see my new cabinet. Lovina's "mistake". She had bought it at auction, being caught up in the thrill of bidding on a solid wood piece and getting it for only $65. Unfortunately, an Amish home isn't supposed to have anything but plain paneled cabinets.Timing worked out well since Jerome was here to help get it into the house. Wish I was allowed to photograph the buggy with the cabinet on it and the horse standing so patiently just off our back porch!

Phil was his cousin's best man. He and Dane just love to fish, as does the bride, Greta. You can see a lure in Phil's boutonniere.  The theme continued as you can see in this shot of the wedding cake.

Our table favors were chocolates in the shape of fish. Even the flower girl's bouquet was arranged in a pail that had BAIT printed on the front.
Today it'll be house jobs and a bit of last minute work outside before my friend arrives and the warm weather departs. A nice quiet day. Just Dovey and me, and one small mouse that was brazen enough to wander up from the basement and give Dovey a restless morning.