Halloween ..... Late!

We carved pumpkins with a couple of teens before Halloween.  I am a mentor to a high school youth through a church program and we try to get together once a month to do something, even if it's just to visit over ice cream at DQ.  She brought her best friend, another church youth, out to the house and we carved pumpkins.  

Hers is the one below.  She did Cookie Monster and Elmo in the same pumpkin...........

 It was really fun.  

I can't believe how October got away from me.  This may be a long post just to catch everything up.

Harvest got finished perhaps the earliest ever.  Willow very much enjoyed one of the antlers they unearthed in the field.  

She proudly carried it around, almost poking out an eye a time or two.  They found some other antlers, but the truck drivers made sure to get them into the backs of their pickups before Willow could find them.

Sarah came to visit the weekend of the craft festival and quilt show in Arrow Rock.  Of course, she brought her kitten with her.

We enjoyed some mother/daughter time at the quilt show and she accompanied me to a big sale at a quilt shop where we purchased 4 rolls of batting and several spools of thread.  Sarah was proud to say she hauled in those big rolls of batting.

And the kitties tried to learn to get along together.  You can see that Lara, Sarah's kitten, would really like to play with Esme.

About the time the weekend was over, Esme had warmed up to the kitten.

Later that week, I helped make apple cider at a friend's house.

Their press is nice because it has 2 baskets and a motor on the chopper.

I can't remember for sure, but I think we made about 12 gallon that morning.  That weekend, David and I loaded up the back of the car with apples and headed to Bethany to make more cider.

We had a LOT of apples..........

And it was all done by hand.........

 

One thing my friends didn't have was a tractor with a loader bucket to haul away the scraps.

My sister and brother-in-law from Iowa came to help.  We questioned my dad as to why we had never done this in year's past when all of his grandchildren might have been around to help.

A lot of empty buckets............

And the LAST apple........

A big bucket full of scraps...........

 And 25 gallons of cider........

Sarah and her boyfriend, Aaron, would have driven up from St. Louis to help, but they had a wedding to attend.  So, at least we got some photos........

My sister, David, my mom, and I went to the Amish store in the afternoon.  We traveled some dirt roads and found a place selling pumpkins.  I managed to score 4 big pumpkins for $3 each.  This is what we used for pumpkin carving.  I had told David that the car wouldn't be nearly as full on the trip home since we wouldn't have apples, but with the big pumpkins, empty buckets, cider, and a stop to grocery shop at Hy-Vee on the way home, I think we actually had more stuff.

And, we added the name BARBER to the tail fin of the windmill while we were there.  It's still going strong.

And that's how the wind blew us through October.  Some sewing was completed, but I don't have pictures yet.  Stay tuned............

Christi