Weekend

Friday night we did our usual shopping, extended a bit this time by a trip to Hobby Lobby for more yarn and silk ribbon for my friend Faith. They did not have the yarn I was looking for so we stopped at a Michael's in Winston-Salem on Saturday afternoon where I found what I wanted and on sale too. Me like. :) I bought yarn for another shawl and and for some hats, looks like we will be getting a much colder Winter than we had last year.
Since I don't get out much during the week, I really enjoy being out and about on the weekend. On Saturday we first went to the Farmer's Market, I wanted fresh apples without the wax the ones from the store are always covered with and I wanted to see if I could still get red and green peppers, they still have them and at half the price of the ones in the store. I also got potatoes and onions and pretty green beans.
After the market we went to the Annual Corn Shucking Frolic at Horne Creek Farm in Pinnacle, NC. The farm is a living historical farm owned by the state. It was a perfect Fall day, sunny and warm with a cool breeze. There was a lot going on at the farm, demonstrations on how to make apple butter, molasses and dried apples, making corn shuck dolls and of course corn shucking, everything the way it was done at the farm ca. 150 years ago. The farm house has been lovingly restored and it is beautiful. The Hauser family, who started the farm, came from Colmar in France, they had 12 children - 11 boys and 1 girl. They were successful farmers and at the last turn of the century (19th to 20th) the farm was over 450 acres big. We also went on a ride in a mule drawn wagon to the Southern Heritage Apple Orchard, where they grow over 400 old apple varieties to save them from becoming extinct. In today's paper is an article about the man who actually started doing this after he retired from the Army in 1982 and who gave the trees for the orchard to the Horne Creek Farm, very interesting. People in costumes of the time were doing the demonstrations and also giving tours of the house. There seemed to be an unusual large number of lady bugs in the house and when I mentioned it, the lady who did the tour said that when she opened the house in the morning she swept out about 4 shovels full of them. Yikes, I guess that would be a bit too much country for my taste. ;) We got to taste the molasses they were making and I bought a jar of it, it is delicious and I plan to use it in a shoo fly pie and a molasses cake (they also handed out recipes for cake and cookies). There was also traditional music - Bluegrass, I just love it - and dancing. The food was simple and very good, we had pinto beans and ham biscuits and shared a fried sweet potato pie and homemade icecream. I took over 100 PHOTOS at the event. The countryside up there is gorgeous and the trees have turned nicely, I love all those blazing yellows and reds with the dark green of the pines mixed in.
It is funny, when we first moved here we had planned to move to Randleman, which is south of High Point, but now, since Del got a job in Winston-Salem we are more and more going north on our explorations. The countryside is totally different there as you get closer to the mountains, it is very hilly and wooded with farms in between. I don't really want to move away from High Point anyway, I really like it here, big enough to be a city, small enough not to be disgusting. ;) And now, that the Furniture Market is over for this year, it is nice and quiet again.
On Sunday we went to a Model Railroad Show in Winston-Salem. Del was happy, he found what he was looking for. The weather was totally different from Saturday, cold and raining buckets. After lunch I spent the rest of the day watching three races and two football games - all at the same time :) - and finishing my shawl and starting the first hat.