Apple Picking

 Between sessions of Conference weekend we went apple picking at Stotler's orchard. We were very lucky and missed the down pour of rain that came our last few minutes of picking. 

 We picked 3 bushels or 6 bags. ("6 bee-aggs" - if you ask an Ohio resident)

We let our apples dry before putting them away. 

Somebody picked this "snow white apple"

Beautiful!

 It was gigantic! Look at it compared to a "normal" apple.

Boyd and I did a good job picking plenty of Golden Delicious apples. They sure were delicious. 

 This one looks like a ______

(I will let you fill in the blank) 

 

Our in motion picture (below)

After it had started pouring

even though this is a blurry picture I like it because you can see the wet/dirty spot on Boyd's shirt, all in the name of getting the biggest, prettiest, juciest, apples.  He wanted this bunch of apples at the very tip top of one of the trees. I somehow ended up on his shoulders, flexing my abs to keep myself from falling, trying to pick these "perfect" apples. Then he hoisted Heidi up and she polished off the pretty apples.

Prickly Pear

When you pick a pawpaw
Or a prickly pear
And you prick a raw paw
Next time beware
Don't pick the prickly pear by the paw
When you pick a pear
Try to use the claw
But you don't need to use the claw
When you pick a pear of the big pawpaw
Have I given you a clue ?

 SKREEEEEECH! went our brakes. 

Boyd saw a prickly pear on the side of the road and HAD to pick it. 

And he took some pretty awesome pictures.

"here try some"

uh, no thanks. 

He picked it with his paw paw and got pricked! 

 And used his credit card to get the pokies out. 

Then his fingers were stained for hours.

Cotton-Headed Ninnymuggins

 Texas Snow. 

Is it possible? 

The time we spent there I nearly went stir crazy thinking, longing, missing my Ohio fall. 

One of the attending physicians told Boyd we HAD to go to see a cotton field. It's all white and fluffy. How dreamy does that sound? We jumped on the opportunity.

As we were driving to where the fields were I looked out the window and saw . . . . . . 

an empty field. 

We missed Texas snow by days. They had already harvested! Nooooooooo

So we stopped by Green's Sausage House to eat away our sorrows.

We talked to the waitress, who was absolutely the nicest person ever, then we talked to the cashier who was also the nicest person ever. Did I mention I love how nice people are in Texas? Anyway, we were telling them we were from Cleveland. They would get all wide eyed and ask "What is it like up there" We even had some guy trot (yes, trot) across the store and exclaim "Where Y'all say Y'all from?!?! Wha cha doin' down in these here parts?!?!"  Ahh, I love it! They asked when we would be coming back and if they would see us again. Anywho, we told them we were so disappointed the cotton was gone when the cashier said "So and So family hasn't harvested. You should go check out their field!" I lit up like a Christmas tree!  Then she proceeded to say "Jus go down to the blinky light, turn right, turn on the dirt road at the church and this family's farm should still have cotton. They planted late" She actually said blinky light! I love it! My trotty friend, from earlier, agreed with her and said he just saw some the other day.  How awesome are these people

When we got to the field, beyond the blinky light, they too had harvested. 

BUT there was some leftover and Boyd and I got some sweet shots! 

How many shirts do you think you could have made with the extra on the ground? 

"Did you see that sky today? Talk about BLUE!" -my favorite movie of all time. 

Dang! No filters, no editing. This SKY! 

 

 Want to go on a fun date? Both of you grab your cameras and take pictures! 

 Until you end up with this! 

"BOYD!" 

Thanks honey, that's real attractive.

We gunna eat dem crawdads

 Crawfish, Crawdads, Crayfish. 

Call em' what you may. To me they are baby lobsters. 

Although, I do actually call them crawdads (and they don't actually taste like lobster)

On our trip down to Texas Boyd purposely drove through Louisiana to get himself a taste of the south. He got all giddy when he saw the sign "Crawfish Town" 

So naturally we pull over to eat dinner.

So you would think going to a place called crawfish town would guarantee you eating some sort of crawdads, right? Wrong! Apparently they were "out of season" Boo! They are only out of season 2 months and we just happen to pick a month they decided to disappear. 

(Do people in the south speak English? The waitress tried talking to us and I just smiled and looked at Boyd. She tried to explain to us why we couldn't have crawdads for dinner. She probably thought I didn't speak English. )

 We settled for some Crab, other types of fried seafood, and . . . Frog legs.

(gag!- Boyd Really liked them, I couldn't even get myself to look at them. I even had a hard time with my crab eyein' me down and his creepy leg acting like he was going to pinch my arm any second)

Fast forward to the middle of the month.  Boyd was craving some bad Asian food so we stopped by a buffet near our place. Boom! Crawdads! He was so happy!

 "I'm going to eat you. . . "

Yellow and Grey Chevron Quilt

Wanna know what I did while I was in Texas? 

This Easy Peasy Quit

It only took me 2 days. 

The trick? Rectangles.

 Cut big long strips

 Sew the two colors together

 Then cut those big long strips into squares

 Piece together 

(honestly I thought this was the hardest part)

then don't do crazy stippling like me. 

do you like my practice piece?

 in the end I just ended up "quilting"  the yellow chevron pattern

Fun, Fields, Friends

 FUN

In a tiny town called Brenham (half way between Austin and Houston) we met up with our good friends the Nelsons! What is in Brenham Texas? The Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory.

FIELDS 

Brenham also has a lavender field/farm you can visit. 

I got giddy just thinking about the possibilities. . .

When we pulled up we found this. (cue sad wa wa wa sound) 

Looks like Texas has been in a drought for too long. 

It doesn't matter we still had a good time.

 FRIENDS 

We miss you guys so much. We had a ton of fun catching up and making new fun memories.

 Guess who took our picture?