North Market = Best Market

Scott and I have been in Columbus nearly three months so we thought we’d better venture downtown. As it turns out, there is a farmer’s market every Saturday this time of year outside of the famous North Market.

Yum! Locally grown peppers. We ended up with two squash, instead, though.

This turkey, I’m sure, would have rather been someplace else.

Swan gourds. Incidentally, “Anne” means “graceful like a swan”. Being a klutz in every way, I guess I’m probably more “graceful like a swan gourd”.

There were lots of free samples inside the market! (This was not one of them.)

This place boasts “over 500 kinds of cheese”, but we could only see about 50. Very suspicious… it definitely bears further investigation… (this coming from someone whose love of cheese is so strong even her niece and nephew inherited it. )

There were many distractions as we cased the market, but we were not deterred. We simply ate a piping hot ham and cheese croissant and continued our mission.

Um, I’m not sure what to say. One minute my world made sense, and then Bam! Fresh, striped lobster ravioli. Go figure.

Those are our “wow, that was AMAZING ice cream” faces.

Hiking Hocking Hills

This past Saturday, Anne and I and four of our good friends drove down to Hocking Hills State Park and spent the day hiking.

Ryan and Sarah Meacham were responsible for planning the trip, but Paul and Anita Fairbanks and Anne and I were more than willing to jump in on such a great plan.

It was a perfect day for hiking. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the air had the taste of fall, like biting into a crisp apple.

I said we were in Hocking Hills State Park, but that’s not perfectly accurate. We were planning on hiking Hocking Hills, but when we got there it was pretty crowded, so we ended up hiking through Conkle’s Hollow Nature Preserve and Cantwell Cliffs State Park instead. Bonus points for you if you can find the pins for these parks on the Hocking Hills State Park map. (Hint: They’re both just a little north of the words “Hocking Hills State Park”.) The picture that pops up for Conkle’s Hollow is pretty accurate and is indicative of why I love fall in the East.

We all had a great time enjoying the fantastic scenery, telling jokes to each other (believe it or not, this really is one of the jokes that was told), quoting funny movies, singing random songs, and engaging in some serious freestyle walking. (If you only click on one link in this blog, let it be the previous one.)

We had a picnic lunch in the afternoon and were almost put out of commission by some fantastic brownies that Sarah made for all of us. Okay, okay… I stole someone else’s picture of caramel brownies, but we forgot to take a picture of our own and the only real difference is that one of Sarah’s brownies was roughly the size of six of the brownies in this picture. Mmmm… caramelicious… mmmm…

What? Where was I? Oh yeah… so during our Conkle’s Hollow hike and lunch we saw tons of wildlife, including (but not limited to): a walking stick, a catydid, lots of cool caterpillars, a seal, and, believe it or not, a mongoose. Other notable creatures seen include a spider the size of a baseball (which I shudder to remember) and a horde of ravenous mutant bees. Well, they may not have been mutant bees, but they were certainly ravenous. And ill-tempered.

Cantwell Cliffs had a really cool ravine we hiked through and Anne and I snapped this picture right as it began to descend.

At the base of the ravine, the cliff was hollowed out in a hemi-spherical like fashion, so we were able to walk under the lip of the cliff and look around. It looked like there may have been a small waterfall at one point in time that came over the lip of the cliff and crashed on the rocks about 100 feet below, but either it’s a dry year or there hasn’t been a real waterfall there in years because there was only a trickle going over the edge while we were there. Paul and I decided that it would be a great place to meditate. While I was searching for inner peace, Paul was apparently practicing some type of demonic ritual.

When all was said and done everyone had had a great time.

It was definitely a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon and we definitely plan on making a trip out there again next year.

-Scott

Muddy pumpkins

Last night, Scott and I got stood up by our friends… *boo* *hiss*… (we forgive you Paul and Anita) and ventured alone to Circle S farm to pick out pumpkins.

I’m sure on most days, the farm is charming, but last night… it was muddy. Columbus rain had wreaked havoc on the poor family farm. The sunflower mazes were decimated. Lonely pumpkins floated in muddy troughs. This particular mud puddle made an attempt to swallow my shoe whole.

Needless to say, our emotions were running high. Scott hopped on the nearest tractor and started for the corn maze.

I convinced him we were better off on foot and I even convinced him to abide by The Corn Maze Rules:

Anne: Wait a second, does that say “DO NOT throw corn?”

Scott:

By the time Scott was done with it, the corn maze was in ruins.

Boy, was I mad!

No wait, that’s me lost…THIS is me mad:

They didn’t allow hard liquor on the hayride to the pumpkin field (no, really!) but it didn’t matter anyway. Scott and I got so turned around in the corn maze, we ended up in the far reaches of the pumpkin field on our own. We made sure to pick the best pumpkins, then we hoofed it back to the barn to hang out with the goats. I sure hope this one is pregnant:

Scott took some time to pose with the good eye of a half-blind chicken while I played with a goat who reminded me very much of Jedi.

The evening ended well, with fabulous donuts, apple cider, and the two best pumpkins one could hope for. Scott’s weighed 22 lb and mine weighed 14.4 lb and they make a good couple (at least we think so ).

A Cautionary Note: In case you are ever in a very muddy pumpkin patch, beware the spiders. There is a reason, I discovered, why my mom used to make black pipe cleaner spiders to rest atop the stuffed pumpkins when we decorated for halloween. Every pumpkin in the field had at least one little black spider chilling on it. My brave hubby scared them off of our chosen pumpkins so we could schlep them safely home.

EDIT: Ok Kristin, you called my bluff about the spiders. I said Scott “scared them off”, but it would be more accurate to say Scott “wished them away”.

EDIT #2: Actually, Scott was extremely cool in a tense situation. His fear of spiders drastically decreased during this past summer when he had the opportunity of becoming accquainted with a great many spiders on a much more intimate level than he could ever have desired. It should, however, be noted that his loathing of the vile creatures remains as strong as ever.

EDIT #3: I’m sorry, Honey. You’re right. You displayed marked improvement in terms of your spider comfort-level.

Time out for Women

Last weekend I went to a Time out for Women conference put on by Deseret Book. There were speakers and sponsors and decor galore. More decor. (Side note: a local teenager in the area volunteered to decorate the stage. I love my church.)

The focus was on living our religion, living our lives, and being happy about the whole thing… as women. I enjoyed most of the speakers’ comments, but the biggest thing I took away from the conference was the title: Time out for Women.

I was lucky enough to tag along with a fabulous group of women from my neighborhood, church, and aerobics class. We had a blast on the 3(?) hour drive there, chatting each other up about everything under the sun. Mostly young mothers but some no-kids and pregos thrown in the mix, we bonded at Bob Evans, raided Wal-Mart for goodies, played games late into the night, shared secrets, got strep throat (sorry Lisa), ate mediocre chinese food, and had more than our fair share of laughs.

I adore my husband, and do almost everything with him. We cook and bake together, hike together, take road trips together, whisper and laugh… but Scott is not a girl (thank goodness ). I realized on this trip, more than ever, that girls need girls. We need to chat and giggle and yes, burp and munch and wear jammies. Guys need guy time and boy, do I need my girl time!