No Favourite Things Today

Well, my friend Thelma decided to change the "rules" on her weekly blogging of "My Favourite Things: Monday" (it will now be a bi-weekly feature), so today I am left without her guidance.  After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I have regained my composure and shall blog instead about my weekend. 

As I mentioned last week, Scott & I decided to visit Louisburg Cider Mill to take in the festivities of Ciderfest on Saturday.  Truth be known, we were going for two reasons:  1 - the corn maze, and 2 - kettle corn.  You can buy Louisburg cider in any of our local grocery stores, so that's never been motivation for us to drive out there.  But when I saw that the kettle corn guy from Santa-Cali-Gon (another festival, for you non-locals) was going to be there, I was sold!

So, we loaded up the dogs on Saturday afternoon and headed south.  Our dogs don't get out much, so although they are very well behaved at home, being out in public is another matter.  I know if we took them out more often they would improve, but it's honestly not worth the effort.  Why?  Because our 75-pound Golden Retriever has decided that he can't jump up into the back of our Jeep.  So, Scott has to lift him.  And since our 50-pound dog has short, squatty legs, there's no possible way he could make that jump if he tried.  So, Scott has to lift him, too.  (Esther doesn't lift, in case you were wondering!)

Anyway, back to Saturday...  While we were waiting in line for our tickets to the corn maze, an older  gentleman with a basset hound approached us.  He immediately identified our little mutt-dog as a basset mix, and we chatted with him briefly while we watched our dogs interact.  I wish I had thought to snap a picture of the basset and the basset "fraud" (as Scott likes to call him), because it was SO cool to see them together!  But, it was all I could do to keep a VERY excited Milo under control, and Scott was having the same battle with Quincy.

At the beginning of the maze.

Going through the corn maze was definitely a fun experience, and we'd both enjoy doing it again.  And believe it or not, the dogs really enjoyed it, too.  Granted, they'd have enjoyed us walking through any random field without a maze plowed through it, but that wouldn't be any fun for us, now would it?  ;o)  We did make it through most of the maze, but I guarantee we didn't go the way the designer planned.  And somehow we ended up coming back out the entrance instead of the exit...  Which may or may not have had something to do with the "shortcuts" we may or may not have taken along the way...

Fortunately, once we made our way through the maze, the dogs were pretty tired and slightly under control.  So, we braved the crowds and went into the exhibit area for our kettle corn, gave the dogs a nice drink of water back at the Jeep, and then loaded up to head home. On our way home we stopped at a different cider mill for donuts and much-better-cider, but don't tell the folks at Louisburg.  ;o)

Scott with some very tired dogs near the end of the maze.

A little teaser of things to come...  Yesterday I finally started a little project I've been thinking about tackling all summer:  Pickled Green Tomatoes.  It's a very long and involved 3-day process, so I've been taking pictures along the way so I can blog about it when I'm done.  Assuming they're edible.  If they're not, perhaps I'll just call it the Pickled Green Tomatoes Experiment.  Stay tuned!