(i actually have a few finished projects to show off, but, with all the excitement of the going-ons today, i totally forgot to photograph them! next time, i promise!)

so with my birthday coming up (next monday), i told my boyfriend that i wanted to go to the pumpkin farm that was advertised on a few billboards along i-55 and lagrange rd. on the way to his place - and he agreed to take me. anyways, i guess he talked to a few people, and found out that this one in hobart, indiana - county line orchard - was *way* better, so, we ended up taking a little trip out to indiana yesterday morning... what a fun morning it was!

we took the little tractor ride out around the place, and went out through the apple orchards...since it was so late in the season, there were only a few varieties left, and i was unimpressed with everything but the suncrisp apples - totally delicious! (kinda similar to my beloved honeycrisp) we ended up picking a few dozen of those. (as my boyfriend says, they're totally fresh off the tree!) we headed to the little 'pumpkin patch' nearby, and picked up a few small pumpkins, and this is the part that cracks me up... when you're finished with your apple and pumpkin picking, you go to this little tent at the front of the orchard so you can weigh & pay...and we were behind this dad, son and grandma that had this wagon with *two* bushels of apples. they weighed the first one, and it was like 28 pounds, the other was like 36. and while they were doing this, the grandma was like, "how much are the apples per pound?" and had this kinda astonished look on her face... anyways, the point of my little story is these people had like $80+ worth of apples, and i really don't think they had intended on spending that much. but what are you supposed to do? say, "oh, let me take some of these out...i didn't want this much..." anyways, after weighing and paying (and, i should add that we weren't surprised by our amount) we dragged our apples and pumpkins back to the car, and then headed to this little petting zoo that they had in the back...i wish i would have brought my camera! you feed these goats and lambs and llamas this seed stuff from your hand, and let me tell you - these guys loved it! a goat even bit my hand (not hard) because he was so excited - and i didn't even have any feed at that point! (we still had to go and buy some!) i even bottle-fed a baby calf (ella) out of this *giant* baby bottle...it was the cutest thing *ever*. (again! the camera!) so, after that, we went and had lunch from their little outdoor grill, and then our last stop for the day was back inside their big red barn where we picked up a few things and i also bought a apple cookbook - i mean, what *else* am i going to do with 9# of apples? (actually, i probably only ended up with 6...my boyfriend kept some.) so this afternoon, i came home, and started my little project:



apple streudel muffins, from my apple cookbook! (they did turn out quite delicious, if i may say so myself!)

okay...well, i have a knitters tea swap package to prepare and i'm gearing up for sp9 tonight...until next time!