Artisans Road Trip

We had a fun weekend with Matt's family, as we headed to the Morrison farm south of Hartley, IA, to try to be a help for them while they were a stopping point on the Artisans' Road Trip. It was a lot of fun to be together with Matt's sister's family, as Lexi and Xander are practically inseperable, and Cassie loves to babysit Maia.

Here's some pictures of the farm and the fun we had:
The kitchen entrance to the house. There is a beautiful rose garden just to the left of this picture, and beautiful flowers and stepping stones all around. The red screen door is a new addition this fall.
The barn quilt. I guess this is a common thing in some parts of Iowa. They painted a piece of solid PVC with this star quilt pattern, and call it the barn quilt. As far as I know, that's all they use their barn for...

The chicken coop, now the cat house. Our cats, Maja and Morpheus, live here year 'round. They pretty much just lay around and look out the window all day long, climb in a little hay fort that Bruce made for them when it gets cold. Not too much different from when they lived in our house, but I think the chicken coop smells less like cat urine. Must be the good ventilation!

Here's Cassie with her cracked pot. She found a pottery shard in the ground out by the storm cellar, and now she thinks she's quite the archeologist. Cassie is Matt's sister, Rena's daughter. She is 13 years old this month!

Maia, what a little cheeser. You can see that her plate is full of food. Not even Grandma Georgie's cooking is good enough for her...

This is the "Crib Gallery." Bruce & George have made their old corn crib into an art gallery. Bet that doesn't happen very often! You can see that they installed some overhead lighting, and used old farm implements and stuff to dress it up a bit. It was just out of the wind that day, so it was a relatively comfortable place to view Bruce's work. You can see his actual artwork on his website.
Here's Matt holding Mud, the farm cat. She eats gophers and rabbits, but she gets in big trouble if she eats birds. They're cared for well at the Morrison farm.
Rena got to play the role of cashier all day, she would debate whether it was a warm, cozy place to be. Even the space heater at her feet didn't keep the chill away. She had her share of hot apple cider from the goody table!

Some of the bountiful harvest of gourds and pumpkins from this year's crop. If you look closely, you can see that George has made a cornucopia in the middle covered in prarie sage and wildflowers. We got to take a lot of gourds home for decorating. Pretty!
Xander came home from school on Friday with pinkeye, but we didn't let that stop us from infecting the rest of the family. I haven't heard about Rena's family, but Bruce and George were both sick on Tuesday after we left (the same day Matt got sick here). We like to share.

This is the outside and inside of the Potting Shed, or as Lexi calls it, The Pooh House. Outside, the siding is pressed tin, and inside is a cozy work shelf and seating area with handmade birch furniture from Lake Superior's north shore.
No Grandpa & Grandma's farm is complete without a tire swing. Cassie LOVES to swing, whether it's here or on the bench swing in the lean-to, which functions as a car port.



Another fun part of the weekend, was that we got to help lead worship at my friend, Amy Lu's church. Amy Lu (Verdoorn) Scheaffer has been a good friend of mine since I moved to Sheldon in the second grade. We used to sing together all the time in high school, we were a part of an All-State girls' quartet and and All-State girls' sextet (we always called it a "six-tet." Sounded more proper to us!). We were in tons of musicals together, in which Amy Lu was always the sweetheart and I was always the dingbat. It fit us well!

Anyway, Amy and her husband, Abe, live on a farm outside of Sheldon, and are a part of a Evangelical Free Church plant that has been in existance for a couple of years. They are meeting in the cafeteria of one of the buidlings owned by Village Northwest Unlimited, Sheldon's huge facility for care, education, rehab, etc. of handicapped individuals. I was surprised at how much physical manifestation the spiritual battle took on as we approached the weekend. I lost my voice completely the Sunday and Monday before we left, and had a terrible headache that only lasted through the rehearsal on Saturday... hmmmm... Weird.

Matt & I stole away from the art show on Saturday morning for a while, and went and rehearsed with their band. We had the challenge of working with a 7th-grade drummer on an electronic drum set. And we did a song in 3/4, which turned out to be a bit of a challenge for him, but he really did a great job, and was very consistent.

We had a great time leading their church in worship, and enjoyed singing with Amy Lu again for the first time in over 15 years!