New toy!

My digital camera arrived today! Three guesses how I'll be spending the rest of the evening (well, after I bake an apple cake and deliver some "neighbor debt payments"). This is good timing because the Chief & I will be going out to an autumn foliage festival Friday and an apple butter festival on Sunday.

The Friday fest always seems to get good weather, perfect for driving around and looking at the scarlet of the sugar maple farms. I just hope they got enough rain this year to make the leaves turn bright colors before they turn brown and drop off. The festival has lots of crafts workers, furniture makers and the like, and draws large enough crowds that it inspires the neighbors to have little stands of their own for quilts, home-made baked goods, produce, and the like. The apple butter festival is smaller, but equally fun - I want pictures of the HUGE kettles they make the apple butter in. They often let little kids stir the stuff, but have to put them on a stool so they can reach, because the kettles are big enough to hold 3 or 4 toddlers.

I'm hoping the "Gourmet Termite" will be there again, too. The first time I went to the apple butter festival was while the Chief was deployed overseas. Among all the watercolorists, other artists, goodie sellers, and the like was an older gentleman with an old van he'd converted into a mobile woodshop! Calling himself The Gourmet Termite, he made custom signs while you waited. I had him make a sign for our cabin, selecting a sign template from among the many he offered, giving him the text and letting him know the local emergency crews mandated house numbers at least 4" high. While he worked on it, I nosed around the van, which was a marvel of ingenuity. Ship's cabins are marvels of efficient use of space, but this van easily rivalled them for efficiency. He had a shallow set of shelves in the back end of the van that stored what looked like various types and sizes of drill bits, while the body of the van housed his sign templates, paint, varnishes, and other supplies. The Chief would really love seeing the van and talking to the man when he's not busy. Although, come to think of it, I'd have a hard time tearing him away - he might want to sign up as an apprentice! :D