Apple Fest

   The Hay Creek Apple Festival at Joanna Furnace is October, 11th and 12th. I love Joanna Furnace, Apple Fest is my fav. I haven't had a drink since April, but I've already told Ron I'm having some of Stampede Barbeque's cider at Apple Fest. I'm obvi not an alchie, so he can spare me. 

Apple Fest 🍎

Christmas at Joanna Furnace 2024

  Joanna Furnace is a charming way to kick start the holidays. We've been coming for seventeen years, but this was the best yet. We began the evening with supper at Stampede Barbeque. They have the best cider on tap. It's my brother's and my place, but Ron enjoyed it tonight too, and said that we can come more often. I think he was impressed as he thought he knew our cashier from wrestling and Amish Mafia. It's the same wonderful staff. I actually discovered this place last year at Apple Fest, they were selling cider. I love the hushpuppies and coleslaw, but Ron was impressed with his brisket salad and peanutbutter pie. Joanna's is usually packed, but not tonight. The dollhouse is new. I think somebody created it to look like the original furnace owner's mansion that was sadly demolished long ago. Best band ever! They usually feature a school choir, but this year was a gentlemens' brass band. I haven't been in the mood for Christmas music this year. Frankie and I have been listening to Shiner's favorite party songs because it's all new to Frankie. This band played all my favorites. They were great. I had gotten some Starry Slumber wine from the Sleepy Cat Urban Winery in Allentown, better than the sweet stuff I got last year. There were no letters in Kris Kringle's box at the general store where I get the little Civil War soldiers like I left in Jeremy's Room at The Farnsworth House in Gettysburg, so I left him a letter thanking him for Frankie. Actually we all had major Christmas scores as I got a dollhouse sized Heidi Lotte doll from the forties from Mr. Glass, the third doll I've gotten from him. He was also selling for the German woodcarver that I'd gotten a gnome from who could not make it tonight, so Ron got something handmade for his stocking that is still very light. It's not even his real stocking, the blue velvet topped with berries that I made him seventeen years ago, as the house is cat proof this Christmas. I didn't get everything out of the attic this year, certainly nothing breakable. Frankie was a very good boy, the tree was still up when we got home. He made out like a fat cat, his stocking is full. His stocking is from my childhood, and Shiner's first stocking. Shiner nibbled it's hand when he was a puppy. It's a cat in a Santa hat popping out of the stocking. Tonight a Packers catnip mouse and an alpaca caterpillar finger puppet were added, plus he got a hand knitted hooded cat bed. He's going to love it. Frankie loves boxes and bags. Shiner graduated to the big Tinkerbelle stocking that Mummy got me that Ron is settling for this year. Actually it's bigger, so I have some work to do. I also got a darling little knit bee and a new hat for Cornwall Furnace tomorrow. 

The Train

Light Maze

 

Doc Holliday | Full Western Movie

  Frankie is in his rocking Archie Bunker chair, and I've got some pear cider and Malbec. I like mixing them with some pomegranate seeds for fun. I'm sort of over the moon. Doc Holliday is a hero of mine. I wrote a paper on him in grad school. I was the only girl in the class. Of course I got an A. I still see my professor on The History Channel now and then. Doc deserves a novel. Maybe after Fanging with Claude? 

Joanna Furnace Apple Festival

I was happily writing along about Joanna Furnace's Apple Festival until I mentioned some old geezer with a homemade Cabala Embarrass shirt, cap, and button. That's when my entire post vanished. Now I'm pissy. Yeah, I wanted to jump on her stupid commie head and beat her illiterate ass, but I did not. So, now, let me get back to my post that was rudely eaten by the fucking GOOGLE Monster. 😡 I had a ball. I had cider and apple fritters. We brought homemade pot pie and bean soup home. I also brought home some mead seltzer. I do not like mead, but the seltzer is tasty, and I got a mixed batch. Somehow I lost my box of Thanksgiving decorations. I don't have a lot, but Mummy's stuff from the bicentennial in Massachusetts is in there. Sure I'll find it while decorating for Christmas but until then I got this beautiful hand knitted scarecrow. I also got a handcarved Saint Francis, he's not Italian, so he might just be Pennsylvania made. I have a wooden Mary and Saint Patrick, but Francis is our long time saint of choice. I also scored a church doll from Mr. Glass who I'd gotten a lovely rag doll from a couple of Christmases ago. She always graces the foyer, too sweet to put away. Think we'll be seeing J.D. Vance at the airport later. Good times. 

Dreams 6/30

 Dreamed that I was very thirsty, so I got out of bed and went down to the cellar where I found a big jug of apple cider. I was drinking right out of the jug, really chugging it, when Ron came down looking for me. He was wearing shorts. 

Finally

Finally some good 💩 from Planet SCAM! 

Yee-haw! 

Cherry Cider

Apple Scruffs

🍎
 

Dreams 1/13

 Dreamt that Mummy and I passed a very posh bar. It was dark with red ambient lighting. I stopped off for a cider. Will, the good-looking old bartender from Margaritaville, was the keep. I was waiting and waiting for my cider that never came. I told Mummy. Now, I had a date. He looked a lot like Jamie from The Sinner, season three, or a boy, Jonathan, I knew from college. When it came time to leave he wanted to come along, but I wouldn't let him. 

Christmas at Joanna Furnace

Began the evening at Stampede Barbeque again. Ron was being a drag, said he didn't like it, so I guess that place is just for my brother and me. It was beautifully decorated and busy. There were real Native Americans, there, not half-breed fakers. Sweet cider is killer as always, and at least the bartender is my friend. Got a knit elephant, a tin General Lee, and a paper star at the furnace this year. Have two handmade tin soldiers from there, General Reynolds and an artillery man, have no desire for Grant or Lincoln. Wish they had Sherman. I plan a Gettysburg board game. They'd make great play pieces, but I suppose I have to sculpt my own. Had a snuggle with Ricky Bobby, the alpaca. I would have loved to have alpaca swapped. The other, the white one, is named, Action Jackson. 

Ricky Bobby & More

 

Thanksgiving Weekend

 

This autumn has ranked as one of the most fun ever. My brother and I went down to the creek where I found a load of Turkey Tail mushrooms for a friend. After getting home I made Davey Bird, here, looking dramatic, who Ron has claimed, but I'm working on Jack N. Oph for my brother, now. These are inspired by David Bird's Becorns. My Liverpudlian girlfriend turned me on to them. Today we went on the mine tour in the Lehigh Valley. I got an arrow head and a couple of new crystals in their fun gift shop, one is local quartz. The mining museum was full of amazing art and doll houses. Finally, we went to the Stampede BBQ. It was our first time, but I've had their homemade cider at Apple Fest at Joanna Furnace. I'm a huge fan, it's more the European sort, and my brother said their hand crafted old-fashioned ale was good too. 

The Tully, Mining Museum, BBQ...

Boyertown Blog

The past couple of Easters we've ridden the posh Colebrook train, and last time Ron said we'd have to check-out Boyertown some time. I knew my favorite sweet cider, Frecon's, came from there, and it looked fun. It was more fun than we thought. The morning began with a funeral of a dear friend, so I wasn't counting on having such a good time. We started at Bridget's Place where Ron got me a gorgeous citrine crystal. We're going to have to go back there with my brother and drink wine and make scented candles. Then, we went to The Peppermint Stick Candy Store. That was like going back in time to Betty's. Betty's was the penny candy store we walked to from Grandma's when I was a kid. Mummy used to walk to Betty's, too. Betty was an older lady before my time. At the shop I got old fashioned clove candy and violet gum. Then, we met this fabulous lady where I got some mushroom cards to share with my many pen pals and quince hand lotion she made herself. Quince is my favorite scent, it drives me wild. Boyertown is The Bears so there are clawsome bears everywhere, my favorite is the library bear, here. We found another old theater like The Strand in Hamburg, only this place is even older, 1912. They were showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show and A Nightmare Before Christmas, seven dollars a ticket. The graves dated back to the sixteenth century. The pet store was off the hook. Check-out Yin Yang ferret bliss. There was a little black poodle hopping up and down: darling. Ron got Mars, my scarlet Betta, a new little dolphin pot. He's checking-it-out. They had an entire Betta section there, but none of their Bettas looked happy like my boys. We finished off the trip with supper at The Iron Stone, another place we must take my brother. I had an excellent drink called The Ghost Whisperer made with elderflowers and cranberry, two of my favorites. Ron loved the shepherd's pie, and my flat bread was better than my a'pizza. Plus, I got a growler of Frecon's pear cider that I'm drinking just this minute which is even better than the sweet stuff. Why can't I get Frecon's everywhere? It puts Angry Orchard to shame. After we got home Shiner and I watched Hallmark's Canadian The Legend of Sleepy Hollow from 1999. I'm accustomed to Disney's Bing Crosby and Jeff Goldblum's eighties version, both are good. I used to teach this story, so I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. What a fun fall! 

Boyertown I

Boyertown Bears

Boyertown Graves

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

 

Joanna Furnace Apple Fest

What a fangtastic fall weekend! Today was Joanna's Furnace's Apple Festival. We usually attend their Christmas shindig after Thanksgiving, and might've been to The Hay Creek September festival twice, but I don't think we'd hit The Apple Festival before, and it was off-the-hook! I had three ciders and apple fritters. Look at my twenty-seven dollar score: raw indigo wool and handmade lace for my Peggy Shippen doll, the only plague book I'd missed besides the brand new one that after The Great Courses with all the CONVID I'm going to pass on, an antique book on Early American costumes, a bean cookbook, a couple of handmade gnomes, (wood and plaster), incense, a wooden jack-o-lantern pin, even a bitsy handmade imp for the dollhouses, hexcetera... O, my ghoul... 

 

Dreams 7/17

 Forgot my first dream again, it happens when I have three dreams in a row without popping up to record them. In the first dream Ron and I were at war in the desert. There were bivouac and sand bags all around. I had to fetch us some food to cook-up. It was frozen and wrapped in butcher paper. I brought back some dinosaur, but Ron said he wouldn't eat it, so I had to fix him a big turkey leg which he also complained about. Then, we were off and running across the sand, again. 

The next dream took place in Pittsburgh at an O type of joint. I had a new crowd of friends, girls and boys. I went into the bathroom and this big giant girl had two joints like pistols and handed me one. It was a brown, pinner, and coming undone. I thought I didn't want to give her plague, but was smoking it before she took it back. Then, I was back at a table with a big boy with sandy hair. He liked me, and I liked him, too, although I knew he was pretty much a loser. 

Frecon's Orchard and Cidery

 Why can I only get this stuff at the Beer Mart by Victor Emanuel's? It's local, seventy-five-years-old, unlike the twenty-year-old New York stuff, and has three apples per can, versus New York's two. It is way better. Why don't the grocery stores and other beer joints carry it? Not woke enough? Typical. 

Why? 

FRECON'S