Harvestfest weekend

The second weekend of October, for the past 10 or so years, has been Harvestfest weekend here in town. It's a wonderful event, with lots of good food (like the ox roast sandwich and bean hole beans) and a huge number of vendors selling all sorts of hand crafted items. There is generally a "hayride" drawn by horses, music, and the historical houses are opened up for tours and people showing off their skills...like spinning!!! (which I am determined to learn how to do this winter!!!!)

The weather was just perfect, which is always good, because some years it hasn't been..... and Ed, Kassy, Sadie, Deb and I all walked up to town to enjoy the festivities. Of course we saw a number of friends, ( all the ones you know and love, but somehow never see them until you find them at Harvestfest.)

On Sunday, Harvestfest continued over at York Beach. They had a different group of crafters, a Pow Wow (which was really great) food... and hayrides again. This time, the horses giving the rides were Becky and Butch's Belgians ... Dick and Bob. They had been asked to do the rides on Saturday as well in the village, but they were already booked elsewhere, so they came just for Sunday. Well, you all know where Ed and I were.... riding behind those beautiful horses all day long. We did try to be useful to Becky and Butch (answering questions, watching traffic, etc), but I think really we just did more riding than working. I told Becky that I thought it would be neat to get a picture of the team at the Nubble Light... ( I drove her out to see it and see how far it would be to drive) she was delighted take them out and get some shots!!! At the end of the day, when the rides for Harvest wrapped up... Ed, Kas, Sadie and I with Moxie and Charlie... rode out with them. What fun that was.... cold!!!!... but fun. I got all sorts of great pictures of the team there, so did a number of tourist who got a real treat watching the team pull up . What a great day we had together.... then, to top it all off (as though it could get any better) Kas treated Deb, myself and Sharon (her mentor) to dinner at Olive Garden, as a "thanks for putting up with me thru this deployment"... after a cold, windy day of being outside ... that dinner tasted so good, and it was such fun to have the company of the "girls"!!!!!

Now, our life has certainly had a major horse theme to it lately, but we are doing other things as well.... one of which, working on the house plans and getting things together, so in January, we can apply for our building permit. You may know, we are planning on building a timber frame colonial, and since the floor plan is mostly in place, it was time to talk with the timber frame company. We met with the rep on Friday, and as luck would have it, they are putting a house up in North Hampton. On Monday, Ed and I took a drive down to see the house and talk more with the rep (who's name is Paul). This is a nice house they are building, but it's very modern and though it is a timber frame, its not to our liking. It won't be any trouble to do our house, in fact, they are quite happy to do something more "traditional".... it was nice to see the big timbers, get some ideas and go over some details of things we would like to have in our house. We need to work out some more details and begin to "crunch" the numbers!!!!We have an idea of what it might cost us, so it will be interesting to see how close we come to it (and how much of it we can afford-- it all looks easy, on paper!!!!) We hope to do a good portion of it on our own... Ed can build and "do" about anything, and not only would that be a savings, but a fun project as well.So, that's the scoop on this end. Thursday morning, bright and early... Kas and I head for North Carolina... I don't know how much blogging I will get done between now and then, and my next story, just might be from NC!!!!