Around Rochester

I have healthy obsession with fall. On Saturday the leaves were ablaze with color, the weather forecast called for the perfect amount of fall bluster, and I’d painstakingly researched, compared, and hunted down the most spectacular fall farm within a two-hour radius (complete with spreadsheet, y’all. I don’t mess around), so I decreed Saturday my own personal day of Fall Fest goodness.

I like to think it all started like this:

• Diagnosis: Fall Deprivation.
• Cause: 24 years of living in Texas where we have two seasons – “summer” and “almost summer.”
• Symptoms: Addiction to sweaters and participating in an unrealistic amount of fall activities, cooing over orange or red leaves like they are small children, taking pictures of said leaves like they are small children, stockpiling pumpkins, and using pumpkin or apple cider in every recipe.
• Cure: Move to a state with four seasons, and indulge in symptoms until they gradually decrease in intensity or subside in another 24 years.

The trees were nearing their peak color, it was in the high 40s and windy, the sun was shining, and I had my boots on and a hankering for some pumpkins, apple cider, and a little adventure. I’d waited patiently all week and when Saturday morning finally rolled around, I was ready for Fall fest 2012.

I choose Stokoe Farms as the lucky winner of my own personal day of autumn jubilee. Why? Well…

And I think we all know how I feel about petting farm animals, ziplines, corn mazes, pick-your-own-from-the-vine pumpkin patches, slides, wagon rides, and fresh spiced cider and doughnuts.

The farm was about a 30 minute drive from home. As a side note, I love that I can drive less than 15 minutes and be in the country surrounded by corn, horses, and meadows. I also love that I can drive 10 minutes and be in the city, 20 minutes and be at the beach, 40 minutes and be in wine country, 1.5 hours and be at the falls, and 2 hours and be in the mountains. Not too shabby.

Pulling up to the farm this was my view – autumn-hued leaves, a pumpkin patch, and Christmas trees all in one view…heaven!

Obviously, the day needed to start with a fresh apple cider doughnut before I could do any real exploring.

Up next were the animals!

Not pictured are the piglets and the yak. After I had my fill of animal lovin’ (or at least once I decided to let other people have a turn with the animals, because, really, I could love on animals all day long and be a happy camper) I moved on to the fun and games.

Yeah, it was awesome.

I took a break to enjoy the scenery, collect some baby pumps, and eat a caramel-apple snack before the adventuring resumed.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love corn mazes? Especially corn mazes with a quest (you know, other than to find your way out…), like when they do “Barnyard Clue” and you have to find six clues hidden in the maze who discover “whodunit” or when you discover a secret playground in a clearing in the middle of the maze, or when you have to find five finger-painting stations in the maze to determine your silly assignment. I’m a sucker and a schmuck.

With the maze conquered and all five finger-painting stations miraculously found, it was time for the crown jewel of the autumn season – the pumpkin patch!

The pictures are only a mere sampling. The pick-your-own patch was huge! I took home a real beauty of a pumpkin (and, uh, an ear of corn I plucked from the corn maze), perfect for the pumpkin carving and subsequent seed roasting party & fall potluck next weekend!

And because the party can’t end at 3, I took off to my second adventure of the day…a winery tour and tasting at Casa Larga Vineyards! I fully intend to enjoy the fact that I live in wine country. From the get-go this authentic Italian vineyard looked quality. It totally was. Count me impressed. I would definitely bring family and friends to this winery when they come for a visit (so come visit!). It boasts a beautiful country setting overlooking the gorgeous vineyard, the winery tour was excellent – far more informative than other wine tours I have been on – and the wines were definitely top quality…and absolutely tasted so! Delicious!

Most impressive was their ice wine…a true ice wine made of vidal grapes that are frozen on the vine for up to a week then picked and harvested in the dead of a cold winter’s night. It was phenomenal. Casa Larga’s ice wine won the best ice wine in the world award. A well deserved honor. They even make a red ice wine, which is especially rare. You better believe a bottle or two of that ice wine is on my Christmas list!

And finally, I took the pretty road home :)

Hope you all are making the most of your fall!

It goes by so fast…enjoy it while you can :)

And happy football season (Go Pack!)

My mission: Explore a new park after work nearly every day this fall.

I can get used to this… :)

There’s so many beautiful places for me to go running I can hardly stand it!

This one had hundreds of friendly deer, dining in its meadows.

Ted’s lucky I can’t fit deer in my Buick. We almost had new pets.

It’s perfect for jogging, biking, frisbee, and with all those steep hills it’s going to be perfect for sledding, skiing, and snowmobiling in the winter!

– Ran the Photo Finish 5k…in the cold…in the rain…at 8 a.m…on a Saturday morning when sleeping in was so appealing. This is the first 5k I’ve registered to run instead of walk. I jogged two miles along the canal after work several times this past week to prepare and I came in at a time of 31:41, shaving about five minutes off my usual walk time! And I jogged the whole time without stopping. I’m pretty proud, and it really felt great!

– Went for breakfast with my race mates. Pumpkin pancakes and hot chocolate with whip cream is the perfect autumn breakfast!

– Picked up another bunch of fantastic grapes (living in wine country rocks!), yellow teardrop tomatoes, a bushel of McIntosh apples, and the biggest head of homegrown cauliflower I’ve ever seen at the public farmers market. I eat the grapes and tomatoes like candy, the apples make tasty applesauce, and that cauliflower will be finding its way into a roasted cauliflower and aged white cheddar soup in no time!

– Volunteered in the afternoon and evening for a gala event at an art gallery to raise money for the parents of the sweetest, most wonderful, articulate and intelligent, little 3 and 1/2 year old boy with spinal muscular atrophy to get an accessible van that can transport his motorized wheelchair so he can get out and explore the world beyond his neighborhood. The event was amazing and heartwarming, I met lots of great people, had a ton of fun, and I really cannot think of a more worthy use of my time on a Saturday night.

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Hope you had a nice Saturday!

I think I found me a new favorite park :)

Surely there is nothing more beautiful than a peaceful Monday evening in the autumn.

Tis’ the season!

This weekend was all about the Fringe Festival! I took advantage of a free weekend – something that has always been a precious rarity for me in the business of theatre, but has only recently become a fairly attainable and welcome ritual – to take in as many free Fringe events as I could cram in. To be clear, there were a ton of Fringe shows I was intrigued by and would have loved to see. There were a ton of artists I would have loved to support financially…but that’s the beast of Fringe, isn’t it? 180 shows in five days is virtually impossible to start with, but generally those of us who are most excited to get out there and see these shows and support the arts – we’re artists ourselves, and at $8-$16+ a pop, it just wasn’t in the cards for me this year. So I did the next best thing. I traipsed myself to free event after free event and signed myself up to volunteer for a few Fringe box office shifts at Writers & Books – one of the Fringe venues (and a totally fantastic place in general!), for which I was rewarded with a nifty shirt, the opportunity to peek in on a few more shows, and a free ticket to one of the headliner shows.

I saw Bandaloop – the gravity-defying skyscraper wall dancers, a wearable technology fashion show, a comedy improv troupe comprised of both deaf and hearing actors who signed their performance, a children’s fairytale musical storyteller, a harmonious grass-roots all-Amerian banjo band, a stunningly touching multi-disciplinary collaboration between a writer, a dancer and a musician, a theatrical piece featuring the poetry (and ghosts) of Emily Dickens and H. P. Lovecraft, a rhythm and blues tap dance trio, a modern dance group, a whole tap dance show featuring a band, free-styled tap jams, and a tap dance tango, and the headliner show I collected a free ticket to – comedian Patton Oswalt (you may know his comedy work or remember him as Remy from Ratatouille or Spence from the TV show King of Queens), who is hilarious live and really does his best comedy work when he’s interacting with the audience and sign interpreter.

Between enjoying Fringe shows and volunteering for Fringe shows, I tried out mass at a new church, savored an authentic beef and onion empanada and  “French Artichokes” (flour and egg washed pipping hot artichoke hearts sauteed in olive oil, lemon, wine, and Romano cheese), worked in a luxurious nap, met and made a new friend, learned about a fantastic new place for me to hang out and write, joined a book club for fun-loving young professionals, and learned the absolute joys of the public market…which is out-of-this-world incredible. I will be going back every Saturday morning. It easily could have been an all morning event – a cross between Cincinnati’s Findlay Market and Pike’s Market in Seattle. Though I drooled over baked goods, Polish and German eats, gorgeous blooms, fall pumpkins, corn and gourds, thousands of varieties of apples, sweet peppers of all shapes and colors, and the biggest squash and zucchini I have ever laid eyes on, I only walked away with a beautiful bunch of home-grown basil, a bundle of asparagus, a bushel of plums, and a bin of fresh cheese curds – which I consider a testament to my willpower. I may have to be bribed out of that market with kittens in the future.

All of this and beautiful fall weather too!

How was your weekend?

Wall dancers…and a tap dancin’ flash mob, for good measure.

Fried squid, rare steak pho, and an independent documentary – The Queen of Versailles. Sounds superficial, but leaves a lasting impression. It’s a funny…and a thinker.

Not bad for a lonely Tuesday.

Hope you had a great Tuesday too. How’s everyone enjoying the crisp, cool, cloudy, blustery autumn air?

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I love it!