Harvest festival!

Carrie asked for pictures of all of us together, and it just so happens that I have some today... because we took advantage of M's lunchbreak over the weekend to visit the harvest festival at the 4-mile Historical Park in Cherry Creek.

This was a much anticipated day for all of us, since we've been going for the past two years, just wishing we had a Flynn to take with us...and this year we finally do!

And what a happy Flynn she is! She was particularly excited, because it was in the middle of mommy's work day, and I think she thought we were just getting in the car to go for coffee or a grocery run. She never expected to see daddy, much less all the wonders of harvest fest that awaited her!

Just look how excited she was to see daddy in the middle of a work day! She sees way too much of mommy and her paintbrush most days.

So happy was she that she was ready to rip daddy's glasses right off his face...and then laugh maniacally at his dismay!



Flynn QQ's first encounter with scarecrows. And what a great many scarecrows there were! Needless to say, she was not scared, in spite of the hats they were all wearing.

Mommy gets a little too excited about the draft horses.

Especially when they get to gallop along the bottom two corners of the park. That's pretty sweet!

I think the horses love it too, and are sad when they are reined in for the straightaway.

Beauties.

A couple of blue-eyed goats with lovely, curling horns. These were mama and child.

Wheelbarrows. What is it about wheelbarrows? They speak of industry, and good, hearty manual labor, and fertile ground and growing things, and well cared-for livestock. And I love when they're all mucked out and leaning neatly against a wall, waiting for the next spate of hard, productive work.

And don't even get me started on windmills. I have a thing for windmills. Don Quixote. The great plain states. Agriculture. Wind power.

And barns. Can I tell you how fond I am of barns? This one is a particularly lovely, clean, well-kept one, with beautiful wood the color of raw honey, and the smell of clean straw. My grandparents had a barn when I was small. And we had one (if a rickety one) on the ranch when I was a little bit less small. And every stable at which I ever took riding lessons or went to horse shows had one, fragrant with that warm, clean, rich smell of cedar chips and equine repose, the lazy thump of idle hooves, and the swish of heavy tails.

So many things, sights, sounds and smells to introduce our QQ to.


Flynn QQ's first encounter with heavy equipment. It's a nice tractor, isn't it?


QQ watching the horses go by over my shoulder.

Of course, since it was harvest festival, we had to take the obligatory pumpkin picture (even though we had plenty pumpkin pictures of our own from back at home). Sadly, it was an hour before the end of the last day of harvest festival, and the pumpkin patch was almost entirely stripped bare. Sigh. Next year....

Flynn was underwhelmed by the pumpkins, anyway. Been there, done that...and there was SO much else to see!

Like those huge, black creatures with the thundering hooves, pulling a big, rattling red wagon and kicking up all sorts of dust! Now that's something new under her sun!

There were a couple of good-sized pumpkins left in front of a nice patch of flowers, and we just had to plop Flynn down for a picture...although she was clearly bored and less than animated.

Until, that is, daddy let her stand on the pumpkin! Now that's kinda fun!

Aw yeah. That's much better.


And then, miracle of miracles...the most beautiful butterfly in the western hemisphere landed on the most brilliant flower in the patch. Pure serendipity.

"Oh. My. Goodness! I don't even know what to do with this! But if I can get it, I'm going to put it in my mouth."
(btw don't put monarch butterflies in your mouth: they're poisonous. It's their defense. They're that way so the birds don't eat them.)

Resigned to the slow part of the park. Children crossing. No galloping.

Flynn's first teepee. I was doing the sound for bear....grrrrrrrrr! And she was trying to mimic.

Grrrrrrrr. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Meeting and greeting. Watcha doing? Log rolling?

I'm just passing through. Places to go. People to see. In my ladybug shoes.

Panning for gold. Flynn's not quite old enough yet, but this is a very cool attraction. I think she'll enjoy this in the future.

Yup, I'm a little in love with the draft horses.


Listening to the banjo. It's very soothing, on a day like this.

It's nice to see a man on a porch, playing a banjo, on a beautiful autumn afternoon.


And a parting shot of the horses galloping through their speed stretch. Look how happy they are to open it up and let 'er rip!

All that weight in motion. It's kind of amazing, really.

I like the Wells Fargo wagon too.

Still happy on the way back to the car.

Nothing makes Flynn laugh harder than a raspberry on the belly from daddy.

Look at that happy girl.
Unfortunately, daddy's day was subsequently brought to a grinding halt by the fact that lightening had hit a TV tower while we were taking our break, cutting out the all-important bronco game. He returned to work to find a flurry of emails from people telling him that the news station (news is the operative word here, people) was worthless because they lost a precious portion of their game (game is the operative word here, people). One very hostile person said that the station had ruined her football party and that they sucked and might as well just shut down.
REALLY.
The economy is going to the dogs and taking much of Europe down with it, people are losing their homes and their livelihoods, hurricanes are wreaking havoc on both the environment and local communities as we speak, and she wants a news station to shut down because lightening hit a tower and "ruined" her football party? Did the beer go warm? Did the pigs-in-blankets get cold?
Sorry. Had to rant a bit there. Granted, I don't watch sports. And, come to think of it, I'm not even sure it was the Broncos that were playing, or whether it's football that the Broncos play. Sorry, I wasn't raised with it. I just feel that there are things more important in this world than sports. So there you have it.
REALLY.