A fun day at The Elegant Farmer

Yesterday, Mom and I took our annual trip to The Elegant Farmer. It was sunny off and on and that worked great for photos. But get this - We wore winter coats! Yeah, the cold weather has officially hit Wisconsin.

So starting with something yummy...

This one is mine. The girl who was dipping these was mid-slice while asking me if I wanted my apple sliced. When I said I didn't, she said in a surprised way "Oh! A bold move!" So that tells you how many people eat these on a stick.

Mmm... reflective caramel!

Mom had hers sliced:

This is the doorway we walked under to get to these treats. I think it could also work as a good doorway to a haunted house, because I felt like we were walking through a big mouth.

While waiting to get through this giant mouth door, I took some pics of the pumpkins next to me.

Check out this stem!

Of course I have to share a pic of the smilin' barn! This is where you can do some shopping for all kinds of food. There was a super long line just to get in and shop, so we didn't do that.

More shopping could be done in a little building next to the barn. This is the area where I took pics of the chainsaw sculptor doing his thing before. He wasn't there yesterday, but I did find these wagons outside the building.

It's cool to look at three different versions of a red wagon. For those of you who like the rusty and crusty:

There was also an old sled out front:

There are some train tracks behind the barn that you guys will probably remember from past years.

This is possibly my favorite picture of the day. It looked like a ghost train coming toward me in the mist. This is about as close as I'm willing to get to an oncoming train.

A little closer...

I can almost hear the rattling.

I took a few photos of... let's call them train accessories because I don't know what the purpose of the next few are. Maybe you guys can fill me in?

When I got closer, I thought this looked like a creature with a big, open mouth. I'm even seeing an eye now!

Some kind of signal?

Coming around the bend...

To the "Elegant Farmer Station"

A few details on the side of the train:

This shape reminds me of a piece of candy.

I took a few pics on the drive there and back. I'm pretty pleased and surprised with how this one turned out, given that I couldn't see what I was taking a photo of. I was just leaning my arm out the window and taking photos of whatever was behind me. See the little horse?

A few trees were changing.

I'm not entirely sure what this is, but we see it every year on the drive. It's some kind of equipment that's been painted to look like a jack-o-lantern. I'm pleased when I can manage to get a pic of it from the car window.

After the Elegant Farmer, we went to Target and Michaels. I've taken a lot of pics at both those stores this season, but there are a couple more things to share.

I hadn't seen this cool arch at the two previous Targets I'd been to this season.

Mom spotted this whole situation. A terrifying new creature! The Gorilla Spider!

Michaels had a pretty clever mini Halloween town on display. This little building reminded me of something out of the show Grimm. This is the "Monster Hunting Supplies" shop. There are a lot of little details to read on this one.

Hehe. This is one of those things that's funny to me and I'm not really sure why. There's just something silly about bloodsucking gnomes that are only about an inch tall. Note the tombstone: "Gnome Sweet Gnome"

The "Symphony of Screams" was in a little bandstand. Cool bat/skull at the top!

Having a glass of "Full Moon Moonshine"

Skeletons in the well!

Sassy cat napkins giving the side-eye to some cat plates:

Those cat napkins might have to be a part of the After Halloween Haul this year...

So there's yesterday! It was a pretty fun day, wandering from place to place. 🍏

Attack of the Gnomes! Menards Halloween ~ Part 1

I'm surprised to have a blog's worth of material from Menards, let alone two blog posts! Menards has a different selection of Halloween stuff from most of the stores I've been in, and some of it is pretty funny. That's what this first blog post is going to focus on. In Part 2, I'll share photos of the many different gourds they had in the garden section. I know I said in my last blog post that Michaels was coming up next, but it turns out I have ton of pics from the two Michaels stores I went to. Those are going to take some time to go through. So onto Menards!

Menards had a great selection of skeleton gnomes, each one funnier than the next! Check out the skeleton fish this one has caught.

I found this more funny than I probably should have.

For some reason, it seemed gross/funny when I thought he was roasting a rat, but now that I'm looking at the pic below, I'm just confused. Is that a pig? Not that this needs to make perfect sense, but if that's a pig, the scale is... well, way too small. So I'm going with a tiny, pink, pig-like rat?

Note the skeleton vulture waiting for that pig/rat. And why isn't the pig/rat a skeleton?

And speaking of tasty treats, look what this guy is offering! I didn't even notice the snake until I enlarged the photo. I think this skeleton is actually pretty cute.

These gnomes were pretty small, maybe 4 to 5" as I'm remembering.

And then there's old "Izzy Dead" here:

Now I know where the pirate skeleton at Ren Faire came from!

I'm not sure if you guys will find this as funny as I do, because I find it pretty funny. Thick spider webs = what appears to be snow under a Halloween village!

Maybe they're planning to leave this web/snow out for the Christmas village?

I think I just spotted some mini garden gnomes here!

Actually, years back I was sent a mystery bunch of Halloween gifts as a promotion and one of those gifts was a pack of cobweb fluff. It's the thickest cobweb you'll ever see! It now acts as "snow" under my Christmas village.

This "Broken Skull Bar" is pretty cool. It's serving "Wicked Spirits and Grog".

It's a real snow storm out there! Actually, that could be Halloween in my state.

I just saw this "Pet Dragon" somewhere else, I think Walmart. The Walmart packaging I'm remembering showed a girl with this dragon perched on her shoulder.

And last but certainly not least, check out this giant inflatable T-Rex!

He was hanging out near the entrance to the store with what I think is an inflatable skeletal dragon? I got a kick out of his little T-Rex arms.

So, there's some of the fun stuff that you can find at Menards! I'll probably post those pretty gourd photos later today.

Also, I should mention to those of you who comment on my blog, I've been having some issues where the comments weren't being sent to me for a really long time. So I wasn't ignoring your comments, I just wasn't seeing them. The issue appears to be resolved now, though. 😊

Now this is a dollhouse!

I don't know if I have the kind of patience to do something like this but I'd love to have one! What a fantastic training tool and resource for anyone interested in what a house in the 40s / 50s looked like. Oh, and how to investigate a crime scene...