The Adventures of Zoë

Friday Adventures

After our meeting on Friday morning, Shannon and I headed off for our Friday adventure. (We've actually had adventures most Fridays, this just happens to be the first one I've gotten around to writing about. We made a quick stop at UPS, to pick up some beautiful yarn that Buffalo Gold had sent her. This stuff is just amazing - it is a beautiful hand-dyed laceweight made of bison, cashmere, silk, and tencel. After that, we hit the road and headed for Morning Star Fiber Mill, to see just what kinds of awesome yarn-making they can do. The mill is in the middle of Amish country, and we did manage to get ourselves quite lost, of course while we were completely out of cell phone range. Turns out they do some pretty awesome stuff; they use lots of local alpaca farms for their yarn. They also make this crazy awesome yarn for BagSmith, another Ohio company.

Since it was practically right around the corner, we had to go to Lehman's before heading home. It's kind of like an Amish department store; they have plenty of stuff obviously aimed at tourists, but also some really cool, random stuff. We both got cheese-making kits (very random!) and I found a belt for my antique sewing machine that I hadn't been able to find online. They also had a huge selection of do-it-yourself type books, on topics ranging from the aforementioned cheese-making to tractor repair to grafting fruit trees.

They also have, by the checkout area, a wall of yardsticks. Which was even more impressive than the wall of cowbells we had seen earlier. I loved that while there wasn't a sign asking people not to ring the bells, there was a sign warning that the bells "ring very loudly." We didn't here a single ring while we were there. As we were leaving, a man dressed all businesslike got out of his minivan and asked us if this was a good place to buy a pie.

As if that wasn't enough excitement for the day, we met several other people at the Buckeye Beer Engine for good beer, strange burgers (they come topped with things like a fried egg, pierogies, or peanut butter and banana, aka the Elvis), and an extremely entertaining evening. We sat out on the patio, around back where no one could bother (or hear) us, and random conversation ensued. Many bad jokes were shared, tow truck drivers were confused, odd things were discussed, and, according to one random guy, we managed to "insult the entire community." We never did quite figure out why, but it must have been good.

The rest of my weekend was relatively uneventful, although I did have free music outside my window all day, courtesy of Dancin' in the Streets, a fundraiser for the AIDS Task Force of Greater Cleveland. Retro dance tunes and remixes for everyone!

posted by Zoe @ 10:08 PM