August in Elkhart

We are officially moved into our small apartment, a total of 911 square feet. That's a nice uptick from about 400 square feet, which we think we had in the fifth wheel. That 911 square feet would be small and tight for a lot of people if you were coming from a house, but coming from living in a tight RV, it feels a LOT roomier. The apartment has two bedrooms and one bath. Oh, boy, Sparky gets a room to craft in! It is also very light and airy, which is a very welcome change from the dark interior of the fifth wheel.

It was a challenge going from an RV with LOTS of cupboards for putting everything in them, to the apartment with the only shelving and cupboards in the kitchen. We were surprised and just a little disappointed to find that there was NO medicine cabinet in the bathroom. You KNOW old people have lots of meds, right? So we had to get creative with tubs and shoe boxes under the sinks.

Sauder cabinet

Keeping that in mind since there were NO built in cabinets, as we gathered pieces of furniture from yard sales and thrift shops, Sparky insisted just about everything had to have a dual purpose and drawers or doors. Sparky bought a Sauder tall cabinet with shelves to put together. Back in the day, everything Sparky owned as a young single mom was pretty much Sauder put together stuff. Sauder is pretty decent furniture and the how to assemble guide is very thorough. And funny. Further on in the manual it said to pause for a beverage!

But we still have boxes and boxes to unpack and finding spots to put everything away is the biggest problem. Eldo says, "I can't believe we had all this in the RV!" That's because it was all contained behind closed cabinet doors, lol. The main bulk of what's left is Sparky's amazing craft supply collection. (AHA! I knew it wasn't MY stuff! exclaims Eldo.)

The apartment, although small, has lots of natural light coming in. We have a little patio and a storage shed. The complex has a nice laundry, a small pool and a workout room. And if you are so inclined to do yard work, because you miss having a yard, (that would be Sparky) residents can get paid 10.00 an hour rent credit for work done around the complex!

Grey headed coneflower

Sparky is a bit further from the Pumpkinvine bike trail, but that doesn't stop her from getting out there and riding 12-18 miles a couple times a week. The wildflowers are incredible right now....The lavendar bee balm, grey headed coneflowers, purple coneflowers, they are all blooming like crazy along the trail. It's a beautiful ride any time of the year.

Amish farm-corn and zinnias

The butterflies are really enjoying the prolific bloom of flowers...

The cornfields are tasseling....There is nothing better than Indiana sweet corn in August and it's everywhere. The farm fields are beautiful. It's amazing how tightly packed those cornstalks are! The yields must be great for the farmers. They've had ample rain this year and not had to irrigate as much.

Swallowtail on bee balm

It's hot, but not unbearably so, like in the southwest. Temperatures are in the high eighties during the day and low sixties at night. We are really enjoying the area as we settle down for awhile. Sparky will start subbing soon, hopefully, and Eldy is in the height of golf season with the Concord High School girls' golf team. He is VERY busy and that's a great thing for him to have an outside interest that gets him up and moving around. The golf team won their first match and are steadily progressing with their skills. They should have a very respectable season with their new coaches!

Sparky saw the biggest drone she had ever seen while bike riding. It was spray dusting the cornfields. It stopped spraying as it came to the end of the field where she was just outside the edge of the fence. Wonder if she was on camera and the operator stopped spraying because of that? It immediately flew back towards the farm and didn't spray any more after that. Maybe it returned to get more spray?

Along with the many many fields of corn, there are of course, soybeans. Did you know soybeans produce pretty little purple flowers hiding underneath their canopies of fuzzy leaves and stems? 

You may not always see Amish while riding the trail, but they are always out and about either in the fields or in their buggies traveling here and there.  Sparky just missed a buggy today....

The rock snake has gotten a LOT longer! Look at this little dude. In case you missed it, someone started a two rock snake with a little request to post on social media as the snake gets additional rocks. Sparky first saw it with the head and one rock earlier this season and that was it. How fun for people riding along the trail! There are some cool rocks in the snake.

Some more talented rock painters.....

The flower quilts are at the height of their season. Now is the time to go see them if you are in the area...

Quilt garden Abshire Park Goshen

Downtown Goshen

We continue to enjoy the small town of Goshen. They close off the streets the first Friday of every month with usually some sort of theme, for music, food vendors and shopping discounts. We haven't made it over there yet,  but it's on our list of fun things to do when it's not too hot. Sparky loves the downtown vibe there....

We are regular visitors to JoJo's Pretzels on Main Street in Goshen. They have really great warm, freshly made pretzels. Sparky loves her sour cream and onion pretzels, Eldo loves his garlic/parmesan pretzels.

And with that....School starts next week and Sparky already has work lined up with a fourth grade class for half days for two weeks! We shall see you later down the road or in town, haha...Five days till the RV goes in for repairs, the countdown begins in earnest!

On the Trail....

There are a lot of different kinds of trails in Elkhart County...There's the Art and Earth Trail...Here's the criteria for the stops on this trail:

Each place had to be authentic and unique to the region, whether it was an Amish farm where you can stop to buy quilts and homemade jam, a luxurious South Bend bed and breakfast once the home of a famous family, or a shop in refurbished Winona Lake where artists’ creations reflect serious thought as well as whimsy. Most important of all, each venue had to be friendly, easily accessible and reflect the values we treasure here in Northern Indiana. You won’t find chains or cookie-cutter businesses listed, just one-of-a-kind shops, restaurants, museums and lodgings dedicated to the most important person visiting here…you.

and the Northern Indiana Foodie Trail. Seriously? Oh, yeah, and Sparky will check it out SOON now that she is feeling better!  Then there is the Heritage Trail, a nationally recognized tour route of 90 miles. You can pick up a free audio self-guided tour CD from the Elkhart Visitor's Center, that leads through seven communities with directional cues (whew! Sparky needs that), and fun stories about the places seen along the way.

site plaque with flower and facts information

We were here last year, so today we just decided to go looking at the Quilt Gardens which are along the Heritage Trail without the accompaniment of the CD. There are a total of 19 eye popping gardens, each showcasing a different quilt pattern in the communities of Nappanee, Middlebury, Goshen, Shipshewanna, Wakarusa, Elkhart, Bristol and Goshen. There are also 20 hand painted quilt murals in these communities as well. Each site has a plaque that tells you about the quilt pattern, a little story behind each one, and what flowers make up the flower quilt garden. For example, one of the quilt gardens is a pinwheel. (not pictured). The plaque talks about the Navajo believing that the whirling log represents the four cardinal directions. It tells why each plant variety was chosen, and that the pink sunstorm vinca plant looks like polka dotted fabric from a distance. Then each plaque has a "did you know?" fact. The same pinwheel plaque tells that the petunia originated in Argentina and was first brought to Paris in 1823.

The whole thing is very cool! If you go to AmishCountry.org, you will get lots more information on what to see and what to do if you are in the Elkhart County area and surrounding Amish countryside....

Here's the interpreted flower garden from the above pattern

We covered 11 out of the 19 gardens today...Eldy patiently drove Sparky all over the county to see the gardens and make a few other stops as well. Before we started on the tour, we stopped at the Davis Mercantile in downtown Shipshewanna, home to many fine stores like Lolly's Fabrics and JoJo's Pretzels, which are Sparky and Eldo's most favorite preferred pretzels for fresh homemade ones. Eldo had a plain one, Sparky had a sour cream and onion pretzel. It was half gone before she remembered to take a picture of it!

That place is ALWAYS busy! The line snakes down through the shop to the back of the room on a Saturday, and many other days as well....Well worth it to see the pretzels made, and have a fresh hot one melt in your mouth!

On to the gardens....Here is a collection of what we saw today...Last year when we were here, we visited the gardens in October, and they were on their last legs. This year, being July, the gardens were in their prime. Beautiful!

It was a beautiful drive today, in the eighties, little bit cloudy. Sparky was SO appreciative of Eldy schlepping her all over the county to get these photos today. Eldo is just happy his Sparky is starting to feel sparky again!

We'll see you later...in a day or two....We're gonna get busy visiting friends and family, but there sure is more to see and do in Elkhart County!

Sparky Has a New Nickname!

Elkhart, IN     High: 51   Low:  41     WIND........It's nerve wracking!

Sparky was given a new nickname by her daughter (who just had Sparky's first grandbaby this past June.) "Just call me 'Grandmarrazzi' ".  Kerry came up with her own moniker for her Mama Sparky after seeing the word here:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mamarazzi.....If you don't care to go clicking here it is:

mamarazzi

1. Mothers who constantly follow their children around with several cameras and video taking equipment, snapping photos at each turn and documenting each milestone or event with at least two dozen photos and a video. 2. Groups of aforementioned mothers 3. When referring to yourself as described above  1. You can’t even get close to the swings because of all the mamarazzi. 2. I can’t believe how many photos I took of baby Madison on the slide! I’m such a mamarazzi!

Oh, yeah, I'm a grandmarazzi,  and I'm proud of it! says Sparky. Sparky has already told Kerry to be prepared when she comes to visit Sparky and Eldo in December around the holidays, that the camera WILL be out, and the cheeks on that baby WILL be smooched-- a LOT!

                                        

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What did we do today?  Headed back to Shipshewanna, Amish country. Got some more zucchini bread at the Blue Gate Restaurant to freeze and save for eating later in the year, ate our last Jojo's pretzel at the Davis Mercantile, ate some yogurt at the Hitching Post, a cool toys and candy shop...

and visited the Guggisberg Deutsch Kase Haus cheese factory in Middlebury. You can watch championship cheese being made (they won an award for this year), eat samples, (we did) and buy cheese and/or meat. (We did.) 

Bonneyville Grist Mill

Lastly, we stopped by Bonneyville Mill, a free county park with Indiana's oldest operating gristmill that continues to produce flour.....When other mills expanded and updated their equipment, Bonneyville chose to stay true to a mill of the Civil War era. It grinds flour the old fashioned way with a horizontal water wheel/turbine. They produce flour from May to October. Sparky purchased a small bag of cornmeal flower and is gonna make cornmeal muffins. (She's gonna COOK? This I gotta see! says E.) "Hey, now, I just made some brownies, I do know how to use the convection oven!" retorts Sparky. :-)

Bonneyville Mill is a beautiful park, 222 acres of rolling hills, woodlands, marshes and open meadows. There are over five miles of hiking trails here. We sort of stumbled upon the park and didn't have time to hike the trails today, but we did check out the mill and the herb and flower gardens on the grounds. The ornamental grasses were gorgeous! (You can tell Sparky likes to garden, more photos of the grounds than inside the mill! explains Eldo.)

It's really cool and full of charm.......You can feel the grist stones vibrating under your feet and hear the rushing water as it powers the mill. The ancient equipment inside really made you feel like you were back in the early 1800's. 

Even the cash register was over 120 years old and they used it to ring up Sparky's corn meal purchase.

Everything was numbered, explanations were provided by park personnel and the mill was put into operation for us to see.

The mill is getting ready to close at the end of the month. We were glad to get there today before it did and see a piece of history!