It's all in the smartitude

Almost three weeks ago, my Smart Car wouldn't start while sitting in the grocery store parking lot.  Packed with groceries.  At night.

After a cab ride home for me--groceries in the trunk--and a tow home for the car,  we discovered an unheavenly truth.  The local Mercedes dealership doesn't work on Smarts. (Mercedes makes Smart Cars.)  Never mind that someone at that dealership told me otherwise when we were thinking about buying the car (from an unrelated car lot, so the misinformation is totally not their fault) way back in January.  

I'm telling you, there was much sighing and rolling of eyes around here.  And phone calls.

Two days later, Triple-A towed the car 200 miles from home to an official Smart Center repair shop.  Thank God for them and for our inherent nervousness which had prompted us to buy the extended warranty for the car.  Both resources paid the majority of the bills.  

The repair itself took less than a day, but we had to wait another week and a half before we could fetch the car.  By that time, I was in the mood for an old fashioned road trip.  I was determined to redeem all our frustration into something fun.

So, on our way home from the repair shop, we visited the Louisburg Cider Mill during their Ciderfest.

I didn't take lots of pictures, but here is how the cider apples are given a bath...

before they take a little ride up a conveyer…

into the cider press house.

As you can see, quite a crowd attended the Ciderfest.  Here in Kansas, we had a long, miserable, record-breaking summer, so folks are ready for fall.  

On the other side of a long walk across a field of parked cars, however, the pumpkin patch lay wide open.

Off in the distance the maples are turning red…finally!  

We passed up several handsome pumpkins…

To adopt this pretty boy.

He's sporting a new shawl I whipped up for my local yarn shop.  I love the shawl's name: Arachnophilia. It's a name apropos for the first cooler-weather holiday, no?

The shawl, a pattern by Jennifer Dassau, is based on the same stitch I used for edging my Occasus square shawl.  Details about my version of Arachnophilia are on its Ravelry project page, but the short of it is it's an easy, fun shawl.

Finally, the best treat we ate at the Ciderfest was a batch of little cider donuts.  The mill's donuts are fried, but I baked a batch of my own using a mini donut tray and this recipe.  They turned out well, I think, though they don't melt in one's mouth like a fried donut.  

If I wanted to add calories, I'd soak them in melted butter and sprinkle sugar over them.  I'm naughty for eating donuts, but I'm not that naughty.  So instead, I soak them in milk.  For the discovery of cider donuts, I'm not so cranky anymore about my car wigging out three weeks ago.  I forgive it.