Michigan in a minute (also some Ohio)

DAY 1:

  I have been having so much fun, and it is only day one!  It is also unseasonably warm.

  Bill's grandmother used to make these button cards.  This is one she even entered into a contest.

  Here is the back with more info and her picture.  She won quite a few awards with her button cards.  There were a lot of rules for those.

  These are in the sidewalk outside of Bill's Aunt's house. You just don't see sidewalks like that anymore. It is so cool to be able to see who put them down.

 

 

   This is the sexy beer advertisement the local beer company put out. Guys liked it because it looked naughty but it was also discreet about it. The place got closed down by prohibition, but they recently reopened a new location.

   Bill's Aunt has a lot of great things from Lansing's past.   She used to collect them with her father.

  Here is their new location. Very bright and easy to see from the road.  A few of the old pictures from the original location are blown up in two of the rooms.  They were donated by Aunt Fern.

  I just can't go anywhere without my knitting. I am further than when you saw it last, but I had to rip some out in the car because I picked up the wrong number of stitches.

  We also went to go visit Bill's Grandparents on his Mother's side.  The cemetery where they are is very pretty and very old.

DAY 2:

 

Bought some local yarn. I didn't have any llama yarn before, but now I do. The colors are showing up brighter in the picture than they do in person.

 

  I wasn't going to buy it at first, but Bill thought it would be nice to support some local people, even if it isn't my local.

 

  Bill really wanted to go to Founders.  Since we had all worked up an appitite at the Fiber Show we decided it would be a really good idea.

 

  I tried these four.  The middle two were my favorite.  The lightest one, Apple BLOSSome, was brewed to celebrate the wedding anniversary of the owner.

 

 

  The Meijer Gardens were our next stop.  This little guy was in the area with all the cacti and other really warm weather plants.  He was just so cute!

  Aunt Fern also really wanted to go see the horse sculpture that is there because she has heard it is one of those things you just have to go see.  When you first walk around the bend all you see is the medium horse (the very small one on the left)

  Once you fully get around you see this guy.  He is 24 feet tall.  We also stayed so long we closed the place out.

DAY 3:

  More craft fair fun!  It was in a tiny town and someone actually stopped to look at our out of state plates as they walked by.  I thought these little paper clip angles were really cute.

   If there is a book store near by, we have to go to it.  Bill's family are very big book people.  This was one of the good ones we saw but didn't get.

  There was also this really big and old Dictionary.  It is kind of sad how they don't put the pretty designs on the sides of books.  I heard they did that so it would be easy to tell if pages were ever removed.  I don't know if that is true or not, but it does sound good.

  This guy was a button made from beads that Aunt Fern showed me, then gave to me.  I will have to find a special place for him.

  I feel like I have finally become part of the family.  Not that anyone wasn't welcoming before or anything, but I made my first button card.  We looked for buttons for about two and a half hours and then it took me about that long again to put them on the card.

  The reason it took so long was because some of them had the good shank back and some had the annoying shank back.  The one on the bottom had the good one, you just made a little slit and it went right in.  The one on the top has a tapper to it, so you had to make a much bigger hole and it kept wanting to slide out.  You have to either add some pipe cleaner to help hold it down, or wrap one of the ends of wire around its neighbor.

DAY 4:

  On our way out of town we stopped by The Farm.  It is some land that Bill's family owns and his grandparents lived out there.

  This is the old foundation of the barn.  I tried to get a few panoramic shots of it, but they didn't do it justice.  It is really cool to see how well it has held up over time.

 

  This is out farther from where the house used to be and everything.  It was where they would take maple sap and boil it down to make either maple syrup or maple candies.  Huge metal trays would go on those slates and wood would go underneath.  You can still see some of where the large door went on the front.

 

 

  You could even still see some of the holes in the trees.  It was really cool to see that still on there.

 

   No idea what it used to be, but we found that near the house foundation remnants.

  Further down the road we saw some cows munching on the left-overs from a corn field.  They were loving it.

DAY 5:

  It was just a whirlwind of  cats and hanging out with Bill's mom and his siblings.

  This is Tiger.  He is over 20 years old.  Poor Old-Man Kitty still gets around and likes to have his head petted.

 

  This is Mrs. Harrison.  She came to them all ratty and pregnant.  None of her kittens were long haired though.

 

   Speaking of her children.  Here is one of them.  She was shy at first, then wouldn't leave.  I got my legs licked while I was petting her.  She will also bite your nose if you aren't giving her enough attention.

  Since we were in the area and had a big truck, we helped Bill's Mother to take some stuff to the local recycle place.  They still give you money for the things you bring in.

  I mostly finished the shrug, I just need to weave in some ends and block it.  I figure all this is enough for one day, so I will save that for another.