The goal of our trip was to visit family in rural Kentucky. After meandering through middle America, we finally arrived at my brother-in-law, Bryan’s, farm. Due to various road closures, we saw a lot of small town Kentucky between Louisville and our destination of Edmonton. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but we left our home in Idaho in a cold snap and entered Kentucky in a hot spell. We purposely planned the trip in late September to avoid the heat. It was in the mid 90’s and humid when we arrived…at 10:00 AM.

Bryan has 28 acres in Edmonton. A creek runs along the back of his property. He and his wife, Bren, took me for a quick tour in their quad. We ripped along the dry creek bed until Bryan hit a rock and blew a tire and we had to hike out. Bad time to be wearing flip-flops. In South Dakota, I would have had to pay good money to rent a quad and drive through the forest at breakneck speeds.

A beautiful Kentucky sunset

On Saturday morning, I went to the Glasgow farmers’ market with Bren. She sells a variety of products from their farm including eggs, chicken and garlic. They raise alpacas, so she had dryer balls and alpaca felted goats’ milk soap. She also resells alpaca socks and toys. The kids loved coming up and petting the super soft alpaca stuffed animals. Bren’s mom, Shirley, makes wooden puzzles and other decorative items on her scroll saw, and my mother-in-law, Carol, and sister-in-law, Sherri, sell fabric and quilted household items. We had quite a variety and sales weren’t too bad considering the oppressive heat.

Market vendors
Bren’s alpaca goods
Shirley’s woodworking

Saturday night, we had a birthday party for Carol. Unbeknownst to her, the boys had planned a big surprise for after dinner. Earlier in the day, Shawn plowed a fire break in the field, and Bryan wired up a fireworks extravaganza. We’re not talking those wimpy safe and sane fireworks you get in California. These were full on professional, launch into the sky fireworks. Fifteen minutes of blazing, birthday celebration!

Carol and her great granddaughter, Harper, getting ready to blow out the candles

Sunday, we toured a blueberry farm owned by Bren’s friend, Hope. Some of the blueberry plants were 25 years old. Hope showed us how to identify the different years’ growth and told us how to propagate new plants. We left with three plants to take back to our garden in Idaho. I tried one of Hope’s blueberry muffins at the farmers’ market and they were fantastic, so I’m really looking forward to a blueberry crop.

Hope educating us on raising blueberries
Blueberry orchard?

Sunday night, we went to dinner at the neighborhood Mexican restaurant. Shawn was really looking forward to a cerveza after a day in the hot sun. He and Bryan had been out in the field sighting Shawn’s new hunting rifle and doing a bit of target practice. When Shawn ordered a beer, the waitress scowled at him, and said, “No beer. It’s Sunday.”

Other sites we saw in Kentucky:

Edmonton town square
A local volunteer planting mums at City Hall. She asked Shawn to take her with us to Idaho so she could escape the heat.
A tobacco field and tobacco barn full of drying tobacco. They are all over the Kentucky countryside.
Mulching a planter box with alpaca fiber

Monday night, we had a last family dinner prepared by Bren. She made spaghetti with homemade sauce and fresh bread with roasted garlic from her garden. We had been carrying around the one watermelon we saved from our garden, so we cut that up to share. It was a great visit, in spite of the heat (have I mentioned my severe dislike of humidity?).

My air-conditioned vantage point when not hanging out with the family

So now we begin the long journey back home. Hopefully, we will have cooler weather by the time we leave Kansas. We’ve been watching the weather at home, and we missed our first snowfall.