Archive for November, 2025

exploring

Cider Festival

Last weekend I found a festival that wasn’t just shopping. They had a cider festival at the Frontier Culture Museum, and it was mostly about learning. And drinking. Though, ironically, I didn’t have any cider at the cider festival.

I guess they were trying to keep it focused on learning, so instead of you being able to buy drinks, to drink you had to buy a tasting ticket, which got you 5 4-ounce drinks from all the various cider breweries who were there. But that’s way too much for me. If I drank that much, not only would someone have had to drive me home, but they’d have had to carry me to the car. There didn’t seem to be an option to get just one drink (probably because if you could buy single drinks then there would be people buying many, many drinks). I may send a suggestion to have a mini tasting option the next time they do this, with amounts that really are just a taste.

So I didn’t have cider, but they had presentations on growing apples, different kinds of cooking with apples, the history of cider making in this area, etc. There was also a gentleman talking about traditional basket weaving. The only shopping was cider (you could buy bottles and cans from the breweries, but you’d get a ticket to pick it up on the way out), apples, the basket guy had baskets, and there was a book shop (books on apples, cider, regional travel, and plants/gardening). They had food trucks, and I got my annual serving of apple cider donuts.

Mostly, it was just a nice day out. The weather was perfect, just warm enough that I didn’t need a jacket, but with enough of a nip in the air to feel like fall. The fall color in the trees that still had leaves was so bright and intense, and there was the scent of wood smoke from the cooking fires, with a hint of cinnamon from the cider donut stand.

The next day I was inspired to make my annual batch of apple butter with the apples I got at a farm stand last weekend. I think I finally got it right. It takes a lot of time to cook it down properly and I usually get impatient and stop too soon. At the apple butter festival, the old guys cook it overnight in big cast iron kettles over open fires. I cheat by using the Instant Pot to pressure cook the apples, which speeds up the initial breakdown of the apples. But then you have to boil for a long time to get it to thicken up into butter. I made myself be patient and let it cook, then cooled it and refrigerated it overnight and cooked it some more the next day before canning it.

I’d planned to do work around the house this weekend, but a hiking group I’ve been following on Facebook and saying I wanted to get involved with is doing a walk around town. I think I’ll join them because it’ll be a less intimidating environment for meeting them (and I can easily peel off if I don’t like it) and it will be a walk I know I can do. I need to get in better shape for some of their hikes, but with this I can see what kind of pace they set before I head into the mountains with them.

exploring

Over the Mountain

I had a minor adventure yesterday. I finally went “over the mountain,” as they say around here, to go to Charlottesville, our nearest real city (it’s not really a big city, more of a mid-sized city, but it’s bigger than all the small cities around me). You have to cross the Blue Ridge Mountains to get there. I’ve actually crossed the mountains before to go to an event just on the other side of the mountains, and I drove past Charlottesville on my way home from my last trip to DC, but I hadn’t made it into the city itself before.

It’s only about a 45-minute drive from my house to the place I went shopping, probably less time to get downtown or to the tourist attractions, like Monticello. This was a shopping trip, so I didn’t hit any of the touristy spots or see anything that suggested the character of the town. I was strictly on the main shopping center road where the big box stores are, which is pretty much indistinguishable from anywhere else in suburban America. I don’t know why it took me so long to get around to doing this. I guess it feels like a bigger trek than it really is, since it does involve crossing a mountain, but I used to drive farther than that to go to things around the Dallas area. Now that I have a proper mental image of it, I’m less intimidated and may go more often.

My main goal was hitting a big shoe store and buying some black boots I can walk in. It’s supposed to get cold next week, and I wanted to be ready. I usually walk to church, and I wanted to be able to look somewhat dressy while staying warm. What I had in mind was something like a riding boot, but none of the ones that they had in my size were very comfortable. When your feet hurt walking around the shoe store, it’s a bad sign. I ended up getting something different, some soft suede-like boots with a decent tread on the bottom. They look dressy, but they should be good for walking, and they’re washable. They probably aren’t waterproof, but if there’s snow on the ground I’d wear my snow boots and maybe throw a pair of ballet flats in my choir bag to change into at church.

In the same shopping center was a nice used bookstore. They didn’t have any of the specific things I was looking for, but they had a lot, so if I’m over there again I’ll make time to browse. They actually had a huge chick lit section full of all those books from the early 2000s, including a copy of Don’t Hex with Texas. I didn’t notice anything I hadn’t read by any of the authors I used to follow, but I’ll have to take more time to look in the future. I also hit a housewares shop and found a small saucepan with a pouring spout, something I’ve been looking for to make cocoa.

Then I found the fancy grocery store that has a nice cheese shop and bakery, so I know where to go when I need something that I can’t find in our town. Then I ran out of steam and hit something like museum fatigue, only it was shopping fatigue, probably because I delayed eating lunch until I got “hangry,” then couldn’t find anything I wanted to eat that I could get to easily, so I ended up just stopping at another grocery store and buying something at the deli (after having a chat in the parking lot with the kids running the Wienermobile that was parked outside) to eat in my car before I headed home.

I found a few more shops I want to get back to in the future, and now that I know where everything is and that getting there isn’t a massive ordeal and is actually a rather pleasant drive with stunning scenery, I may make more excursions in the future when I need something I can’t find locally. I’ve heard that you want to get home well before rush hour because there are a lot of people here who commute to Charlottesville, so the traffic can get bad, but the fact that people do commute shows that it’s not that far. I guess my brain is still thinking in Texas terms, so I look at distances on a map and think it’s a lot farther than it really is. It’s not a run grab a loaf of bread distance, but it is a good I need an ingredient or kitchen tool they don’t have here distance. Next time, maybe I’ll do some of the touristy stuff and go downtown or to Monticello. I’ll just have to be sure to avoid windy days, because the wind is pretty intense on that mountain pass, and there are lots of warning signs about fog on the mountain. The road goes up high enough that my ears popped on the way up and down.

Life

The Neighborhood Cats

One interesting feature of my new neighborhood is that it comes with cats. There’s a colony of feral cats that makes the neighborhood home, and they wander from house to house. My house seems to be a highway between two of the houses that leave food for them, so even though I don’t leave food out, they still pass through my yard or across my deck. The neighbors say the cats hung out on my deck while this house was abandoned.

There’s a lady the next street down the hill who is the primary caretaker. She has little insulated houses for them and feeds them, and it’s apparently a gray area of whether she “owns” the cats. She considers them hers, but I don’t know that she’s providing veterinary care or has any kind of registration. Some of the cats have tipped ears, indicating that they’ve been trapped, neutered and given some vaccinations, and then re-released. They aren’t friendly or cuddly cats. They usually bolt at the sign of a human. The neighbors say we don’t have a problem with mice or rats around here, so that’s a good thing.

Even though the cats aren’t friendly and run at the sight of me, I enjoy observing them. I’m not really a cat person in the sense that I’ve never had a cat, though I don’t dislike cats. If I see one, I want to pet it. But I’m pretty allergic to them. Whenever I’ve spent the night in a house with a cat in it, I’ve come down with a bad case of bronchitis, so I will not be adopting a cat to live with me. This is almost the next best thing, aside from not getting to pet the kitties.

A gray and black striped cat sits on a wooden deck, looking back toward the camera.
This visitor is a bit friendlier than the others, but it still runs away if I’m outside.

Among the regulars is this gray one. It’s a bit less skittish than the others. I was easily able to get a picture through my glass door, even though it spotted me. I leave a dish of water on the deck, and this one will come meow at me through the door when it’s had a drink or when I need to refill the dish (though it will flee if I go outside to fill the dish).

The main regular, though, is the elusive white cat one of my neighbors said she thinks is haunted or possessed. I don’t know about that, but I know that the squirrels are less skittish around me than this cat is. It will flee if it even sees me through the window. I’ve been calling it The Magnificent Floof because just look at how fluffy this cat is. I’m amazed that a stray manages to stay this white and clean. Although it looks pretty magnificent much of the time, this cat is kind of a dork.

A very fluffy white cat sits on a wooden deck, its back to the camera, but turning to look back at the camera.
The Magnificent Floof finally sat still long enough for me to take a photo from inside the house.

For instance … There was one day when I was sitting on my deck. I had music playing and was reading something on my computer, so it wasn’t a surprise that I was there. This cat must have wanted to travel the highway, going from under the fence, up the steps to my deck and then down the stairs that go from my deck down the hill to the street level (my house is built into a hill, so the deck is off the upstairs, which is ground level in back), so it was trying to sneak past me, going between the table and the deck railing. I glanced over just as the cat was trying to sneak past, and the expression on its face made me laugh out loud.

A fluffy white cat looks up from drinking water with an expression that seems to say "Oops, you caught me." A blue watering can lies on its side nearby.
The Floof looks a little less majestic when it realizes it’s been caught drinking. The cats prefer any water in the watering can over what’s in the dish, so the watering can is always knocked over.

Imagine a teenager coming home after curfew to find that all the lights in the house are out. They think this means if they sneak in quietly and get in bed, no one will know they came home late. When they’re halfway through tiptoeing across the living room, the lamp next to their dad’s recliner suddenly comes on, and they realize their dad has been waiting up for them. They’re so busted. That was exactly the look on this cat’s face when I looked at it. It froze for a second, then it backed all the way to the steps down from the deck to the back yard before turning and fleeing.

This morning it was trying to sneak past while I was sitting in the living room, and when it passed the glass door, I said, “Hey, kitty.” It stopped, looked around, then finally spotted me inside the house, jumped in fright, turned, and ran. When it got down the steps into the yard, it turned back to look at the house, and when it saw me through the window, it turned and ran away.

This cat is also obsessed with the groundhog that lives in a hole on the side of the hill (the hill my house is built into continues to rise behind the house. There are few flat surfaces in this whole town). The only time the cat doesn’t bolt if I appear is when it’s waiting outside the groundhog’s hole. Sunday I was watching the cat as it seemed to be making laps around my yard, then started nosing around the groundhog hole. Just then, the groundhog emerged from the hole, and I swear, that cat teleported across the yard. It was in one place, there was a moment of confrontation, and next thing I know, the cat is on the opposite side of the yard. It waited there a second, eyeing the groundhog like it was trying to decide what to do, then turned and walked away like “I meant to do that.” The groundhog stood outside the hole for a while, looking smug and radiating “King of the Mountain” energy. The cat has gone back to the hole a few times since then, but is being much more cautious about it. It seems to like stalking the groundhog, but it would rather not actually encounter it.

Aside from not having to worry about mice, one other nice thing about the neighborhood cats is that I finally have cat pictures to post on the Internet. That seems to be the key to engagement. I wonder if I could leave out one of my books and get pictures of one of the cats with it. It’s tricky to get pictures. I have to take pictures through the glass door and do it quickly before the cats notice me and flee. Or I could edit cats into pictures with my books. Cat pictures in general are the key to getting attention online.