Happy Days in Milwaukee

There can't be a lot of places better to watch the fall come in than here in Wisconsin. The trees seem to be changing colour almost in front of our eyes. And Autumn brings more than just beautiful foliage--- here in the US it is truly the season of the pumpkin!

Yesterday we went to see the Museum of Art here in Milwaukee. It is an awesome building with a bit of a surprise built in

At various of times of the day you might hear a little fanfare from the museum- this is your cue to stand back and watch the action. The graceful wings are slowly lowered until hugging the main building- a short trumpet burst later and they start their trip back up to the sky. I have never seen anything quite like it and the people are justifiably proud of it.

We didn't actually go into the museum proper as it felt like nothing could compete with the show that it had put on itself. We did venture over to the kite shop



and admired them but didn't join in. We drove around and saw my first Milwaukee pumpkin patch (warning- for any of you who may not be all that into pumpkins, there are going to be many squash related photos coming up today and maybe other days too)



Not wanting to rush into anything, we decided to wait until today to buy our own pumpkins. I have never actually carved a pumpkin before- as kids we were given swedes to carve a few times but pumpkins were well and truly on the luxury shelf. So today we went off into the country in search of the perfect pumpkin patch. We started at Holy Hill

a church on a hill which offers great views over the countryside

great views but not much in the way of pumpkins- it was time to enlist the help of our cultural guide, my sister in law, Krista. She expertly guided us to the perfect place as you can see

The English amongst us were a little nervous at the prospect of the whole carving thing and so we put it off for a while and headed out for steak. And not just any steak, steak the size of several cows- barbecued to perfection by us on large barbecue tables in the middle of the restaurant. The other patrons seemed at ease as they slopped a large piece of steak onto the barbie, sprinkled seasoning and wiped a paintbrush loaded with butter across the top. We giggled a bit and barbecued by time more than knowledge. Turned out good (and we all have half a steak each for tomorrow!) and gave us the confidence to give the pumpkins a go.

I am going to be straight with you here- we did buy carving kits and use stencils- even so we were more than impressed with the results. Gareth had chosen a very big specimen, Penny and I less so. I had also picked up a small addition just because it was cute. Unfortunately, Krista was unable to join us with the great carve up in the kitchen but no fingers were lost and no blood spilled

This is my finished fellow. We were all very proud of our efforts and popped them all on the doorstep and started the photo shoot

From left to right, the first two are mine, the next is Penny's and Gareth's giant pumpkin is over on the right. Even as I type this, they are sitting out on the street, hoping to avoid any prospective pumpkin smashers.