MAD Visit 2012

Last off-hitch, my Mom And Dad came to visit us.

And I'm gonna tell you all about it!  We did lots of stuff, including visiting my favorite store, The Rusty Bucket.

I got to show them our garden, the highlight of which was our Shy Yellow Begonia:

(She hides her blossoms under the foliage.  Crazy, huh?)

 We hit a few antique stores:

And we visited the Smuckers Store:

Funny thing, Smuckers corporate is right up the road from here, and we attempted to stop there first...but it was just a big office, I guess.  When we asked at the antique shop, the lady said, "Oh, they have a little cafeteria thing and a store," and we thought, "Oh, well, it must not have been anything special anyway."

Yeah, she wasn't talking about corporate...THIS is what she was talking about:

They give out samples, too.

Did you know Smuckers got its start in 1897?

They sold apple pressing and grinding services exclusively to the farmers within a 15 mile radius.  Then they moved into making and selling apple butter and widened the radius to 25 miles (they didn't start making jellies and preserves until 1923).  The man behind the movement was Jerome Smucker.

He and his wife Ella named their four children  Willard, Wilma, Welker, and Winna.  I'm betting he was known on the block as the "fun" dad.

This company is still run by Smuckers, actually...Co-CEO'ed by Richard and Timothy.  They became the #1 fruit spread brand in the country in 1979, and they were the #1 Best Company to Work For in 2004.

"Now hang on!" says you.  "What's all this got to do with the Pillsbury Doughboy?!"

Right you are.  What on earth is he doing posing with me at Smuckers?

Well...

...beginning in the '70's, Smuckers started buying up other companies.  In the 2000's, they kinda exploded.  So...Pillsbury, Laura Schudder, Dickinson's, Knott's, R.W. Knudsen's, Carnation, Crisco, Jif, Borden,  they're all Smuckers's.

Paul Smucker, the third generation owner/president, sent this letter to his employees sometime in the 80's.  Wouldn't it be awesome to work in an environment like this?

Guess what they're interested in these days?  You'll never guess.  Come on, give it your best guess.

Wow, you got it right.

You know what I would've bought, if I were made of money?  The only things there that were made of wood.

Aren't they beautiful??  I'm pretty sure the top crate is made of solid poplar and smooth as smooth.

Smucker's thinks they're pretty special, too.

We also went to Dad's favorite non-electric store.

They actually do use electricity inside the store, though.

Huge place with tons to see (bad lighting, though, = bad pictures)...Dad observed that it's part store, part museum...I especially liked all the old furnaces and wood cooktops they have displayed around the ceiling in the "Fire" section.

And they have stuff like this:

Yep, a whole rack full of unidentified metal objects.  There are other "what is it"s scattered throughout the store.

This is the toy section.

Hi, Dad!

I got our best family photos at this little cafe in Wadsworth, right across the street from the store where we bought Dave's wedding ring and my marriage band.

See my secret weapon?

Remote control clicker.  Totally worth the tiny price.

We took them down to see the lake.

Dad got to crush a few pennies.

I had such a hard time with the pictures this day...

It was threatening rain, so we didn't stay out very long...and all the photos came out blue or overblown or both.  Sigh.

These are glass insulators.  See?

A view from the train tracks back toward the house.  The house is the yellow on the right, the garage is the white on the left.

This is our backyard maple.  Dave is explaining how it got hit by lightning several months ago.

The bolt broke the step that had been nailed on to provide children a way up into the branches, but the tree is otherwise perfectly healthy.

...if a little blue.

We had a lovely fire outside and Mom made us our first batch of homemade ice cream in our wedding present ice cream maker!  And I got Amazing photos!

Not.  I did try, but after so much defeat, I figured it would be better to just sit and enjoy the evening.  I was totally right.

The next day, we went to the Stan Hywet House.

This little place...

...belonged to Frank and Gertrude Seiberling and their family, the family that founded Goodyear.  It was built in the 1910's and '20's in the style of an English manor complete with coach house, gate house, orchards, vineyards, and multiple gardens.

For some reason, though, photos are prohibited inside the building.  I'm afraid photos are a lot of how I remember any of the stuff I learn at places like this, and so I've "forgotten" most of the history of the house.

I can tell you this, though, that Stan Hywet is Old English for "rock quarry."  Confusing, huh?  Stan Hywet never housed anyone named Stan, unless there was a servant there by that name.

It did house lots of guests in its time, including the Von Trapp family after their famous escape from German occupied Austria.

Frank and Gertrude were the parents of six children.  Their first daughter-in-law was one of the instigators for the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous.

After the last time I visited this place, I firmly believed it was Gertrude who was key in the founding of AA...but no.  It was their first daughter-in-law, Henrietta.  That's what happens when you don't let people take pictures of your information plaques...they leave misinformed.

The original gardens have been restored largely through volunteer efforts and generous donations.  Guess who one of their biggest patrons is?

The Japanese Garden:

The Lagoon:

And the Women's Garden English Garden:

And for the grand finale, we cooked some bison steaks and went to bed early.

We had such fun hosting you guys, Mom and Dad!  Come back and see us again soon!