Fall Weekend at Landis Farm

Another fun weekend at Landis Farm! Eileen and I drove up on Friday morning (Prudy and Judy had gone the day before) and after stopping at the farm and saying hi to Evelyn and Earl, we had our usual light lunch at Country Table in Mount Joy--turkey and filling, mashed potatoes, cranberry relish, rolls and butter). Then we drove around to one of our favorite shops, the Old Mill House near Strasburg, where we always get ideas for Christmas decorations, as they have the best holiday decor ever. After a stop at a few shoe outlets, we headed to downtown Lancaster for their "First Friday" event, which Evelyn had suggested we might like. On the first Friday of the month, all the shops and art galleries stay open late, music is playing outside and in some of the galleries, and lots of people are out and about. It was pretty cool, and we all bought some things--art, jewelry, pottery. I love how old towns revitalize their downtowns with events like this. There are lots of cool restaurants and wine bars, and we were planning to stop in and have a glass of wine, but we were tired and so decided to come back to the farm and eat. We had some cheese and crackers and then Prudy made a big salad and Eileen made us Julia Child omelettes with our farm fresh eggs.

"First Friday" in Lancaster

Downtown Lancaster

Making omelettes

We have been buying vegetable soup for years at a nearby church that sells it by the quart at their Christmas Bazaar. So on Saturday morning Eileen and Prudy got up early and picked up 19 quarts of soup for us and Evelyn. Luckily Evelyn has about a million canning jars, so she gave us the jars. Yum, it is delicious.

Then we were off to Weavers for some coffee and grilled sticky buns (best ever breakfast), then did our shopping there for favorite Lancaster Co. foods--bacon, sausages, macaroni and cheese, noodles, bread.  We spent the rest of the day driving around the beautiful Lancaster County countryside, stopping for a few hours in Lititz to go chocolate shopping at Wilbur Chocolate, and walk around town. We had lunch at a restaurant Evelyn has told us about, Lititz Family Cupboard and then drove to Ephrata to 10,000 Villages. We came home that evening and relaxed, sitting around the kitchen table all night drinking wine and talking, and having a warm and comforting dinner of vegetable soup and bread, and cucumber salad that Judy made. I'm not even mentioning the pumpkin pie, orange cake, pumpkin roll, and cookies that we snack on. If it sounds like all we do is eat when we are there, that is about right.

And of course we stopped at our favorite gourd place, an Amish farm right down the road from Landis Farm. They have an amazing selection of gourds and a whole barn full of gourd birdhouses, and in the fall it is amazing with all pumpkins too. They also sell pumpkin pies, and that's where we buy ours. Of course we do.

And I was happy to find one of these great green knobby gourds like Evelyn had at the farm--isn't it awesome? 

We sure do love our Lancaster County weekends, and we remarked several times over the weekend how lucky we are to have found Landis Farm, which has become our home in PA for so many years.

Our favorite farm