Getting Those Gourds to Shine

We took a bit more leisurely approach to our day today, after the activities of the past week, culminating in our prize-winning float and a trip last night to Sioux Falls to see Dave Eggers, the writer, and Valentino Achak Deng, the subject of Eggers' "autobiography" of him.  It was the highlight of the South Dakota Festival of Books.  

The wife zipped over to Winfred to her folks' place while yours truly spent some time grading papers, and she came back with this sign of fall--a collection of gourds that her dad found hidden in the cow lot.  A little veggie oil, and these things look ready for the hearth!

I also entertained some folks who knew our old house as children, when their grandmother, Christina Coppersmith (if I remember rightly) lived here back in the 1930's and 40's.  They brought some pictures and offered some comments on how the place has changed since they knew it.