Apple butter festival

We drove down country this afternoon through the beautiful autumn countryside into Geauga County. Our destination was Burton, Ohio, where an apple butter festival was attracting thousands of visitors this weekend. Apple butter made the old fashioned way, in huge black kettles over hot fires and stirred and stirred and stirred for hours on end.

It is a little known fact that over 12,000 Amish live in this area, making it the fourth largest Amish community in the United States. The Amish are noted for wonderful homestyle cooking, and before heading for home, we stopped at one of the many food stands and enjoyed a thick slice of bread freshly baked by the Amish and spread with warm apple butter. Yummy! We also stood for awhile and watched the blacksmith ply his trade. It was a chilly afternoon, bordering on downright cold, but we had a really good time.