Judging at the pizza farm

On Saturday I took a beautiful drive to Alma to see Lora and Anders.

It was one of those perfect early fall days, the leaves are just starting to show a little color.

We had big plans for the day.

First stop, was River-Dale Farm in Pine Island, MN.

My friend Ann Fahy Gust and friends were having their annual market.  This is the second year that Lora and I have gone.  It's fun to see Ann for a short visit, do some shopping and find a place for lunch.  Ann and I worked together at Coors and I stood up for her at her wedding to Mike.

Wanda and Ann at the farm.

Ann has worked hard to clean up and restore all the outbuildings on the old farm.

It was a perfect day for the sale.

 After we left Pine Island, we found lunch at a Dairy Queen and then headed back to Alma.

We had made a commitment to be judges that evening at a chocolate cake contest.

A first for me, but I was into it.

Truth is, we should have skipped the DQ meal, because we were a little on the full side when I arrived to eat the cake.

The cake contest was a benefit for the Cochrane-Fountain City School.

There were some impressive looking cakes for sure.

The second from the left took first place.
It had split during transit, we didn't penalize for that, and it tasted great.
4th from the left took 2nd place.
This cake was made with zucchini and it was so moist and light and the frosting tasted like malt.

10 delicious cakes, a couple of the cakes had had trouble in transit, but all were quite fancy.

The criteria was quite detailed.
We were served a piece of each of the 10 cakes and asked to rate each on this scale.

My favorite of the cakes was a chocolate zucchini recipe.

The first prize winner had a whipped creme frosting that was so good.

All of the cakes were great.

We 3 judges enjoyed the event but we were full of cake for sure.

The Suncrest Farm has pizza nights a few nights each week.

It's a big deal and draws a large crowd.

The wood fired pizza was delicious!

I ran into an old friend, Joe Slaby.
Joe and many others, used to come from the Waumandee, WI area to ski in Colorado.
We had so much fun back in those days with the Wisconsin kids.
It was nice to meet Joe's family and we had a nice visit.
(Joe's wife, Lora and I were the cake judges.)

There were goats!
Kids were feeding the goats their grass, I was hoping to hear their funny little calls, but these kids were quiet.

There was a musician playing folk style music, mostly of his own creation.

The line to order the pizza seemed a bit crazy, but it moved right along.
There was beer and wine for sale, so we had a beverage while we waited for our pizzas.

Anders found some kids to toss a football with, and before long, our pizza was ready.

Since we were full of cake, we took our pizzas home.

It was fun and very full day.

I stayed overnight at Lora's and enjoyed coffee and breakfast on Sunday morning before heading back home.  Another sunny drive and then a very exciting Packer game rounded out my weekend.