Eggs, hashbrowns with cheese sauce, delish muffins, homemade sausage
Crunchy strawberry/bananna french toast
And breakfast here always has dessert....fruit slush today.....YUM. Naomi and her crew always do an amazing job.
So...if you can walk after all this you head out for your day.....we headed towards Sugarcreek. We wanted to see where the Fifties Fling was going to be and we were looking for a winery. On the way we spotted this little guy.
Pretty new....and really cute.
This was an Amish school we passed....very nice, very basic. No many play ground, but certainly fun things to do.
Beautiful farms...the Amish and Mennonite know how to build things..
And it was laudry day at every house.....
We found where we'd go to see the car show and headed towards the winery...
The man that started this winery knew nothing when he started, he just decided he wanted one...and it's done rather well...
Some of the equipment used in the wine making.
Many wines for sale in their store....
A wine bottle tree.....too cute
Awards and articles about this being a family business.....
Then we went on the tour. They grow some grapes here, but have some juice shipped in, They make grape wines and fruit wines.
The oak barrels are for the grape wines.....
The stainless containers are for the fruit wines........
A very innovative machine that filters the wine....those are filters in the tubes, but looks like spaghetti...
The bottler........
and it adds the labels.......
The testing room.....they test their own wines, saves them time and money.
After the tour.....the tasting begins....this little winery was more generous than most on their tastings. After several we decided on one we liked, we bought 1 glass to share. We sat in a room that had a film rolling about the start of this winery...was very good. Then, the owner came walking through, just a regular guy checking things out. This really is a family business....I think pretty typical for this area, but not something you see much of otherwise. ...is a nice change.
Loved all these old barrels outside....they help build a wall for the outside patio where they have live music, BBQ and other food. It's really a neat destination place.
They also own a very large building we didn't get to see, it is used to not only store wine barrels for those that need to age a while, but is a great location for weddings....looked great on the video.
After this short rest, we headed towards the town of Dover.
By now it was a about 2p and we were finally a little hungry but we wanted to go into The Warther Carving Museum, so we made a quick stop at Mickey D's and headed to the museum. We'd read about this museum, but didn't really know what to expect. It was WAY more than we expected ...we only had 2hrs and we could have taken 4hrs....it was not like anything we'd ever seen before. This was a collection of wood and ivory carvings that one man had done as a hobby. As you can see, Dover is proud of him.
It was all about trains...so in the parking lot they had this on display.
Looking inside through the door....very preserved....this man LOVED trains.
This great picture of him is the first thing you see when you walk into the museum..
Your ticket was pretty cool too..
Ernest "Mooney" Warther was a Master Carver and self taught. This all started with whitling when he was a little boy. Then we began to carve and he started by carving wooden pliers after a man taught him how to do it, he could make a pair with 10 cuts and have no shavings....just amazing. The parts moved and it amazed many people. Then he started carving big things. He also collected arrow heads and his first date with his wife was to look for arrow heads.....which he displayed in the top of his workshop. They brought his workshop to this museum site and you could see inside.
Behind the arrowhead display he had storage...this was a tiny workshop and he made use of every inch.
Beautiful pieces on his firplace....
Lots of arrowheads....and made into art....wow.
So neat they have these pictures.......of him in his shop
He found the things he carved in lots of places.....before we could get ivory he'd use bone from the soup pot after his wife made soup. Once he could get ivory he went back to all the pieces that had bone in them and he replaced it....all but one.....
His family....
His parents and siblings..............He and his son...
He and his wife, and he and his wife with their children....
An old tree swing he had for his kids, and some old roller skates of his.
The beginning of his plier collection...he made MANY...and all sizes, one pair was even made out of a single wooden matchstick......he also liked to make wooden chain...it is all one piece.
A picture with his son, Tom (that is also a carver)....and a picture playing with arrowheads as a boy
Mooney worked in a factory and he invinted many things in the factory to make the work easier. He made steel toed boots...and other gadgets to make work better.
Then he did a carving of the factory, complete with moving parts. This was one video that I had to cut in half so it would fit in the blog....sorry....(thanks google for the size restrictions), but perhaps you will still enjoy
We were absolutely in awe of this man's talent.....we were lead to a room to watch a video about Mooney, it was fascinating
The more Mooney carved the more he realized he needed knives he couldn't buy, so he began to make his own...and here are some of his creations..
A wall of different types of ivory that he used.....he prefered elephant tusk....
Not the same tusk.....but both elephant....
Very tiny parts that he carved for all the many parts required for each train....
Trains were for sure his passion...and he did LOTS of them. All sizes and types...
The train on the right side of the picture was one of his first and is the ONLY one that still has bone in it as opposed to ivory. The train on the left, had the bone replaced with ivory. What a difference!!!
Train after train....they were all amazing and gorgeous and the detail kept amazing us.
The pliers and scissors were donated to the museum by people that had Mooney originals.
He was amazing, when he saw a piece of wood, he'd state what he was going to make and how many cuts it would take and what day he'd finish....he only missed one completion date and that was because he stopped to go to a Christmas party.....wow!!
Though he was offered lots of money many times he would never sell his carvings. He said once you start selling it's not a hobby anymore and that's what he wanted it to always be. He and his brother took the collection on the road to make money.... Mooney stayed home and carved most of the time and his brother Fred took the show on the road for 30 yrs.
People loved to watch him carve.......
Mooney loved Abraham Lincoln....he did many things with him in mind...
He was also very impressed with the Lindbergh flight....
The letter on the left was written by Lincoln to a woman that had lost 5 sons in the war. What is on the right is Mooney's wood carving of the letter, wooden chain (all one piece).
When Lincoln died he carved the funeral train....
In the middle window you can see a key hanging on the wall beside the door...through the window to the left you can see a sink, with knobs and faucet...it was wonderful.
All the passenger seats were perfect...
Remember everything is wood and ivory....in the second window from the left end you can even see Lincoln's lying in his casket....what detail
There were about 4 rooms full of trains and other carvings...it was just amazing
After Mooney had made many of his own carving knives, his mother asked him to make her a good kitchen knife. After many of her friends saw her knife...they wanted knives too...and the Warther Knife Company was born...
He began to perfect the kitchen knife...and now 4 generations are still making knives and pliers
The current knives and utensils....the swirl on the blade is their trademark.
They are made on the lower level of the museum....the wood shop is right next to the steel shop. Yes, I bought one, they are very good.
We could have stayed in the museum longer but it was about to close, so we had to run outside and see The Button House. This was also relocated to this property for touring. His wife collected buttons and made beautiful designs.
No much of the color shows, but these were fantastic...what talent they both had. One time when someone offered him money for a carving he said ...."My roofs not leaking, I don't need anything and my wife has enough buttons"...and I think she did.
And to think we almost didn't come here at all.....We still missed seeing their home that has also be relocated to this property...maybe next year we'll get back up here and see that.
Now it was time to head back to Sugarcreek....there was a Drive-In for any of the oldies cars that wanted to come for a small evening show...as we drove into town we saw this huge brick making factory...from a distance we thought it was lumber....
The weather was not great so some showed, but not lots. LOTS would be there the next day.
We like this style....Denny wishes...
We got a bite to eat here and headed back to Charm. We'd had a full day. For not knowing exactly what we were going to do, we found lots to do.
Tomorrow Denny's cousin Floyd and his wife Marilyn were coming up from Zainesville to go to the car show with us....wonder what else we will find.
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