CSA’s are a great way to get fresh local food while at the same time supporting local farmers. www.localharvest.org is a great resource for finding out about CSA’s, Farmer’s Markets, etc. in your local area (covers the US). Full Harvest Farm’s page is here.

So, it was supposed to be sunny… oh well. We still had a great time. Here’s a few shots from around the farm. In the next post I’ll show you the process of making apple cider (best I’ve ever had!)

The apples are grown in the orchard of course (we’re talking fresh stuff here!)

They are picked and washed. Because Full Harvest Farm is an organic farm, we don’t have to worry about washing off tons of insecticide.

Chuck, one of the two owners, brings in the washed apples, ready for cutting.

The cut up apples make their way to the antique cider press, getting dumped into the top as the handle is turned to smash them up. The bits of apple drop to a burlap sack below.

Terry, co-owner and wife to Chuck, shows us how to smash ‘em up.

After enough mash is gathered in the burlap sacks, the pressing commences, squeezing the sweet nectar from the pulp.

What’s left? A belly full of cider and a wheel barrel of hog feed.

I’m looking forward to their wedding in less than a month! See you guys soon!

Here’s to a beautiful fall! May you get every chance to enjoy it!

If you’re interested, you can see their engagement session here.

Check out this limo!

May God continue to bless you two for years to come!

If it’s not working, make sure you have QuickTime installed. You can hold “Ctrl” to zoom out and “Shift” to zoom in. You can click and drag it around to see a full 360 degrees.

These photos are from the Soo Line ore dock in Ashland. Built in 1915, it became the largest ore dock in the country, at one point having a capacity 110,000 TONS of ore – that’s a heavy load (insert groan here…). Anyway – the rail cars would bring the iron ore out to the dock where it would be shoveled onto huge boats to be shipped off to Chicago and the like. It’s falling down now and they’ve decided to take it down. Luckily for us, some endangered birds nested there and kept it around long enough for us to see it before they start dismantling it. They fenced off more sections while were there, in prep for demolition, which they estimate will take about 1.5 years.

The first half of the set comes from the courtyard were they were engaged. Very sweet!

Then they changed and we started to walk around Milwaukee. Didn’t need to get far before we found some neat architecture.

Congrats you two! Many blessings on your wedding and life together!

Todd and Courtney were all dressed up for the nice dinner they were headed to:

Jess and I looked ragged after a day of chasing around:

Oh well ;-)

Happy Birthday Todd!

Joe couldn’t help himself. I couldn’t help but take a photo. (ok, truth be told, I goaded him into it!)

The wedding ceremony was at Fox River Church in Waukesha. We then traveled to Lake Geneva for some photos and the reception.

We stopped for some ice cream on the boardwalk – a tradition for Amanda and Nate.

Amanda did a great job coordinating the look and feel of the reception! It was held in the beautiful Lake Geneva Riviera

As I said, there was a LOT of dancing. And it was good…

I love this series of Amanda’s dad channeling his inner rock star:

Thank you Amanda and Nate for allowing me to be part of this amazing day. May God bless you with many years of marriage, love and happiness together!

Below are some of my favorites of mine from the shoot. I shot using only my 50mm f/1.4 to force me to be a little more creative. Special thanks to Jamie for that amazing umbrella! Blair and Mohammed – we are really looking forward to your wedding day – you guys are just a blast! Be practicing your GQ look! ;-)

Thanks Jennifer and Ben letting us be part of your celebration!

And you can see some photos from their engagement session back on this post.

I probably got him in trouble on this one. His mom said to stop but when she left I told him to do it again (because I wanted to capture it!) Sorry Kate! ;-)

Thanks again Kelly and Brent. We had a great time down on the beach again with you guys!

Thank you Nick and Jessie for a wondering session!

The filming started at about 5:30am and it wasn’t quite warm yet…

The whole morning crew was there: Chris, Diane, Robin and Sam.

The local ABC affiliate was on hand to interview the GMA anchors.

And they brought along Rodney Atkins and his band. The bassist got a kick out of the Racing Sausages which showed up to promote the Brewers.

If you are interested, you can check out http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/YourHouse/ for the video segments from that mornings shows.

Miley is a 1.5 year old King Charles Cavalier Spaniel who came to us by the same breeder as our first Cavalier, Oliver, did. Oliver meet with an untimely death a few years back and we miss him so. Kim, the breeder, was gracious enough to set us up to adopt Miley after her owner also met with an untimely death. Perhaps he is looking out for Oliver and we’ll look out after Miley for him!

We are very thankful to Kim and excited to have Miley at home with us. I hope you get the chance to meet her sometime. She’s got a lot of energy but will drop everything for some affection.

We spent our time in the AirTran “Landing Zone” in right field. Baseball with a bar and buffet – a nice way to spend the evening.

And to top it off, Danny Gokey was in town and sang the national anthem. The press surrounded him and you couldn’t really see him. If you look between the photographer in the black shirt and the one in the navy shirt, you can see Danny in his light blue shirt wearing headphones. I couldn’t tell if there were more Brewer, Cubs, or Gokey fans there that night!

On the way out to New Glarus, there is a small town called Paoli (Pay-ol-e). It’s a one street downtown from the turn of the 20th century that houses a lot of art galleries, antique shops, and the famous Paoli Cheese house.

Here are some shots from the antique shop that is house in the old mill on the Sugar River:

A whole stack of Brownie cameras sitting on one of the cabinets. I love cameras!

Inside the world famous Paoli Cheese. The sample of the day was the Morel Leek Jack… wasn’t for me…

We made it over to the brewery for a tour and a tasting and ran into some friends from college there for a tour also.

These copper kettles were bought from a German brewery that was set to be demolished. They extend under the floor another 10 feet!

Lastly, we stopped at one of the parks to do a quick photo shoot with the mossy rocks.

Happy Birthday my beautiful wife. I look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with you!

The cakes came from Le Cakery in Elm Grove (website). Hakan, the owner, delivered them and help set them up nicely. If you need a cake for a special occasion, I would recommend you check out Le Cakery!

Our friends here are looking at a guest book I designed, which has pictures of Jess since birth. These guest books are a wonderful idea for any party, reception, or wedding. Feel free to contact me for more details.

It was great to get family together again that haven’t seen each other since our wedding (six years ago next month!).

I’ve heard it said many times that you should always bring your camera with you. Some days I do and some days I don’t. I was happy I had it with me today though (lesson learned?) because I walked outside today and parked next to the office building was a DeLorean.

I’ve never claimed to be a huge car buff. However, I am a huge Back to the Future fan. One of my favorite movie memories comes from a back-to-back run through of the entire trilogy with some friends. Classic.

Your sign says “Vacuum Hose Routing” but I’ll take that as code for “Flux Capacitor Wiring.”

They are preparing to build a house here in Waukesha for Army SPC Jason Schulz. Jason’s truck was struck by an IED in Mosul, Iraq and he lost both of his legs. The house they will be building with be handicap accessible and help meet his specialized needs.

If you are interested, they are looking for a variety of volunteers and donations – from skilled tradesmen, people helping with meals, community communication teams, materials and monetary donations, etc. The house will be built over a 3 day weekend a few months from now (why take 7 days when you can do it in 3? Take that Extreme Home Makeover!) Anyway, if you are inclined to help or donate in anyway, you can visit their site for more info (link).

They just finished building a house in Sun Prairie for another injured vet. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote a nice article about it which can be read here.

Here are some photos from the registration/information meeting they held this week.

Our engagement session the other day was in downtown Waukesha which offered a lot of fun locations. Here’s some of my favorites from the shoot: