(Insert Clever Blog Title)

You may not realize this just yet, dear readers, but I am a bit of a nerd. I get excited and obsessed over nothing, or what may seem like nothing to someone else. And as of late, I have caught myself fantasizing, even drooling over the handmade brooms that are sold at Stonefield. In case you are all wondering, which I hope you are, no, I have not bought one yet, because I keep forgetting to bring enough cash with me, and I’m still not done dreaming about what it would be like to own one of those beauties.

I apologize for the lack of words in my previous two entries, but I seem to have hit a little bit of a wall when it comes to thinking of topics to write about. With all the jobs I work (there are five of them), I don’t have too much time to go out and discover Southwest Wisconsin like I would want to, so I decided I need to explore my surroundings better.

While I was waiting for a train to pass on Tuesday morning, so I could set up shop in Stonefield’s confectionery, I finally thought of my brilliant blog topic.

I realized that even though I get a little too excited about their brooms, there could still be people out there who are equally intrigued as I am. Luckily, I have bonded with the resident broom maker, being as she trained me to work in the confectionery, so I knew she wouldn’t mind if I watched her make a broom one afternoon.

Meet Kathy! She is very talented, and was very hospitable when I just barged in while she was busy making a broom. She told me that she had been working in the broom shop for several years now, and on a really good day, she can whip up five, sturdy brooms for Stonefield. She discussed the process and said it takes roughly an hour to assemble a single broom.

The weaving process was my favorite, because Kathy has her own little technique that gives the brooms a really unique and pretty finish (as you can see in the picture above). And while I didn’t get to see her make a broom from start to finish, (I had to get to my post in the confectionery and serve up some ice cream) I still got a lot of joy out of watching my favorite gift shop item at Stonefield come together.