Harvest Festival

Today, the Farmer's Market at our local grange held a Harvest Festival. We arrived pretty early in the day and they already had a nice sized crowd. As always, farmers and families in the area had booths with bounty from their gardens for sale.

Of coarse, you know me. I was immediately drawn to all the interesting Winter Squash that were there.

I was also excited to meet the friendly alpacas. There were two adults and a baby present. They contentedly hummed and let all the visitors pet them. Such wonderful faces and personalities.

There was also an excellent variety of alpaca wool products for sale, from dyed yarns to finished gloves and scarves.

One unique twist was the opportunity to bring your own harvest of apples to the festival.

They had a professional cider press on hand and would press your apples for free. Lots of folks were taking them up on this offer. If you look careful at the picture below, you can see the fresh cider pouring off the wooden collection ramp into the white 5-gallon pail.

And here is some of the finished product.

Happy October Everyone!



A New Community Market

Today was the inaugural opening day for the Spencer Creek Community Growers Market. This new market was conceived by neighbors looking for a place to sell their product and foster a sense of community. In the words of the founders they are " committed to providing a venue for neighbors to sell their locally produced agricultural items, with an emphasis on sustainable & healthy growing practices". This kick-off day featured about 10 vendors, wonderful live music and lots of neighbors shopping and catching up on news. The market will run every Saturday 10 AM - 1 PM, from June 5th through October 9th. If you're in the area do drop by and support this great community event.

Many of the vendors were selling vegetable starts and garden perennials. There were also a few vegetables for sale as well as fresh eggs and a beautiful custom chicken coop. The ladies of the Grange were selling coffee and treats too.

One vendor had three large bags of different colored wool. She raises sheep and spun yarn as we watched.

The Old Time Fiddlers proved music all day. Chairs were set out so that you could just sit and enjoy. This was reason enough to come! They were great.

On the walk home the creek was just roaring. With the record rains that we have received in the last 5 days, the water was flowing, high, fast and brown.