We had a wonderful festival week – a couple of mushroom/woods walks, meets with friends, amazing weather, with a culmination of goodness at the Common Ground Fair. We almost didn’t go – and we would have been so sad. The weather for our day was grey, cool, and kinda windy. But it was nice – we were glad we made the trip. It hasn’t happened in a couple of years (in person) so just being there, knowing that we were amidst at least some folks with similar interests and values was uplifting. The Common Ground Fair is nice because it gives us a space to feel – well, grounded in other communities – in a larger community.
The Common Ground Fair does just that for us – it lets us know there is some common ground, even if we don’t know each other. So, with that, we ate some snacks (thank you Heiwa Tofu!), managed to go to a couple of great workshops/talks (Herbal Revolution with Kathe Langelier, Backyard Grains with Will Bonsall, Apples with John Bunker, The Wild Seed Project) and the gal got to roam free a bit, get her face painted, eat some popcorn and ice cream. I got to visit the Greenhorns and pick up an Almanac, Taproot Magazine, the Farmer-ish journal folks, and buy some goodies from Frontier Sugarworks (like bourbon maple syrup!), Meeting House Farm (herbs!), Fedco Seeds (I like to pick up my Fall cover crop there when I can – Common Oats!), the Scott Nearing table (of course!), and snag some more seed garlic. We roamed the gardens, the orchard, and admired the adorable Angora rabbits, draft horses, snuggly pigs, curly sheep, and marvel at the juxtapositions of the really large goats to the dwarfs, and the huge horses to the pony, and some beautiful cows with their beatific faces. Duende loved the spinners (so nice to meet you Gayle!) and the harpsichord player, the sheep dogs, and people with tiny dogs (ha!).
It was an invigorating seasonal change. A time to focus on what works and what does not – Happy Fall!
Rock Bottom Homestead 