Thursday, October 9, 2014

Farm Crawl 2014

Now that I look at this collage of the few photos I took while I was on the Farm Crawl, I realize its not a very good representation of the actual crawl itself.  The sky was amazing that day (as you can tell by all of the images I have that include it), I have always wanted to stop & take shots of the corn tops waving in the wind against a gorgeous sky, well, Sunday I was all alone, no one else to inconvenient or laugh at me, so I did just that. Same with the grain bin against the clouds, it just called out to me on my way by & I couldn't ignore it. The shoot from the thresher+blacksmith +red barn+wind vane on the playhouse images are all from the Crooked Gap Farm visit. the selfie is one of the times I was sitting waiting for the line of traffic to exit a farm to make room for more of us to enter. The tour guide was at Blue Gate Farm. The goat was at Reichert's Dairy Farm where I bought 3 kinds of chevre (a spread type cheese).  What I didn't capture with a camera is all of the goodies I brought home!  

My first stop was the pumpkin patch that I haven't been to in years.  I first bought a cup of hot apple cider to sip while I shopped & looked around.  I settled on the biggest Indian corn I have ever seen in my life $3 for a 3 ear bundle & 4 various gourds for decorating the front step.

Then I went to the Blue Gate Farm, browsed around the visiting tents, caught the end of a guided tour, stuck my head in the hoop houses & went on down the road.

Next I stopped a the dairy. Where I got to see some of the goats & purchased the chevre.

Around a few corners, appropriately located on 'Crooked Road',  I found Crooked Gap Farm.  This one was especially fun for me because I listen to Ethan's podcasts & love to read Rebecca's blog on gardening, canning & family life on the farm.  From their stand, I bought some bacon & breakfast sausage patties.

Then I was off to Coyote Run Farm where I got to see a really great old barn, browsed their farm stand but missed the soup.

From there, I followed the arrows the White Breast Creek Pottery. WOW!!! the pottery from the clay beneath the creek is gorgeous! I did buy a hand woven rug for the kitchen & its HUGE!! I also decided to get a walking taco from the 4H kids' stand while I was there & sat in the van in the sunshine eating my lunch in complete silence. 

Last on my list was the Schneider Orchard.  I was really bummed to discover that they were out of cider donuts when I arrived so instead, I bought some caramel apple bars, 5# of Jonathon apples (that I made into applesauce on Monday), and fudge from Piper's candy booth. 

After that I realized I had really treated this crawl as a 5 hour & no idea how many miles Farmer's Market :)  It was fun & unrestricting going solo, it would be really fun with a friend & really, really fun with kids as almost every farm had face painting, games or activities for kids set up. I returned with my goodies & felt completely refreshed instead of totally worn out as I had expected to feel. Fresh air, sunshine & quiet time in the country tends to do that to me.  I will definitely find someone to take with me next time & highly recommend it to all my local friends.  Definitely a fun fall activity for the area!

What have you been up to this fall?

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