Harvest Fest, Part I

Every October, our town has this harvest festival that about quadruples the population.  It's a little nuts, truth be told, and not particularly about the harvest anymore, unless by "harvest" you really mean "craft bazaars."  Although now that I think about it, the craft fairs all do have token fruit bins, and then of course there's the actual fruit stands practically everywhere.  So I suppose it's all how you look at the thing.

Still and all, it's a fun weekend.  The trees are turning colors, and there's a nip in the air, and you just sort of feel like you need a whole bunch of apples and pears.  And maybe a little something from that booth over there...

My family is crazy when it comes to this annual event.  The date is on the calendar every year before birthdays.  The Aunts and my cousins come From Far Away, always about two hours later than they meant to get here.  My cousin Clara has been in charge of the driving the last few years, and I have to say that I admire her strength, patience and fortitude.  (Ha!  Now we'll see who reads my blog, won't we?)

Back in the day, the party would start Friday night and end sometime Sunday afternoon.  It was like an extended holiday, packed with the aforementioned craft bazaars, plus visits to fruit stands and a little quilting at my mother's house to boot.  (I've got a lot of nice quilts and wall hangings because of that weekend.)  Oh, and presents.  I'm not exactly sure when or why the whole gift-giving thing started, but that's a part of it, too.  On one of the nights--usually a Saturday--the Harvest Fest Core of Seven gather in my mother's Apple Room and pass out our presents, one at a time.  It's a highlight.

This started pre-Abby, by the way, before life got a whole lot more complicated on varying fronts.  It's changed over the years, going from the full weekend to maybe a couple of days to just one day.  Last year, we didn't have a harvest fest at all, at least not in the traditional sense for my family, because I have an aunt with a reoccurring type of cancer that happened to reoccur about that time, and.

So this year, we all sort of had this unspoken agreement that we were going to make the most of our day.  Because that's all we had.  Two of the Core of Seven were missing, but we picked up my Aunt Carol.  So that was cool.

The car arrived, with Clara at the wheel, around noon, and we hit the floor running.

First things first: That would be our favorite local craft bazaar.  There's another craft bazaar, but it is NOT local.  Going to the local bazaar makes us feel virtuous.  Plus we really don't want to spend the $6 to get into the other one.

OH, except.  I just thought of a tangent, but it might have to wait for later.

So anyway.  The local bazaar.  We tend to split up when we're shopping as everyone has different tastes and physical/mental capacities for shopping.  My girls and I went to find the duck lady, who happens to be my high school English lit teacher.  I love that my girls know who she is.  Not to get overly dramatic or anything, but she was one of those teachers who made an otherwise shitty experience fairly great.

Mrs. J sells rubber ducks that are dressed up as other things.  Animals, random creatures, aliens, professionals, historical characters.  The girls have at least forty of these things because we pick up at least two every year.  (Well, that might be an exaggeration.  Together they probably only have like 38.)  It does not matter how many they already have.  We must see what Mrs. J has this time.  She stays very current on duck trends, let me tell you what.

So we get to the booth, and Mrs. J's son looks at Abby and says, you look like our target audience for THIS.  And he held out an Edward Cullen duck.

Needless to say, Abby bought it.

Edward is on the upper right.

Johanna took a little longer to choose her duck, but she eventually picked a hula dancer with a red lei:

Johanna has the front two.

So that was that.  We could get on with the rest of our craft bazaar experience.

Stacey always helps with an art booth for her second parents, so we set out to look for her next.  Although of course she was stretching her legs at that particular moment and nowhere to be seen.  We made a mental note to come back later.  

I never find anything at craft bazaars... usually.  But.  I found some reusable cloth sacks in varying sizes that will be rock stars at the bulk bins, and some knitted dish cloths, and a red scarf.  One of Abby's favorite teachers makes jewelry, so she took me over to that booth.  And wow, there were some cool pieces.  I choose a pendant and a beaded necklace.  Abby's teacher announced that she would now be getting an A.  So that was a good investment.

Periodically we'd catch up to one of The Aunts or Clara and compare and contrast purchases.  Clara was not having any luck.  Joan and Janice and Carol fared better.  Mom found some items she couldn't live without.

As we shopped, we saw a whole lot of people.  We finally ran into Stacey, who had no idea who Edward Cullen is.  But then we saw our friends Julie, Molly and Patty, and Julie and Molly did, so that was good for Edward's self-esteem.  We saw Johanna's kindergarten teacher, the receptionist who helped me pick out my glasses, the pharmacist (always slightly awkward because he knows exactly what I'm on), a few people from church, Johanna's favorite classroom helper, and a couple of Facebook friends that I was sort of lucky to even recognize.

We had a failure to communicate, so the girls and I headed to another one of the buildings where I was sure we'd find Mom and The Aunts, but it turns out that they were waiting at the entrance of the main building instead.  Oops.  It was time to move on, two hours having been spent very satisfactorily by everyone involved.  Mom, the girls and I headed for my car, and The Aunts and Clara towards Jan's SUV.

So this is way longer than I intended, and I'm nowhere near finished.  So Part I it is.

Oh, and no song.  The only fall songs I can think of are like Monster Mash and... actually, just Monster Mash.  And it doesn't seem particularly fitting.  So.