Harvest Festival 2010 - fun for everyone!

By: Erin Richardson, Curator
Thanks to everyone who came out for this year's Harvest Festival! It was an amazing success with at least one day of fantastic weather.  The additional activities in the area last weekend made for an action-packed region.  Before and after visiting The Farmers' Museum's  32nd Annual Harvest Festival, visitors also took in the Kite Festival in Cherry Valley, AppleFest at the Fly Creek Cider Mill (a Cooperstown Rotary Club event) and the Harvest Festival in Sharon Springs - an event promoted by The Fabulous Beekman Boys. If you missed this year's, we hope you can join us next year!

Here are some highlights of The Farmers' Museum's First Annual Pie Eating Contest -- 32 participants in all!

Musical Additions to Harvest Festival

By: Kajsa Sabatke, Manager of Public Programs

Harvest Festival will be full of fiddlers and traditional music this year. We always look forward to the return of Jim Kimball and Dick Bolt, who have been fiddling at Harvest Festival as long as it’s existed! You can find them at the Bump Tavern Porch and the Filer’s Corner Schoolhouse throughout the weekend.

Stop by the Louis C. Jones Center for even more fiddlers. Clemens Tradition will join us for the first time. Their lead fiddler, Jackie Hobbs, is a 2002 inductee to the North American Fiddler’s Hall of Fame. Sandy Peevers and Erik House will also perform traditional fiddle tunes.

On Saturday evening from 6-8pm, check out our free concert by bluegrass group Gravel Yard. You can also enjoy a chicken dinner before the show, as well as refreshments during the concert.

The music at Harvest Festival is part of an action-packed weekend that also includes crafts, demonstrations, animals, and the pie eating contest. For a full schedule of the weekend’s events, check out our program online.

                                                               

Ladies and Gentlemen: Start your pie!

By: Erin Richardson, Curator

A few things are new this year at the 32nd Annual Harvest Festival. Tastiest among them is a pie eating contest.  This event, sponsored by the Fly Creek Cider Mill and Orchard, will be open to the first 50 participants who register with me in the Main Barn. Registration is open from 10am until noon on Saturday. The contest starts at 2pm near the Empire State Carousel. Participants of any age are welcome.

This is a "no hands" contest and the first person to eat their whole pie is the winner!  Prizes include:

• A Family Membership to Fenimore Art Museum and The Farmers' Museum
• A $100 gift card for the Fly Creek Cider Mill
• More pie (just kidding - we're pretty sure you'll have had your fill!)

We also thought about a few Empire State Carousel tokens for prizes. However, I later thought that a tummy full of pie and a carousel ride do not make for a fun afternoon.

You may feel like this is a more appropriate activity:

If you love pie, but don't want to race to the finish - there are plenty of pies available for purchase from the Pamona Grange in the Main Barn (whole pies and other baked goods):

and the Springfield Episcopal Church near the Doctor's Office (slices of pie):



Harvest Festival 2009

By: Erin Crissman, Curator

We all had a great time at Harvest Festival this year. I got some fantastic pecan pie from the Presbyterians, petted some alpacas and welcomed our 20 vendors to the grounds on Saturday and Sunday morning. Overall, more than 2200 of you enjoyed The Farmers' Museum this weekend. Hope you all had as much fun as we did! Springfield Presbyterian Church pies. Yum! Champion animals from the Junior Livestock Show 2009.

A Lovely Entry into Fall

By: Marianne Bez, Acting Director of Marketing and Communications

After 30 years of living in Cooperstown, The Farmers’ Museum Harvest Festival is as significant a milestone of seasonal change as the sound of geese overhead. It has become a tradition that helps me transition from summer to fall. I have attended almost 30 of these festivals -- in the early years as a graduate student, some years in between as a museum staff member and most of the time as a visitor. I associate this event with many different sensory experiences – the sound of a dulcimer, the taste of sweet roasted corn, the sight of colorful leaves underfoot, and the feeling of crisp autumn air warming as the sun gets higher through the day. For me, this event has been a place of many fist experiences over the past three decades. I saw Contra dancers here for the first time in 1979. And years later dog agility demonstrations for the first time. I had my first taste of homemade Huff Ice Cream here – now that was memorable. I learned a lot from conversations with various crafts people and vendors who shared their insight on making musical instruments, tin smithing, growing berries for home-made preserves, candle making, boat restoration and more. I enjoy attending Harvest Festival to experience something familiar as well as something new. This year I am excited to see the alpacas and learn about these curious fuzzy creatures. Harvest Festival puts me in the mood for all things autumn – wool sweaters, fall colors, a fire in the wood stove, apple cider, raking leave, pumpkin carving, and baking pies. As much as I hate to say goodbye to summer, this event provides a lovely entry into fall.

Children's Barnyard

By: Kajsa Sabatke, Interpretive Projects Coordinator

With autumn rapidly approaching, the baby animals in the Children’s Barnyard have grown tremendously and hardly look like babies anymore! The Barnyard will stay open through Harvest Festival weekend (September 12-13) and then the animals will go back to their farms (the animals have been on loan to us from several area farmers). Stop in to visit Annabelle, Bob and Bubbles, Celia and Delia, Razzle and Belle, and the chickens.

Annabelle Bob & Bubbles (sheep)

Celia & Delia (dairy goats)

Chickens Razzle & Belle (boer goats)