Apple festival

Biscuit is at a fun age right (well, he's fun most of the time, anyway). He's old enough to go and do a lot of things, including fairs and festivals. So I've been keeping an eye out for fun things for us to do.

Yesterday, we drove one town over and went to an annual apple festival.

The event was at a park that used to be a fort. It was settled by Moravians (German-speaking Protestants) in 1753. Each family was told to plant six apple trees per family member. Pretty soon, the whole area around what is now the park was covered in apple trees. So since the apples were so important to their way of life, the Moravians still celebrate with an annual apple festival.

Several of the old buildings are still standing in the park, and you can see demonstrations of old-time skills and crafts, such as blacksmithing and candlemaking.

Anyway, we got to the park right at lunch time, so we headed straight for the food area. Jeff wanted BBQ, and I decided I'd share a hamburger and fries with Biscuit. I wasn't sure what I wanted until I saw a food truck with "grass-fed beef burgers" printed on the side. "Yep. I'll take one of those," I told Jeff.

The burger truck was in the sun, so Jeff told me to get his BBQ and he'd stand in line for my hamburger and fries. I got Jeff's BBQ, then Biscuit and I found a shady spot and sat down on the grass.

And then we waited. And we waited. And we waited. Counting the time he stood in line and the time he waited for the food to be cooked, poor Jeff had to wait for 40 minutes for mine and Biscuit's food.

See poor Jeff on the right side in the green shirt? His
patience paid off. That burger was really good.

After lunch, we started walking around the different demonstrations and booths. We saw a blacksmith, a woman making baskets and a woman in a tent with lots of old-fashioned furnishings and cookware who talked about making candles and cooking on an open fire. She had made apple sauce and even an apple pie in cast iron cookware over a fire.

A blacksmith files down a piece he just hammered out.

A woman in old-fashioned dress talks about how life would've been in the mid- to late-1700s.

Even though Biscuit is old enough to spend a day at festivals and car shows and other events, he still doesn't have quite enough patience for the reading it takes to properly visit historical sites. So I only got a cursory glance at the old buildings at the park. I'd like to go back some time and take a better look.

One thing the kids seemed to enjoy was animal races. They started with pigs, then went to goats. It was a little odd, but the animals didn't seem to mind all the attention.

These were the rookie pigs. They're just learning how to race. They were really cute little things.

Then the pro-level pigs came out. The three on the right were ready
to go, but the one on the left got a little distracted.

They named the pigs after current race car drivers.

The goats all ran right over top of each other. They got cheese
doodles as their prize for crossing the finish line.

One area was set up with games for kids. And they were the kinds of games the kids would've played when the park was still a village. They had tug-of-war, hoop and stick races, bean bag toss, an early of form of bocce and sack races. They also had a basket of handheld toys like discs on strings that you make spin around and a little wooden cup on a stick that had a ball on a string. You had to try to get the ball into the little cup. It's harder than it looks.

This little thing was clearly made for kids. The hole wasn't even big enough for my head to fit in it.

Biscuit was good at the bean bag toss.

Go Biscuit go. It looks like they were racing, but the kids just
walked up, grabbed bags and started jumping. Even so, Biscuit said,
"I was trying to beat her, Mom, but she was going really fast!"

Go Biscuit, go!

Uh-oh. Somebody got distracted.

Jeff and Biscuit play tug-of-war.

One thing Biscuit does have patience for is music. As we were walking around, he heard live music and just headed straight toward it.

Biscuit walked right to an empty seat and crawled up into it. The funny part was that the empty seat was the last one on a row, right beside an older man with a white beard. Biscuit just grabbed his seat and focused his attention on the stage. Seeing as little man didn't seem to care that there wasn't room for Jeff and me, we grabbed a couple of seats on the row behind him. He'd look back every once in a while to make sure we were still there, but he just enjoyed the music.

The couple onstage (with a guitar and a fiddle) played a couple
of old-time cowboy-type songs. Biscuit loved it!

There were plenty of chairs set up around the music stage, but it was such a pretty, grassy, shady area, some people just threw out blankets and quilts to sit on.

This was one of the prettier quilts I saw. I love the pattern and colors.

After the music, Biscuit found some rocks that appeared to be the foundation of a building that's no longer there. Several other kids were walking around the rectangle of rocks, and Biscuit asked if he could, too. All the things to do at the festival, and most of the kids seemed to be enjoying walking on the rocks better than anything else.

Walking on the rocks was rough going. I found myself trying
to help Biscuit keep his balance from several yards away.

You can see the pointed-top fencing around the edges of where the old building
used to be. The building in the background is Gemeinhaus. It was built in 1788.
It's the only remaining German 18th century church with attached living quarters.

This picture is from the park's website. It's an eerie shot, but
you can imagine what it would've been like way back then.

If I'm completely honest, the only apples we came in contact with were the ones in the fried pies we ate. But they were so, so good. They were cooking them onsite, and when we paid for them, they handed them to us still warm. Biscuit and I split a pie, and I got exactly half. He matched me bite for bite and talked about how good it was.

I had to laugh at a story Jeff shared with me about food, too. I love kettle corn ... especially the kettle corn they make fresh at festivals and fairs. So when I saw a tent, I asked Jeff if he'd get me some.

The crowd at the festival was pretty varied. But there were quite a few hippy/granola/outdoorsy-type people there. Lots of hiking boots, cargo shorts, braided hair and broomstick skirts.

As Jeff stood in line for my popcorn, a woman walked up beside him and leaned over the table.

"Excuse me, is your kettle corn g-mod?" she asked.

"I'm sorry?" the 20-something salesman asked.

"Is your kettle corn genetically modified?" the woman asked, explaining her slang.

"Um, it's kettle corn," the guy said, smiling at the woman because he really had no idea what else to say. "We have free samples."

But the woman just walked away.

Oh well, that's more g-mod kettle corn for me!

The three of us had a good day together. Biscuit took a nap on the way home, and we hung out and relaxed for the rest of the evening.