Tipp City Mum Festival, September 30, 2018

Tom was on a mission.  When he is in a crowd, foremost in his mind is navigating through it.  I followed along behind and looked at booths and signs.  Over in the distance on the left side of the photo is the Tipp City High School Football Stadium.  A group of citizens are in the process of raising money to renovate it.  This year they collected enough to redo the field. There is an overall plan and they choose sections of it to work on as the money is collected.

I think  renovating the stands is next on their list.  I hope so.

This was the sixtieth year for the festival.  When it started, the Springhill Nursery had fields of mums planted in fields along the highway so chrysanthemums were the obvious choice for the festival's emphasis.  Since then Springhill has been sold several times and no longer has the fields of mums but the name remains and so do mums at the festival.

Years ago when we were active  in Cub Scouts with our boys, we were part of the Saturday morning  parade.

Later on, I had a booth at the park where I drew charcoal sketches of visitors for ten dollars each.

There must have been  more Tipp area artists and artisans at the park but Tom kept zipping along.  I only saw Paper Alice.  She had a booth at the park when I did and she has continued to have a booth.

She makes beautiful paper from the ads she receives in the mail.  She includes bits of leaves and flower petals and tiny stones and spices from her kitchen to add interest.  She sells her paper, creates art on her paper and teaches others how to make paper.  In this picture, you can see everything she uses to go from start to finish.

And here is a closer look at her paper.

If you are curious about her work  you can get more information at
www.paperalice.com

 The last time we came to the festival in the park, food truck events were a fairly new type of event in our area.  There were only a few food trucks at the park.  This year there were many, many food trucks.

 I photographed this truck because man with the red and black striped cap is one of the old-time baseball players.  Tipp City has an old-time baseball team.  There are others in the area.  They play baseball according to the old-time rules.  There was a baseball tournament in progress.  It was between games for this player.

Local groups as well as food truck owners were selling food.  I remember the Fire Department selling waffles back in the days when we were part of the Cub Scout group.

The park was crowded with booths.  In them people were selling...

bamboo socks...

alpaca sweaters....

Halloween decorations...

Fairy Princess crowns...

and hundreds of other wares.

Tom knew where he wanted to stop...The Miami County Park District tent.

They had a step by step craft set up so people could make a paper flower.

As we were leaving, I looked down the path and there they were...the pick-up basketball players.  I see players on these courts almost every time I drive by the park.  

A pleasant visit to the park on a pleasant day.  The sun was shining. The temperature was in the low 80s and there was a gentle breeze. 

Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, Sept. 2017

Henry came again to visit because Sonja was in the process of moving from one house to another.  I know Henry had more attention from us than Sonja had time to give him.

Steve came to visit, too.  

One Saturday, Steve and I went to the Fort Rowdy Gathering in Covington.  This was the twenty-fifth year for the event.  Years ago I took Steve's brother to the gathering.  The gathering is a little larger now but still uncrowded and easy-going.

The gathering is on two open grassy areas surrounded by trees, one area on either end of a bridge across the Stillwater River.  The bridge is rebuilt every year for the weekend and then taken down.

Close to the shore, Steve spotted a school of several hundred tiny fish swimming fast and away from us.

Life in the encampment is old style camping.  There is a native American encampment as well.

Arts and crafts are demonstrated and sold on both sides of the bridge but they are somewhat different.  On the near side there are painted gourds and fine needlework and other crafts that a person finds at a typical craft show.  On the far side are the craftmen and women who make the kind of crafts Daniel Boone would have found useful.  One craftsman we talked to was making a water jug from leather.  The crafts are laid out on blankets or tables or hung on racks.

There was music on the tents on both ends of the bridge as well.  The old, old songs the settlers brought from Europe were sung on the far end encampment.  The listeners sat on straw bales.

As Steve and I headed back to the bridge because we were hungry and the food booths were on the other side, we saw a boy fishing.  He caught a little blue gill and threw it back in to grow larger.

View from halfway across the bridge.

 On the near end, the music was more modern country music.  There were amps set up as well as bleachers for the listeners to sit on.

This festival is a money making event for local non-profit organizations.  Steve and I bought lunch from the boy scouts...brats and kraut and mashed potatoes.  For dessert we had homemade apple dumplings and ice cream from the booth next door.

Art in the Park, July 17, 2017

 I told Tom about the ten food trucks being set up for the Art in the Park, hoping to entice him into coming with me to this first annual Art in the Park being sponsored by the Tipp City Area Arts Council.  We went, either because of the food trucks or because he wanted to please me...maybe both.

The food trucks were parked on the outer side of the circular drive in the park.  The art booths were set up on the inner side.  People sat around in the center area and listened to music. Seating was either in lawn chairs people brought with them or on the ground.

The community band was playing when we arrived.

We were pleased we came.  The gyros from the food truck were the best I have had in a while.

Later, we stopped at the high school music boosters booth for homemade ice cream.  They told us they are returned from band camp very late last night so they were feeling a bit groggy.  Band camp is held at Rio Grande which is in the far southeastern part of the state.

By the time we finished talking about band camp, the community band had packed up and a local group was setting up.

As we walked about we met friends we hadn't seen for a while.  It is always nice to catch up on the news.  

I was especially happy to see Lilian.  She has been teaching people how to manipulate polymer clay for many years.  I have taken lots of classes from her but she has been having family and health issues this summer so she hasn't been teaching.  I was glad to hear things are going better for her and her family and she is planning to resume teaching.

(We are in the process of reconfiguring our computer so I don't have access to softwear to give you a closer look at the jewelry.  I will add some closeups as soon as I can.)

Since I have a friend who makes "altered books" I was interested in this booth.

The artist cut books in shapes of letters and then decorated them to illustrate the word she created.  Notice the word, TRAVEL, in the background.  I asked her where she found so many books the same size and thickness. She said she recently inherited a huge collection of romance novels.  She wasn't interested in reading them but she does like art, especially mixed media. I wish I had asked her what she used to cut the books.  Do you suppose she used a scroll saw?  What else would do the job?

2014 Hug the Earth Festival with the The Banana Slug String Band and the Students of Miami County, Ohio

This is the sixteenth year that I have helped in some way with the Hug the Earth Festival.  It has grown from a one day event with about seven hundred students participating to a four day event with over three thousand students participating.  In addition, there is now a Saturday Festival open to the public.

Because Stillwater Prairie Reserve was waterlogged from the rains of the previous week, the students' festivals were held at the Miami County Fairgrounds.

There were limp antennae on the Banana Slug mascot who met the children as they began their day on Tuesday but by Thursday his antennae were stiff and perky.  He must have found some starch somewhere.

The band members from Santa Cruz, California, "Solar" Steve Van Zandt,

 "Marine" Mark Nolan,

 Doug "Dirt" Greenfield,

 and "Airy" Larry Graff

have been together  for nearly thirty years.  They entertain children and adults with songs about our wonderful earth and encourage everyone to care for it.  For quite a few years "Gaea" Gary has come with them to play drums.  I don't have a recent photo of him.

During the school year the students learn a special earth song, make costumes related to the song and come out to a Miami County Park for a day of exploring and learning more about their special earth song.  The festival is the culminating  event. This year, some of the students were superheros with superhero capes they decorated themselves.

Here is a superhero of Ohio's prairies.

Here is another Habitat Superhero.  Looks like the habitat is a river.  Beside him is the bucket with the rocks he dug out of the sand and gravel pile deposited in one of the Miami County Fair grounds open sided buildings.  All of the rocks in the pile are mined in Ohio.

The older students panned for their rocks.  The rocks they found were from many areas of the world.

In the trough are the pans the the students will use.  Standing around it, getting last minute instructions are the staff who will help them if they need it.  Notice that most of the staff are wearing slug antennae.

Here the students are comparing the rocks they found with samples enclosed in this box.

The Columbus, Ohio Zoo brought unusual animals like this two-toed sloth and talked to the younger students about the animals'  habits.

The older children were treated to a High Ropes Adventure which included a fast ride down a zipline.  There was also a climbing tower.  These were set up behind the stadium.  I took this before the event was completely set up.

On Saturday, tree climbing using ropes was also set up at Stillwater Reserve.

Rain, Sun, Sleet or Snow, the Hug the Earth Festival goes on and brings smiles to hundreds of people.