Throw Your Hoe Down

This weekend I spent a fabulous day and night at the Hoes Down Festival at Full Belly Farm, the farm that sends me my CSA box every two weeks. There were a bunch of workshops and things that I was really excited to see, but I had to wait for my carpool people to be ready to go, so we got there at 2 pm and missed most of the things I wanted to see.



It was a lot of fun nonetheless, and I spent most of the time with my friend Andra in the kids craft section, making felted wool soap scrubbers and dying silk hankies with natural dyes (onion skin, indigo, etc.).





The festival is a "celebration of rural life;" there was sheep shearing, cow milking, workshops on how to raise chickens on a small scale (which I missed, grrrrrr), and all kinds of hands-on activities like bread baking, corn milling, weaving, etc. There was also a hay fort, which I held myself back from exploring because there were just too many kids.



But we couldn't stop ourselves from doing the grass maze.



There was also contra dancing, and great food and music far into the night. We camped out in the walnut grove and the stars were so intense that we could see the Milky Way.

Here's a video that I took of the contra dance. It looks a bit dishevelled because it is; there were just too many people and not enough space.

Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon: a links-heavy update post

This week I got an impromptu visit from an old high school friend I haven't seen in six years. She and her boyfriend are on a nomadic adventure, travelling the country for the next three months trying to determine where they want to live next (they got tired of NYC). Check out their travel blog. If you look at their Flickr site, pretty soon you will probably see pictures of us dressed as pirates for the Critical Mass we did on Friday, or partying at The Domes, a cooperative community on campus. It was awesome to see them and I hope they decide to settle close to me!



I'm getting excited for my spinning class to start, though I still need to finish teasing the wool. Hopefully my friend Kim will help me dye it after it's been spun. Here are some examples of her beautiful hand-spun and hand-dyed silks, and the hand-spun yarns I found on the new-to-me blog brooklyntweed. If mine look anywhere close to these, I will be happy.



I went contra dancing at the The Co-ops on campus yesterday with my friend Sarah, and we danced our butts off for over three hours! I'm actually sore today. It got me really excited for next weekend when I'll be going to the Hoes Down Harvest Festival at my CSA farm, Full Belly. It's gonna be awesome!