I looked forward to this with great anticipation every weekend that we passed by Rural Ridge Farm, just south of Charlottesville. This family has an orchard with over 200 varieties of apples- many vintage, a ciderworks that make 3 kinds of hard cider, and they teach classes on all that goes with the maintaining of an orchard. Having 9 trees probably qualifies as a very very small orchard in comparison but we have a lot to learn and this seemed like a good place to do it - plus they had cider tastings, brunswick stew, apple butter and local vendors selling their wares from all kinds of farming and non farming enterprises so we had nothing to lose. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. We decided we are not huge hard cider fans and might just as well stick to champagne but the fresh cider we had was fabulous. The apple tastings were interesting and being the aggressive farmgirl that I am - I asked lots of questions and even brought a few samples of my own apples which the "master gardener" helped to identify. We attended two workshops - "How to plant an apple tree" - don't laugh - we both learned something and "Your winter salad garden" - again chock full of information. I got several great ideas from craftspeople and sampled countless tastes of salsas, jellies, artisanal cheeses, apple this and apple that - unfortunately the pie was long gone before we nabbed a slice of that but there was this donut guy there and oh my gosh - if I ever learn how to make those donuts I will die happy :)
and if you ever see a Carpe Donut cart - stop and buy the rest of his stash and you will die happy too. I'm tucking away many ideas for my own festival someday and can't wait for next fall to attend again. Fortunately for me, they have more workshops in the spring so that's where you'll find me and the farmboy. In the meantime, I think I will research goats and chickens this winter.
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