North Georgia

This weekend there were two events Ryan wanted to check out, the Foxfire Mountaineer Festival, and a Viking Encampment.

The Foxfire festival was only on Saturday, but there was a hurricane (Nate) possibly headed our way, with rain predicted for either Saturday night, Sunday morning, or Sunday night.

We decided to gamble on the rain coming later, and went to the Foxfire festival on Saturday.
We drove to the Viking encampment on Sunday, but sadly, it was pretty much a wash out. 

The Foxfire festival wasn't that great, either.

If you don't know anything about Foxfire, they work to preserve the Southern Appalachian culture by talking to older generations and recording their stories, preserving antiques, and teaching younger generations how to do things the "old fashioned way", before there were machines to do it for us, or grocery stores: cooking, preserving, weaving, milling, farming, making musical instruments by hand, and so on.

"Foxfire’s mission is to preserve and develop the public’s appreciation for Southern Appalachian culture – its history, people, and traditions – through artifacts, oral history, and programs that interpret, document and celebrate the region, and fosters self-directed, community-based classroom instruction following the Foxfire Core Practices."

If interested in learning more, you can visit their website at www.foxfire.org .

Anyhoo, Ryan was interested in going and seeing what we thought would be demonstrations of the old ways. 
Turned out it was mostly just another arts & crafts sale like all the others. 

This young blacksmith was really the only demonstrator of his skill at the festival,

This lady was making applesauce, which was right up my alley. 
Except I can't seem to find anyone that seems to like applesauce, so I've pretty much stopped making it, and have just been drying apples. Dried apples keep for ever, and can be re-hydrated to make applesauce, pies, or pretty much anything else you want to make with apples.

These people had rigged an engine to run an ice cream maker. That was interesting for a couple of minutes.

This was something I haven't seen at the other festivals: thrift store altered paintings.

You find old paintings/prints and paint figures or put stickers on them. It's pretty cool. There's a ton of them on Pinterest. 

I had gotten a framed print of a country road in the forest (from I don't know where) and printed a chicken on sticker paper, cut it out and stuck it on the print. Chicken crossing the Road, get it? lol.

I totally need to take one of the junkards in the yard and paint and kitsch it up like this truck. 
I know it's tacky. I like it.

Luckily, our $5 admission fee included admission to the Foxfire Museum.

They save old cabins/barns/buildings from the Appalachian area. Some of them houses artifacts and antique items.

This cabin housed the Weaver, and she was there, doing some weaving on her looms and showed us all about it. Very interesting.

Some of the beautiful fall flowers in what was left of the Heritage Garden,

This interactivity was in one of the museums. It asked the question, "What are some of the lessons you learned from your grandparents/elders?" and had yellow stick-it notes for writing your answers.  Some of them were pretty funny.

"Do not kiss a possum" by Hilda,. age 6

"If you don't like anything don't be anything" lol.

 "Put lots of sugar on your 'maters"

"Be nice"

After there we had lunch (Wendy's, nothing worth mentioning), and then visited a little touristy attraction in Tiger, Georgia called "Goats on the Roof". 

Can you guess why it's called that?

Yep. There's goats on the roof.

They're on the porch roof, they can walk across a bridge to the billboard, or across an elevated walkway to another play area. It's really neat.

Kids enjoy the hand-cranked feeders. So do the goats, I reckon.

They can also come down to ground level and socialize with the hooman feeders.

 On our way back to my parent's house, we stopped off at Popcorn Overlook. (I don't know why it's called Popcorn Overlook)

October 2017

January 2006 (Probably not the same view)

It doesn't seem like that long ago,  but the last time we stopped here was 2006. The boys were so little.

October 2017

January 2006

  Finished the day picking apples at my Dad's fruit orchard,

These were the apples we've been waiting for. Granny Smiths.

The red and earlier ones are good eating apples, or for making sauce, butter, or jam/jelly, but the Granny Smiths are the best ones for drying for fruit snacks, and cooking with.