In last months issue of Mother Earth News magazine there was a flyer advertising a their upcoming event - a Mother Earth News Fair! As I read through the list of presenters (Joel Salatin!!!), and the topics that that they would be covering in various workshops I started getting really excited. All of it was right up my alley - from cheese making and herbal medicine, to beekeeping and organic gardening. I definitely did not want to miss it, but I knew the kids would be bored to tears sitting through all the workshops that I wanted to go to. With Matthews urging, I decided to see if any of my friends could go with me and it worked out that the one person I most wanted to join me was able to go! My friend Linda runs a full time business, plus a 17 acre farm, and still finds time to parent 3 very amazing children...there was no way I ever thought she would be able to get away for the weekend. But it turned out that she was just as excited about the idea of the fair as I was, so we made a hotel reservation, bought our tickets and waiting anxiously for the day of the fair to arrive.
The fair was being held in Puyallup, Washington which is about a 3 hour drive from my house. I picked Linda up early in the morning, and we got on our way. Excitement was in the air as we arrived at the fairgrounds, and headed off to our first workshops - pasturing pigs for Linda and mozzarella cheese making for me. The cheese making class was really informative - the woman who hosted it runs a dairy out of Washington State and makes all sorts of delicious goat and cow milk cheeses. Watching her make the mozzarella filled in some of the blanks for me, as its always easier for me to learn from seeing something in person versus just reading instructions. Watching the cheese being stretched was probably the most informative part for me - the whole process looks way less complicated than I thought it would be:
After our first classes, we rushed over to the main stage to get a good seat for the next speaker - Joel Salatin! Both Linda and I were really excited to hear him speak, and he definitely didn't disappoint! I don't think I have ever heard someone speak so passionately about farming before, and I found myself hanging on his every word. His enthusiasm was contagious, and I think every person who heard him speak wanted to immediately run out, buy land, and set it up exactly like his farm!
So, those were the highlights - cheese making and Joel Salatin. The rest of the day went downhill at a rather quick pace. Linda and I both found ourselves disappointed time and time again with the quality of the workshops that we had been so excited to see. The sausage making one that I had been looking forward too? A guy dumping a pre-seasoned packet of sausage seasoning on a couple pounds of ground pork and shaping them into little patty's....not exactly what I was expecting! When lunch time came, we headed outside with rumbling tummies to find all the "organic food vendors" that we had read about in the brochure....only to see that our food choices were between a Gyro cart and a BBQ stand. There are more food vendors at my local farmers market than there were at this huge event, which was kind of a bummer.
I had already gone through the entire complex and seen all the vendors and their wares in about 15 minutes, and after another failed workshop I started to have my doubts that it was worth it to stay the night and come back again the next day like we had planned. Linda must have been thinking the same thing, because when we met up again we both blurted out "Do you think we should just leave"?! We made a quick call to the hotel to cancel our reservation, took a little trip through the huge bookstore they set up (and scored some awesome books...yay!) we hit the road again and headed home.
The weekend definitely wasn't what I was expecting, and the workshops weren't nearly as informative as I had hoped, but I still ended up having a great time. I hardly ever get to spend time with Linda and she is someone who I absolutely adore to smithereens, so it was worth it to get a chance to hang out with her for the day. And looking at the bright side, we saved a ton of money on food and the hotel room by not staying that extra day, and we came home with a bunch of free goodies. Plus, now I know how to mix sausage seasoning into ground pork...you cant buy that sort of knowledge folks!
The fair was being held in Puyallup, Washington which is about a 3 hour drive from my house. I picked Linda up early in the morning, and we got on our way. Excitement was in the air as we arrived at the fairgrounds, and headed off to our first workshops - pasturing pigs for Linda and mozzarella cheese making for me. The cheese making class was really informative - the woman who hosted it runs a dairy out of Washington State and makes all sorts of delicious goat and cow milk cheeses. Watching her make the mozzarella filled in some of the blanks for me, as its always easier for me to learn from seeing something in person versus just reading instructions. Watching the cheese being stretched was probably the most informative part for me - the whole process looks way less complicated than I thought it would be:
After our first classes, we rushed over to the main stage to get a good seat for the next speaker - Joel Salatin! Both Linda and I were really excited to hear him speak, and he definitely didn't disappoint! I don't think I have ever heard someone speak so passionately about farming before, and I found myself hanging on his every word. His enthusiasm was contagious, and I think every person who heard him speak wanted to immediately run out, buy land, and set it up exactly like his farm!
So, those were the highlights - cheese making and Joel Salatin. The rest of the day went downhill at a rather quick pace. Linda and I both found ourselves disappointed time and time again with the quality of the workshops that we had been so excited to see. The sausage making one that I had been looking forward too? A guy dumping a pre-seasoned packet of sausage seasoning on a couple pounds of ground pork and shaping them into little patty's....not exactly what I was expecting! When lunch time came, we headed outside with rumbling tummies to find all the "organic food vendors" that we had read about in the brochure....only to see that our food choices were between a Gyro cart and a BBQ stand. There are more food vendors at my local farmers market than there were at this huge event, which was kind of a bummer.
I had already gone through the entire complex and seen all the vendors and their wares in about 15 minutes, and after another failed workshop I started to have my doubts that it was worth it to stay the night and come back again the next day like we had planned. Linda must have been thinking the same thing, because when we met up again we both blurted out "Do you think we should just leave"?! We made a quick call to the hotel to cancel our reservation, took a little trip through the huge bookstore they set up (and scored some awesome books...yay!) we hit the road again and headed home.
The weekend definitely wasn't what I was expecting, and the workshops weren't nearly as informative as I had hoped, but I still ended up having a great time. I hardly ever get to spend time with Linda and she is someone who I absolutely adore to smithereens, so it was worth it to get a chance to hang out with her for the day. And looking at the bright side, we saved a ton of money on food and the hotel room by not staying that extra day, and we came home with a bunch of free goodies. Plus, now I know how to mix sausage seasoning into ground pork...you cant buy that sort of knowledge folks!