Last workweek wasmy first - ever visit to the National Heirloom Expoin Santa Rosa , and stepping onto the Sonoma County Fairgrounds was like step into a Garden Betty dream . Imagine stall after booth of produce porn , tables lined with late summer bounty , vendors serving up local , sustainable , and organic food , and a pop - up farm make full with fluffy sheep , alpacas , stooge , coney , turkey , chicken , and other poultry .
If you like to geek out on garden stuff , run an urban homestead or a full - scale farm , reach toward a spirit of ego - adequacy , or just appreciate respectable food that comes from the earth , coming to the Heirloom Expo is like coming home .
It ’s the case of place where sheepherders , apiculturist , dirt scientists , and nutrient insurance policy pundits amount together with home gardeners , source collectors , homebrewers , and wildcrafters . Duck into one of the talker construction any hour of the day , and you ’ll find a display on everything from the benefit of biodynamic husbandry to the embodied coup d’etat of constitutional husbandry .
Inside the intellectual nourishment hall , the famous pumpkin towboat loom over 10 foot tall . ( And I swear we did not coordinate our outfits beforehand.)Baker Creek Heirloom Seedsgrew most of it on their seven estate of land to prepare for the show . I can only imagine how fun it must have been to harvest !
Around it were telling display of squash , melon vine , tomatoes , mushrooms , ail … almost every salmagundi of veggie and fruit under the Lord’s Day . If you stayed until the ending of the show on the last day , you could even take home your dearie , for innocent . ( Whatever stay was donated to the Sonoma solid food bank . )
When I saw these lovely turban , the root word birdcall for Super Mario Brothers popped into my head !
What do you call a cucurbit that ’s one-half pumpkin , half caprine animal ?
I passed intricate sculpture carved from watermelons , mobile gardens plant in the flatcar of trucks , giant pumpkin sagging under their own rattling free weight ( the winner come in at 1,427 pounds ! ) , and garden display demonstrating a range of techniques in permaculture , compost , and aboriginal planting .
I in conclusion met the gang fromBoogie BrewandBriteTapface to grimace ( both of whom make the dependable products for gardeners and chicken - keepers , and I ’ll be telling you more about them soon ! ) and must have circled the fairground at least three multiplication , taking it all in . You have a go at it it ’s a good show when you keep rule new affair you miss the last time .
But I have to say , my favorite part of the day ( away from meeting some of you rockin ’ proofreader for the first clock time ! ) was spend an afternoon at the domestic fowl and stock exhibits . I mean , how could you not love a face like this ?
Or this ?
Or bring in this exposure for your hairstylist ? ( I think a Polish postulate to be in my hereafter ! )
The chickens were quite the stylie crew , donning all manner of hats and hairstyle .
And this lovely lady ? It expect like she had a strawberry mark sherbet spike .
I also see sheep getting sheared for the first metre . It was unbelievable to see the coating fall off in one piece , especially with some of those sheep frolic fleece at least 6 in thick . Touching freshly sheared wool leave a slender layer of lanolin ( or woolen wax , as it ’s known ) on my hand , the same wool fat used in lotions to decorate our pelt . No wonder the sheep were so flabby .
After watching that presentation , I ’m still stun that my fancy proficient socks come from that nappy atomic pile of woolen . Farm to closet , rightfully .
