All the Scarecrows!

Our annual Scarecrow Festival is always such a good time! This year we decided to try to get a picture of every single scarecrow that was made. I think a few may have slipped away before we could photograph them, but the rest wound up in this video, which I think is pretty darn charming!

Thanks to everyone who came out and got creative with us! Join us next Thanksgiving weekend, where we'll do it all again! October 7 & 8, 2017.

Thankful

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving, a day in which we take stock of all the things we're thankful for. I'm not too much into traditional holidays, but I can get behind this one. I am so grateful for the abundance of love and laughter that was on display this weekend at our annual Scarecrow Festival.

Families from far and wide came together to make their own scarecrows... and there were some very unique creations!

Proceeds from this year's festival are going to Puppets Without Borders, bringing puppetry and art to kids in Cambodia.

This is our fourth year hosting the Scarecrow Festival, and it is always a ton of fun.

Little-known fact: scarecrows make great travel companions!

We are grateful to our volunteers who helped us out this weekend: Terry Veevers, Debra Tindale, and Brie Kaduc-Stojsic (pictured below, right).

We are deeply thankful for our sponsors, who have supported this festival year after year: Picton Home Hardware, George Emlaw, and City Revival. We couldn't do it without you!

Special thanks to Sandra Sharpe (nee Clarke) who brought her two granddaughters to the festival. Sandra grew up in our house, which was in their family for more than 80 years. Sandra showed the girls around the house, telling them stories from her time here. We are thankful to have this special relationship with the Clarke family.

Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you to everyone who made this weekend such a tremendous success.

Scarecrows in the County

Last weekend we hosted our third annual Scarecrow Festival. We always hold this event on the weekend of Canadian Thanksgiving because it is such a fun activity for people spending time with their families.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous, sunny and warm, with brilliant fall colours all around us.

When people arrive at the farm they are provided with a cross-shaped wooden frame on which to make their scarecrow. We give them a little bit of instruction, and send them to the barn so they can rummage through mountains of clothes to dress their scarecrows.

Then they head back outside to dress and stuff their creations.

Before long, some wonderful characters start to emerge...

... Such as "Eunice", who apparently "works in HR"...

 And this dentally-challenged chap who, er, likes to get high...

Sure, there are your shifty types...

...And your basically beautiful big families...

...And all kids just look insanely cute against a background of straw...

...And then there's some families who just love their kids so much that even their scarecrows have to have babies!

All of the proceeds of this year's festival are going to Puppets Without Borders; a project that will be taking me and Susanne Larner back to Ghana in February 2014, bringing puppetry and art supplies to kids in rural villages.

Me and Brie, rocking the donation box

This Thanksgiving we were super-duper thankful for all of our friends and supporters who helped make this year's Scarecrow Festival such a success: Sandra Henderson, Brie Kaduc-Stojsic, Terry Veevers, Nell Casson, Kelly Roblin, Andy Sheath, Georgia Larner, George Emlaw, Picton Metro, Picton Home Hardware, and City Revival. 

See you next Thanksgiving!

The Scarecrows Strike Again

Our annual Scarecrow Festival took place last Saturday and Sunday over the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, and once again, it was a great success.

How can the success of such an event be measured? It could be measured in smiles…

Or laughter…

Or by the number of people who showed up…

Or by the number of scarecrows that were made…

Or by the artistic merit of the creations…

Or by the number of kids who dressed themselves up as scarecrows…

Or by the sheer awesomeness of our weekend visitors…

Or by the money that was raised for Puppets Without Borders… which was nothing to sneeze at!

Although the weather was a little on the windy and chilly side, so many enthusiastic folks and families came out, it was pretty hard for us to resist grinning all weekend long.

Thanks to our generous sponsors for making this year's Scarecrow Festival the glorious event that it was: Picton Home Hardware, George Emlaw, Picton Metro, City Revival, Andrew & Emily’s No Frills and all the folks who made goodies for our bake sale.

We’ll be doing it all again for Thanksgiving 2013 – so see you then!

Stickfest 2012

Once again Stickfest was upon us, once again we had glorious weather, and once again the price of admission was one stick.

I changed up the design of the poster this year, opting for something a little thinner to better fit among the multitudes of other posters on bulletin boards around the County.

As always, the main feature of our festival is our Museum of the Stick which looks better and better (and is more impressive) each year as new exhibits get added and old exhibits get replaced or refreshed.

Most of the exhibits tend to be on the walls, freeing up space on the floor for the activity stations like the ever popular Paint-A-Stick. This year we added yarn to the mix for even more decorative possibilities.

Silhouettes: stick painter & sticky playlist on the stereo.

This year Krista read from "Stanley's Stick" by John Hegley and Neal Layton, while I had the privilege of reciting The Glory of the Stick by Stickfest's official Poet Laureate Colin Frizzell.

The audience is impressed.

Last year I set an unofficial world record for The Most Hickory Sticks in the Mouth. That record was 93 Hickory Sticks and you can tell by the photos that I was getting quite uncomfortable by the end because of the light I decided to stand under. Plus the whole gag reflex thing. It was cooler this year so standing under the hot light wasn't a problem and, with the assembled crowd counting each stick, I managed to break my record and insert 101 Hickory Sticks in my mouth before giving in.

Here's Bay Woodyard from Honey Pie Hives and Herbals with her yarn bombing project. While technically not stick-related, Bay demonstrated a technique others did implement with their various sticks.

This year we had our first canine visitor for the event, Flicker, courtesy of the Wiens family. In fact, I'm pretty sure he appeared in Carl's awesome poster he created for our first Stickfest in 2010.

Of course, Flicker had to demonstrate the age-old relationship between dog and stick by fetching a few. Good boy.

SPECIAL EVENT

About a month or so ago, we got a call from a woman who wanted to celebrate her birthday with her friends in a unique way. Her favourite movie being The Wizard of Oz, she wanted to know if she could come by with a group of her friends and create some scarecrows. Since we were already prepping for this year's Scarecrow Festival (read about last year's event here), we had no problem accommodating her birthday plans.

Proceeds from this year's Scarecrow Festival will go to Puppets Without Borders, with the event taking place October 6 & 7 2012, from 11 AM to 5 PM.

The partyers - costumed like characters from The Wizard of Oz - began their creations enthusiastically and without hesitation.

Dressing a scarecrow can sometimes be as challenging as dressing an unwilling child (or a drunken adult), but it's always worth the effort and concentration.

Fun with the straw.
Big thanks again to George Emlaw for donating the straw!

This one seemed to be missing something...

...so she got some augmentation.

Can you pick out your scarecrow from this lineup?

The finished scarecrows and their proud creators.
A good time was had by all!

Thanks to everyone who came out to Stickfest this year and made it so much fun. The Stick Museum will be open until Halloween if you want to come by and check it out. We welcome your contributions to the Stick Museum and ideas for future Stickfests, and we're happy to provide a venue for your creative events.

Scarecrow Festival

This year Small Pond Arts took over the annual Prince Edward County Scarecrow Festival, previously run by our friends at Galloping Goat Gallery.  Each year the festival's proceeds benefit a charity, and this year we chose ArtsCan Circle, an organization that I volunteer with.

We held the event on the Saturday of the Thanksgiving weekend, and the weather was absolutely glorious. 

There were a lot of things I loved about this event. 

I loved the family vibe, so evident at Thanksgiving when families come together.

I loved the way people worked together.  Making a scarecrow is just one of those things that is hard to do alone (and not nearly as much fun!).  Nobody was crying or rushing or complaining or fighting – everybody was just getting it done, in their own time.

ArtsCan volunteer David Joyce (L),  makes a scarecrow
with Executive Director Carol Teal (R)

I loved seeing people exercise their creativity.  I don’t think there were too many in the crowd that would call themselves artists, but everyone was forced to flex their creative muscles to make their scarecrow.

No two scarecrows were the same, but each had its own kooky charm.

How can a barfing pumpkin be so damn cute?!?

There’s something kind of primal about building these life-size images of ourselves, something that we all just know how to do…

Time to get topical: #Occupy Wall Street Scarecrow

And of course I loved raising money for ArtsCan Circle.  If feels really great to have so much fun AND get to make a contribution to an awesome charity.

A huge THANKS to our supporters this year: Picton Home Hardware, Second Time Around, County Photographer Phil Norton, Andrew & Emily’s No Frills, Honey Wagon Farms, George Emlaw, Galloping Goat Gallery, City Revival... we couldn't have done it without you!

See you next year!

SAVE THE DATE: Saturday October 6, 2012