My Trip to the Big Apple

No, not this one again but this one, The Big Red Apple Festival here in Cornelia, GA.

main street's big red apple

Twice a year, Cornelia hosts some sort of apple festival. In the spring it's the Apple Blossom Festival, but in the fall it's the Big Red Apple Festival. Last weekend was it. Even the rain bands from Hurricane Nate could keep people away. That's the nice thing about living in the Northeast Georgia foothills, the abundance of this fruit. Mel wouldn't go because of the rain. In her years of living here, she's never been to this festival, but always wanted to go. I tried my father's line of "You won't melt. Sh*t floats." She came back with that she was made of circuit boards and would fry. Her loss, I was going. She spent the day cleaning out the barn and organizing her tools. I was going to take the day off and have some fun.

It's been an active hurricane season in the Atlantic this year. It looked like the tropical rain from this storm would miss us entirely, but still we got some rain from it last weekend. A shame too because if I had been watching the weather closer, we could have sown the deer plot seeds in the orchard.

Anyhow, back to the festival. In the spring and summer months there are a huge number of street fairs going on every weekend within a 30 mile radius of us.The apple harvest tends to be the last hurrah for the year. It usually a couple of weeks after the county fair. I still find it difficult to believe that not much actually happens in our tiny town, but in surrounding communities. This year was my first Big Red Apple Festival. I wasn't going to miss it because of a little rain. I'm not sorry I did.

A few of the food vendors

Every restaurant and church in the county set up food booths. Although apples were the main theme a plethora of other yummies were also available. I savored my lamb Gyro from one such booth with the gusto of a starving man. Juices ran freely down my chin. I got the mandatory Big Red Apple Festival t-shirt and a caramel apple. Although I was tempted to purchase a huge bag of red apples, I knew they would go bad before we ate all these juicy delights. Even using my grandmother's Depression/farm techniques for storing them. Commercially grown apples just don't keep in cold storage as well as homegrown, organic ones do as in my grandmother's day. They are sprayed too much and too hybridized. I'm looking forward to ours which won't be.

This festival closed three town streets for several blocks. Even the decubitus ulcer on my foot couldn't keep me from seeing all there was to see. Not a drop of rain fell the whole two hours I was there. After perusing all the food vendors, I was off to the craft booth two streets over. The kid zone with the mandatory bounce houses and such was the only street I passed up. Handmade jewelry, wood carvings, aromatherapy products, soaps, honey, sewn and needlework booths, home preserved pickles and jams, and the every country festival's quilt booths didn't miss a visit from me.

You see I was also doing market research for a future Cockeyed Homestead booth at festivals and farmers markets if not next year, for the year after. That's the thing about selling homemade/ homestead products for profit, you gotta know what's available. You also have to know how to make your products more desirable than the other vendors out there. What's missing. I'm also looking at display options for easy set up and take downs. I'm not sure what we'll have to sell at this point. I do know we have a glut of free-range chicken eggs which are large to extra large, organic, browns. But then again, so do most homesteads. We are also coming up on our lower production winter months. We don't have enough hens to mass produce eggs and won't unless we have a market for them. The old catch-22.

While I can make soaps and laundry soaps, I'm not sure of the market here. I know Lisa, the Clarkesville Farmers Market coordinator, and another vendor in that market group make soaps so it's too much competition in such a tiny market. As far as vegetables and fruits go, the Clarkesville market is wide open. The problem is I don't know what will grow in abundance next year to sell. But it's something to plan on. Herbs, homemade jams, jellies and pickles for sure. I may have a market for angora fiber and yarn too. This will depend on how much spinning and knitting I can do this winter, but then again the price point may not be what the market can bear in such a limited market. Oh, decisions, decisions. At this point, I have more questions than answers. This winter will also be spent making decisions.

Y'all have a blessed day!