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The Goats of Kingsport
Fall Folk Arts Festival
Autumn is arguably the most beautiful time of year in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, and Exchange Place Living History Farm gives it the welcome it deserves with its annual Fall Folk Arts Festival. Always eagerly anticipated, this year’s event will be held on Saturday, September 27, from 10 am until 5 pm, and Sunday, September 28 from noon until 5 pm. Admission is $5 for ages 12 and over, with those under the age of 12 admitted free. Proceeds go towards the care of the farm’s resident animals, and are also used in the ongoing restoration and preservation of the site, located at 4812 Orebank Road in Kingsport, Tennessee, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
For the 53rd year, artisans from throughout the region will gather to demonstrate 19th century crafts, as well as to sell a wide array of traditional folk and hand-crafted arts of today. Over sixty vendors, guilds and volunteers will fill the site with handcrafted arts, specialty goods, plants, harvest products, demonstrations and education. Visitors can see brooms being made, wood being whittled and baskets of all kinds being woven.
Harvest-time activities, typical of an 1850s farm, will be taking place all around the site. In the log kitchen, the Eden’s Ridge Hearth Cookery Society, and our energetic Junior Apprentices, will prepare some of the foods the Preston family would have eaten in the mid nineteenth century. The artistry and iron expertise of our blacksmith will be on display at the forge, where you can pick up a quick lesson in this timeless skill. The newly renovated Gaines Store will be open and offering a view of merchandise sold in that era. Nearby, Ms. Maggie T. Mule, as well as some of Exchange Place’s human volunteers, will once again be extracting juice from sorghum cane so it can be cooked into sorghum syrup. (Please note this will only take place on Saturday, though Maggie will also be around for part of Sunday.) Pure sorghum syrup, made fresh this year by the Guenther family of Muddy Pond, TN, will be on sale for as long as supplies last. Next to the sorghum patch you can see a small area of buckwheat that volunteers have sown as a cover crop to enrich the soil, while also providing nourishment for Exchange Place’s honeybees and other pollinators.
The Overmountain Weavers Guild will be demonstrating spinning and weaving techniques in several places around the farmstead. In the Burow Museum, Guild members have also curated an exhibit focused on knitting and crocheting that features unusual and vintage pieces. In addition, two of their members will be offering a Basics of Knitting workshop. Held in the Roseland building on Saturday, September 27 at 1 pm, Paulette Bruggeman and Jesse Szombathy will be teaching the knit stitch, purl stitch, and binding stitch, which should give participants the ability to knit a cotton dish cloth by the end of the class. No experience is required, and all written instructions, plus one pair of straight knitting needles and enough cotton yarn to complete two dish cloths, will be provided. This workshop is limited to ten (10) students, and is not recommended for children under the age of 12. The cost is $25.00, plus a small $1.20 online processing fee. To pay and reserve your spot for this class, go to this site: file:///C:/Users/msade/Downloads/Events%20%E2%80%93%20Overmountain%20Weavers%20Guild.html%20%20knitting.html.
Exchange Place festivals always feature special people demonstrating their special skills, and this one will be no exception. Kathy Martin will be on the Roseland porch, showing how to make paper. In the past, she has used things like iris stalks, okra and yucca, and at the Fall Festival she will be using white and denim pulp. Also hard at work will be guitar luthier John Deason, who will be making a new guitar, and will also have five of his original instruments available for purchase.
Children’s activities are a favorite feature of Exchange Place festivals for families. Once again Tri-State Basket Guild will be teaching children how to make baskets in the Schoolhouse. Children of all ages always enjoy meeting our horses, cow, and donkey in the 1851 barn, and seeing our sheep grazing in different fields. This year the animals will be part of the Living History Farm Scavenger Hunt, in which young visitors can solve riddles, guess the jokes and learn some interesting facts. The annual Scarecrow Challenge, which encourages creativity by individuals, groups and families, will allow people to bring their best scarecrows to the farm on Friday (September 26) from 9 am until 6 pm, or Saturday from 7 am until 9 am, with the judging taking place on Sunday.
Related Events
EVENT CALENDAR PURPOSE AND CRITERIA
A calendar has been created called the This is Kingsport events calendar which will serve as a non-public forum to provide citizens with information about social and organizational gatherings held within the city. The city will disseminate information to the public through this online calendar about social and organizational gatherings which are conducted or promoted by community partners with which the city currently has partnership agreements. Additionally, social or organizational gatherings held on city owned property to which the public at large is invited will be published on this calendar.
Each year the city enters into partnership agreements with multiple community partners some of whom in turn support the city by organizing events or promoting events of members and affiliates. By creating a common source for the dissemination of information about community events the city will be furthering its support of those community partners which in turn support the city. Moreover, the city wishes to and will benefit from highlighting gatherings which will be of benefit and enjoyment to the public.
Community partners may communicate their events or those which they promote to the city which will disseminate the information through the event calendar. Furthermore, the city of Kingsport will publish on the calendar those community events which are held on city property. In order to achieve the city’s goals only those events described herein will be published on the This is Kingsport event calendar which will be curated by city staff.