Common Ground Fair

On Friday night, David and I drove up to my parents' so that we could all go to the Common Ground Fair on Saturday. As this fair is run by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, it's really unlike any other fair I've ever gone to. I only half-jokingly refer to it as a hippie lovefest, because to an extent it is, but it's also more than just that. Maine was (and still is) a big center for the back-to-the-land movement, not least because of the influence of Helen and Scott Nearing, so there's an interesting mix here of counterculture and old-fashioned Yankee self-sufficiency.

Anyway, this was the busiest I'd ever seen the fair. The weather was perfect, and it seemed that everyone wanted to be there. There was also someone there I'd been unsuccessful in crossing paths with for quite some time now, but at long last we met face-to-face and the moment was captured for posterity (my only photo of the day!):



I'll leave her to tell her story about smuggling coffee onto the fairgrounds.

Last Call for the Raffle

The Raffle for the Critters ends tonight! If you want to enter and haven't yet, you have until midnight tonight. I just updated my spreadsheet this morning, and it looks like y'all have donated $540 so far to the good folks at the Center for Wildlife. Good job!