For the past few years the Medford Historical Society has participated in Taste of Medford. Usually we have coloring pages of Kirby’s Mill or the Cross Keys School House and a pile of crayons for the kids to color. We hand out membership and event info to the adults and have fun with the kids.

This year things turned out quite differently.

Janet had mentioned that Taste of Medford 2009 would have a ‘harvest’ theme. She wanted me to do a project with the kids involving pumpkins. It seemed kind of early for pumpkins so I offered to do carrots. As the event got closer I looked at the 3 bags of carrots and wondered what was I thinking in offering to do such a project. Friday night came and I still was not prepared. I gathered a package of brown paper lunch bags, Stampin’ Up!’s kid friendly markers, a cutting board, my crinkle cutter, knife and some leave stencils. Of course this involved some Stampin’ Up! classic ink pads in Garden Green, Tangerine Tango, and Riding Hood Red. My plan had been to do some test runs on Saturday morning before the event. However, this plan changed when I was needed to set up tents at 9AM. At least I had what I thought I would need along with the Medford Historical Society brochures, name tags and the MHS wooden sign to hang from the tent.   Old blueprints were turned over so the table would be protected from whatever happened.

I had one volunteer who offered to come help me. Lark arrived at 11:30. I had tried to get things set up as best I could but after setting up tents and moving tables for 2 1/2 hours I was a little spent. It was just gonna have to be how it ended up. I explained to Lark the brief sketch in my mind of making the shape of a carrot by stamping with the carrots. She gave me that “you must be out of your mind” look but quickly jumped into the project and offered to take over the knife duty. Whewww – that was a good thing. So I would suggest a shape and Lark would cut it. We ended up with leaves, pawprints, smiley face, carrot tops, and all sorts of circles.

Then Nicky showed up in the midst of this excitement. I had coerced her to participate with the promise of free food and a few laughs.  She had her own pocket knife and proceeded to start cutting carrots too. She made an “X” and that spurred the idea for tic-tac-toe. So we ended up with “X” and “O” and a long bar to use to set up the game. It started getting really hysterical about this point. So far an hour had passed and no children had come over to play with us.  Usually the first hour of the event everyone is off tasting food and the activites came later.

As people started coming by we had accumulated various decorated bags which we hung on the front of the table to give people an idea of what we were doing. Then we started to ask people “Hey – you wanna play tic-tac-toe with carrots?” We got some amazing looks – shock, disbelief, confusion, and interest. Had a few adults come over and they seemed to get a kick out of it. Bill & Winnie, members of the Medford Historical Society were glad to try it out for us. Hehehe – they played a few games while chatting with us.

Well then we got bored again so more designs came out. Nicky and I started making pirate maps, palm trees, and treasure chests. Lark’s cutting got even fancier.  We had a blast!

Ironically, no one knew that the Taste of Medford had a “harvest” theme.   it was not printed on any of the signs, banners, advertising or the programs handed out.   Apparently we were the only theme in the bunch.   I was asking the other businesses around me and they seemed confused by my questions.  Bill, who was helping to run the event, didn’t know why I kept talking about carrots.  But he is used to my crazy crafting ideas so he must have figured I was just off on a carrot project.   I asked Janet and she told me that the farming outfit that had signed up to come had cancelled on Thursday.   No wonder we laughed so much that day.

I even dressed for the occasion.   Here I am in my overalls and carrot color shirt showing off my “I heart carrots” motif.   You just gotta laugh cause sometimes real life is so funny!!!

As an added bonus we cut off the inked ends of the carrots.   The remainder was fed to the ponies that were tired and hungry from giving the children rides all day long.  

They were totally into the harvest themed carrots!!!

Our tent was next to Little Kicks Soccer.   The founder, Steve, was quite fun and had the kids kicked a soccer ball all day long.   He enjoyed our carrot stories and was laughing along with us throughout the day.   I stole their soccer ball and was kicking it around in our tent while having a smoke break.   He warned me I would never be the poster child that way.  Anyway it sure seemed like a cool idea to help the kids to learn through soccer.    At the end of the event Steve awarded me with the “Attitude and Good Sportmanship” iron on smiley-face patch!!   Check out their website – it is kicking cool!   www.littlekickssoccer.net

So enjoy some carrots this harvest season!  

Eat them, stamp with them or feed them to ponies!!!

Thanks for reading on….