Local food is about a lot more than just healthy and great tasting food. It’s a way of life, and each year the Living Local Harvest Festival puts center stage the whole process of the local movement, from soil to stomach and beyond.
The free event takes place Oct. 3 and Oct. 4.
On Saturday, Oct. 5, the Living Local Harvest Festival kicks into full swing with day-long events at the Agricultural Hall in West Tisbury. The festival is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and then from 6 to 10 p.m. is the community potluck with a dance afterwards featuring music by the Flying Elbows.
A silo chicken coop designed by Hutkers Architects is currently on display at the SBS Grain Store in Vineyard Haven. The coop is a two-story structure built with found and recycled materials, a grass rooftop, a laying box with privacy for hens, and other features.
This year’s Living Local Harvest Festival is next Saturday Sept. 29 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Agricultural Hall in West Tisbury. The event is an all-things-sustainable gathering where those with boots in the soil and fingers on the green pulse, be it energy or otherwise, showcase not only their wares but their wherewithal.
Take a local wild food adventure, learn how to fillet a fish or create the perfect compost mix, enjoy food from Island farms, carve pumpkins, ride ponies and cows or take part in a bit of cow chip bingo. In other words, the possibilities are endless.
It’s been five months since Rhode Island beekeeper Everett Zurlinden arrived on the Island to teach prospective beekeepers how to keep hives, and at the Living Local Harvest Festival last weekend he had an apiary report card to share.
There was good news and bad news, Mr. Zurlinden said. The status of the invasive vero mite, queen honeybee quality issues and honeybee temperament are all areas of concern, but the veteran beekeeper said the biggest question centers on how many honeybees one small Island can support.
As the cool winds roll in, the beaches become less crowded and the sun begins to set even before dinner, the Living Local Harvest Festival arrives just in time to celebrate this coming of autumn and winter. Gone are the summer fairs with their fried food, greasy hot dogs and rides that make you dizzy. Enter instead a festival that seems more to stroll as well as to nourish.
