Unexpected Finger Lake Fun

We usually have some loose plan of what we want to do each day, but this particular weekend we didn't. After attending the zucchini, melon, and Scottish festivals in the last three weekends, we were a little disappointed that we hadn't found a Saturday festival in this area. As we drove out of the campground that morning, we stopped by the office to meet Bill. Bill is the gentleman that bakes the friendship bread for each new camper, and we wanted to tell him thank you. That's when Bill explained that he was heading down the road to Interlaken, where his band was playing at the Plowing Days Festival. All of a sudden we now had a plan for our day.

The pictures above almost looks like Christmas with all those red and green tractors. But it's just September, and Mark is checking out the long line of farm implements. Of course, plowing days can't happen without an old tractor parade, complete with hay bales for spectator seating.

In case you would assume that all the people interested in restoring these vintage tractors are men, there was a woman driver in the parade as well.

This guy couldn't stop wth restoring just one tractor, so he had 5-tractor-train in the parade.

Around here, not all farm work is done with tractor power. So the parade also included yoked oxen.

We liked that this family brought some of their pets to the parade.

Some of the yoked teams were young calves in training. These two guys are named Lewis and Clark, and we met them in the barn before the parade.

This big red barn was the center of activities. Built in 1908, it is still standing proud. We have been admiring the big barns in this area, so it was fun to see one up close.

Today the top floor was filled with displays of quilts and fruits and vegetables.

We saw apples from the area with historical names like northern spy, sweet bough, maiden blush, porter, and lamb abby pearmain. There was also a veterinarian giving a presentation about milk production practices at local dairies. Then we saw how farmers in the early 1900's used simple but ingenuous machines to move their hay into these tall hay lofts. It was a very educational day filled with Americana.

Denisa's favorite part of the festival were the animals. A local alpaca farm brought two of their males, and the owners were so willing to answer all the questions a lady from Oklahoma could think up. Denisa learned a lot about their wool and the process of raising alpaca, but she thinks they would be fun to own just because their faces look like cute little stuffed animals.

Not normally social animals, their owner was allowing them to be fed alfalfa today so they wouldn't mind being close to the people feeding them. Alfalfa has too much protein, and a solid diet of it will make their wool too stiff. But for today we were spoiling them with alfalfa candy.

Mark's favorite part of the festival was the Amish baked goods. He is proud to say that he has found the fruit-filled fried pies that he has been craving since eating them last summer in Colorado. He also bought a pan of pecan sticky buns, so we are well supplied with sugar and calories this week.

Plowing Days wouldn't be finished without some real plowing. So after the parade, the tractors pulled into the field and started turning over the dark rich soil. These old tractors aren't just for looks, they can also do the work!

Denisa took a ride around the field in the hay wagon, so she could see the plowing up close. They made an announcement that children needed to have an adult with them to ride the hay wagon, so Denisa had to borrow a child to ride.

The tractors weren't the only source of horse power in this plowing extravaganza.

To finish up the festival, we watched the one-hour concert of the Christian band--Cross-eyed Fish. Our new bread-baking harmonica-playing friend Bill explained they came up with the name because they are fisher's of men with an eye on the cross. They were very good, and we determined that we could two-step to Christian music in a barn loft.

Today we spent several hours at a festival that we didn't even know existed this morning. Since we were in the neighborhood, we also stopped in at the Lively Goat Farm and did a goat cheese tasting. Mark has determined that he likes fruit pies and sticky buns more than goat cheese.

The only thing we really had planned for today was a trip to Taughannock Falls State Park. The falls were named by the local Indians, and it's pronounced Tug-a-nock. The pictures on the brochure shows the grand 215-foot vertical waterfall splashing into a water basin at the end of the gorge. But when we arrived at the overlook, there was no splashing--in fact there wasn't even enough water to wet all the rocks.

We drove down to the gorge, and took the 3/4-mile hike through the trees to see the waterfall from ground level.

As we walked out of the trees, we now had the 200-foot gorge walls around us. There was also supposed to be a raging river, made from the water going over the falls. But instead, we were walking on a dry river bed. One of the tiny dots at the bottom of the rock wall is Denisa, feeling very small and surprisingly dry.

Since we made the walk, we took another picture at the base of the falls. We are hearing over and over that people haven't seen the falls of upstate New York looking like this for many years.

From our hike at Taughannock Falls, it's just a short walk to the edge of Cayuga Lake--one of the biggest of the finger lakes. It's a cloudy day with chances of rain, and we know this part of the country could really use a good rain. The finger lakes that we have seen look very full, and that is because they are fed by underground springs instead of rain water.

Denisa is still chanting, "Changing leaves!" as she spots pretty fall foliage. That chant is happening with more and more frequency. In fact, sometimes it's hard to get a full sentence out without a comment about the leaves around us. So we end our random day of gems we have wandered into here on the finger lakes with a picture of "changing leaves!"