(outdoor demonstrations weather-permitting)
hfairedev 
My handy little assistant (son), Luke, is helping me layer the last of the 700 fabric circles with tissue. We will use these to wrap up your homemade soap ball, tie it with a ribbon and add a tag with “Made by…” You can help us fill in the blank! That’s all the prep for … Read more
We are now over halfway through making our home made ice cream for the Fair. We mix it up in individual batches and then freeze each one individually in our batch freezer. We supply ice cream all over the fairgrounds so you can have it with your cherry crisp, apple pie or donut. You can also have … Read more
We have a new food item on the list for this year’s Fair: Texas-style Barbecue Brisket. With 33 large briskets slotted to go into the smoker Thanksgiving week, (enough to serve about 1200 people), stop and get some fast before its all gone. But if you miss it at the Fair, be sure to swing by the … Read more
When I was a kid, I sang in the 6-9 year old children’s choir. We didn’t have a whole lot of kids in my class, and the most complicated thing we did was learn sign language while singing a song. Now I have a child in the 6-9 year old children choir (which numbers about … Read more
We’re getting very close to finishing our Aquaponics Green House! The fish will arrive and be in the tanks this week. Here’s how it works: The fish will live in large tanks in the ground. We will then pump that nutrient rich water up and through the grow beds, which have a layer of small rocks, … Read more
Inside the School of Woodworking Shop, Stan Beckworth was hand carving flowers in a piece of wood. A familiar face to many who have come out to the Homestead Craft Village or taken a class through The Ploughshare Institute For Sustainable Culture, Stan has been a woodworker and teacher for over 20 years and taught … Read more
We’ve been packaging our hand made soap this week and even little people can help. Each of our bars of soap come from small, hand made batches that cure 6 weeks before packaging. We packaged 225 bars of soap that are now awaiting labels. There’s multiple scents to choose from, and some specialty holiday scents … Read more
In our Woodworking Booth in the Pavilion you’ll find lots of unique, one-of-a-kind, hand made solid wood products for sale and display. This year one of our young woodworking students, 15 year old Matthew Taylor, is building his first Cedar Chest. This Chest is made using hand cut dovetails and solid Cedar wood. Every seam … Read more
Inside the Homestead School of Woodworking Shop several projects were in progress. First was Joel Lancaster (who is also the drummer for the Heritage Choir and Orchestra), building a new Spring Pole Bowl Lathe. Joel told us: “This is a foot powered lathe built using old barn beams, easily made from local materials, this one is made … Read more
Master Potter Kelly Morton is hand building 4 sets of electric lamps for this year’s Fair. There’s 11 pounds of clay in each lamp and it takes a whole week to build 8 of them. The squares on the table are lids that fit on the lamps. [envira-gallery id=”1830″]
