Apple Butter Festival 2012

Fall 2012 -

If you didn’t make it to the 49th Apple Butter Festival at Hueston Woods this weekend, you missed out on great autumn weather, delicious food and a variety of activities.

After paying just $2 per adult to park and enter the festival, my friend Natalie and I quickly found the line for hot apple cider. Although it was cloudy and windy, it was nice reminder that apple-themed festivals are meant to happen in fall.

Contented with our cider, we walked over and watched the famous apple butter being stirred by both volunteers and members of the crowd who wanted to try it.

The butter is made over a small fire in a large kettle, and is then later canned, packaged and sold at a small table nearby.

Surrounding the apple butter-making was a variety of vendors selling homemade blankets and scarves, leather bags, yard signs, embroidered clothing, alpaca wool and kettle corn.

A few local alpacas were even on-site for visitors to view and pet. We watched as a few children attempted to stick their arm as far into the pen as it would go to barely brush up against the half-sleeping creatures.

Since the festival is held at Hueston Woods’ Pioneer Farm, the site includes several antique buildings that are kept running by the Oxford Museum Association, who’s members were there to offer information about their association.

The largest building on the farm is an old barn, which is not native to the site, because the original barn burned down in the 1980s. The new barn was an old dairy barn that was moved to the Pioneer Farm.

It holds a large collection of farm equipment, big and small, available to look at and learn about. The collection was neatly arranged and provided some shelter from the wind.

As Natalie and I finished our ciders, we took one last look around that wonderful fall day and noticed that the festival seemed more crowded than last year, especially with Miami students.

 

By Ariana Williams