Celebrate the Sights, Sounds and Tastes of Fall at the 42nd Annual Ashfield Fall Festival
by Laura Stravino

The Ashfield Agricultural Commission will display entries to the 5th annual Tallest Sunflower and Heaviest Pumpkin contests. At 12noon on Saturday, anyone may join a team for some friendly competition in the annual “Pumpkingames.” Try your hand at pumpkin bowling, the pumpkin relay race, and musical pumpkins. (Photo credit: Sienna Wildfield)

Ashfield town center will be bustling with visitors on Columbus Day weekend, Saturday, Oct 6-7, 2012 from 10am-5pm both days. The fall festival offers over 50 arts and crafts exhibits, live music, a wide variety of local agricultural products and prepared foods, book and tag sales, fundraising raffles, and many activities for children. Admission is free and parking is available in lots east of town center.

Visitors will be able to get a jump-start on their holiday shopping, finding everything from fiber and textile arts, woodwork and blown glass to pottery, jewelry, kid’s clothing and more in several venues along Main Street (route 116). Private homes as well as local organizations host tag and book sales, including the big book sale at Belding Memorial Library. The town common, with its hill overlooking the festival booths, is a great place to relax, listen to music, and enjoy a sampling from the many food vendors. Have a bowl of soup, grinder, or kielbasa for lunch and feed that sweet tooth with fried dough with maple cream, apple pie or blueberry cobbler. There are plenty of kid- and vegetarian-friendly options.

There are numerous low-cost kids games, many designed and run by other kids, including mini-golf, marble runs, beanbag and coin toss games, and the ever-popular “Storm the Castle” catapult game. There is also a fidget ladder, face-painting and pumpkin painting.

The 2012 musical entertainment line up, with sponsorship support from Greenfield Savings Bank is as follows:

Saturday, Oct. 6

• 10 a.m., Florence Community Band
• 11 a.m., Radio Free Earth
• Noon, Pumpkingames
• 1 p.m. Lost Mountain
• 2:15 p.m., Zoe Darrow and the Fiddleheads
• 3:30 p.m., Morris dancers

Sunday, Oct. 7

• 11 a.m. Abby and Harry Adams, fiddling phenoms
• 11:45 a.m., Lui Collins
• 1 p.m., West County Jazz
• 2:15 p.m., Banish Misfortune, Celtic
• 3:15 p.m., Abe Loomis and friends
• 4:30 p.m., Ashfield Community Band

A festival program, with a map and list of vendors and exhibitors, can be found at www.ashfieldfallfestival.org.