Tiny Taste of Common Ground Festival

Last year, our kids and grandkids joined us at the inaugural Common Ground Festival. What a day it was! This year, Ted was feeling less-than-chipper with a very sore back. Even though we hardly got onto the grounds, we still had a wonderful taste of all that is this lovely event.

We were welcomed by beautiful cloudy skies frolicking over a field of buckwheat.

Before getting our wristbands at registration, an artistic friend, Barb, was spotted hammering wildflowers onto card stock to make pretty postcards. Plant Pounding it's called.

With wooly wristbands in place, we checked out the Foragers Farms area. No, they are not drinking - they are sniffing. It is interesting how common scents like rosemary and basil are so difficult to identify if you don't see them. Although two of the herbal scents made my mouth water!

There were interesting displays for visitors of every age to enjoy.

After checking out all of the food vendors, we all settled on lunch from a Bowmanville couple who make the tastiest Pork Belly and Beef Bao. Formosa Hut. Wonderful Taiwanese food. Barb had one of their veggie bowls. There was room for us to enjoy the view as we savoured our lunches.

Barb was volunteering at the festival and had to go so we found our way to the "Farm Fertility and Soil Superheroes" talk. One of the owners of "Little Farm that Could", walked a group of interested folks through what it takes to make good compost and why you should do it.

There were talks in two locations throughout the day. Sadly, we weren't able to partake in any more because Ted was in pain. He went for a rest while I learned about ideal temperatures for your compost pile (50 to 55 °C - just in case you are interested) ......

..... and which ingredients were high in carbon and which in nitrogen.

Attendees felt the thermometer's shaft to feel just how warm a compost heap gets. The talk was somewhere around an hour and really informative.

I found Ted sitting under the big tent and went looking for a little something sweet to eat. Not only did I find something sweet, I found someone sweet - my friend Bettina. She was volunteering at her husband's booth which focused on wild rice. Bettina was giving out samples and one was a custard topped with cranberries. SO GOOD!!!

Here's their recipe. W.R. is wild rice.

Sadly, Ted was struggling, so we checked in with a couple of friends at the Land Trust Booth and reluctantly headed down the hill to our car. The same clouds that welcomed us a few hours earlier, waved goodbye as we left.

So, that's a taste of what we did.

What we didn't get to do was very enticing:

• A tour of the land focusing on artifacts found there that are older than the pyramids.

• Petting goats

• A Happy, Healthy Tree talk

• Solar cooking

• Making salsa

• Wild plant identification

• Meet the Beekeeper

• Lee and Charlie's Monarchs

• Herb Garden tour

• 3 different Barn Talks (Nuclear in Northumberland, Restorative Agriculture, How to Feed your Gut Microbiome

All that and more, with live music in the background and wagon rides between venues.

Even though we didn't do and see everything, the tiny taste we had was perfect.

“Pull up a chair.

Take a taste.

Come join us.

Life is so endlessly delicious.”

Ruth Reichl