Common Ground Fair

Let me paint the picture for you. 8 o'clock, Friday morning. Maine. Standing on the edge of a forest, clinging to a $2 cup of coffee and huddling with six other Overlook volunteers against blasts of 30 degree wind. In the forest through which we just walked, there are horses harnessed to felled pine trees, led by men with long beards and plaid flannel shirts, an image straight out of the 1800's. Before us, a gate leading into a giant fairground that doesn't open for another four. I'm wearing four layers and still freezing. I'm clutching a program that lists MOFGA's (Maine Organic Farmers and Gardener's Association) Common Ground Fair's Friday workshops. As the wind blows the pages every which way, my fellow volunteers and I are trying to map a mental schedule of the workshops we'll be attending for the day. 9 o'clock: Permaculture and Medicinal Herbs. 10 o'clock: Sustainable Agriculture in Central America. 11 o'clock: Intensive Gardening, starring Will Bonsall, who, if you're in the sustainable ag/seed saving culture, is quite the celebrity. Noon: Sheep Dog Demo.

By the time the gates open at 9, I am beside myself with icy pain. As the crowd that has been building for the past forty minutes (some 60,000 people visit the fair every year) move into the fairgrounds, a variety of white tents splay out before us. Boot Root Kitchen, featuring organic, home grown carrot soup and eggplant sandwiches. A stand selling hot apple cider. A huge tent devoted entirely to alpaca fleece. A barn demonstrating heritage breeds of chickens. Men with giant oxen mill about. The marketplace is buzzing with people selling handmade crafts and sweaters and composting toilets and a million other things I can't afford.

As I walk through the fair on my way to Permaculture, I am surprised by how normal everyone there is. Having very little exposure to the New England organic farming culture, I have been expecting a sea of dirty hippies and barefoot children covered in flowers. Not really the case. Mostly, just average people bundled up, talking about the summer's tomato blight, or their success growing a certain variety of faba bean, or the prices of apples (Ok, perhaps not ordinary topics of conversation). I am reminded of my grandparents, Nana and Harry. Imagine a sea of them, and that's what the Common Ground's crowd is like. Of course, there are a few exceptions. Freegans, for example, were around. People who only eat free food. Pulling plates of food from trashcans all over the fair.

So, this is a glimpse of my experience at the Common Ground Fair in Maine this past weekend. It was an amazing time, and I learned a lot. As soon as I have the land, I'm ready to grow my own organic commercial garden. And I definitely caught some of the excitement about everything that is happening with organic farming and gardening. It was a lot of fun. I highly recommend you go next year. I don't know how to end this entry... LOOKOVERTHERE BYE!