From The Mother Earth News Fair - Part 1

This was my third year attending the Mother Earth News Fair at Seven Springs mountain Resort in Pennsylvania. I have to say, it gets better every year! And it grows every year. There were so many excellent seminars and interesting vendors that I think I'm going to have to write about it in parts. This being Part 1.

We booked our cabin at Kooser State Park last January. It was the same cabin me and my sister stayed in last fall only this year there were six of us staying there. My husband and I, my sister and her husband, and our parents. It's a small cabin, but we made it work just fine.  Here we are (well, minus me - taking the picture, of course, and my husband who still had to work) on our arrival at the cabin Thursday evening.  We wanted to get there a day early to get all settled in, build a campfire, and just enjoy being in the mountains.

DAY ONE - FRIDAY

The fair started at noon on Friday.  We, of course, got their early.  I know from previous fairs that the best seating is had from getting there early.  I could hardly contain my excitement!  The first seminar I attended was on Perennial Herbs by Tammi Hartung.  I have to say, I really enjoyed her talk.  She spoke slow enough that you could take tons of notes (I like taking notes), and showed lots of pictures.  We learned about all sorts of different perennial herbs (of course), their uses, and how to grow and incorporate them into your gardens.  And while her book was gone by the time I made it up to the bookstore, it was definitely on my homesteading bookshelf wishlist.  I ordered it as soon as I got home, love it, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in perennial herbs.   My mom and sister both attended this seminar with me.

Next I headed up to a Crafting Herbal Salves seminar with Sue Morris of Sue's Salves, a fellow Pennsylvanian.  She gave a brief intro to making herbal salves, showed a great video of a walkthrough of her herbal garden, and also passed along her salve making recipe.  I picked up a piece of comfrey root, which she brought in from her garden.  I planted it last weekend, and to my surprise, it's already growing new shoots!  With the weather cooling off, and being past the fall equinox I hadn't expected it to do much of anything until next spring.  You can imagine my elation to see that new little leaf sprouting up from the ground, and only after a few days.  I suppose that just speaks to the healing power of the plant.  We later purchased some of her comfrey salve, as I didn't think I would have a chance to make some of my own until spring.  I've already used it for a skin abrasion and was amazed and how quickly it healed.  I'm sure excited to have this plant in my garden now.

My 4 o'clock seminar was on (Medicinal) Mountain Roots of the Appalachias.  Seeing a theme here?  I am currently completing a course in field botany online, geared towards identifying medicinal plants.  My main focus for the fair was to learn as much about these plants and their applications as I could.  How interesting to learn of all the plants locally available to heal us.  I imagine that this was something that generations before us already knew.  How quickly we forget with today's 'modern' medicine.  I didn't get to stay for the whole talk, though, as my husband surprised me with his early arrival!  We walked around for about a half hour as I acclimated him with the location of the various stages.

We finally ended up back outside for our last seminar of the day, Planting By The Moon, again with Sue Morris.  What a fascinating talk.  I knew that the moon influenced many activities here on Earth.  That was evident as I watched the changing tides during the few years I lived on the east coast.  Initially I would have thought that it was a bunch of hocus pocus, but it makes complete sense.  Afterall, if the moon can affect the oceans like it does, how could it not affect other living organisms.  We are 70(ish)% water.  I will be curious to see how planting by the moon changes the outcome of my garden from hear on out.

So there's our first day in a nutshell!  There was so much to see.  I was so glad that we had another two days to meander around the vendors between our seminars!