The Gravenstein Apple Fair Held Today in Sebastopol, Sonoma County, Northern California

Man, am I BUSHED! I spent all afternoon working the Western Sonoma County Historical Society's information booth at the Gravenstein Apple Fair today... 

The Grav Fair is held two days each August in a large park in the town of Sebastopol called "Ragle Ranch" and the Historical Society usually maintains a presence at the Fair where we sell some plants from Luther Burbank's Farm Nursery, books on Burbank and local history, Farm tee-shirts and such. We also inform visitors about the work of the Society and its two major venues: The West County Museum which is housed in the old train depot building in downtown Sebastopol and Burbank's Farm (an historic site found on the "National Register of Historic Places") also found within the city limits of Sebastopol.

The Gravenstein Fair is a pretty well-attended event as you can tell by some of these photos...

Here's one of the many musicians entertaining the crowd:

Last year, Charlie Musselwhite played...

Besides the food and produce booths, there are also lots of crafts and arts booths like this one of these really cool crystal "light-catchers":

Here's the Historical Society's booth being "personed" by one of our lovlier members:

And here's a close-up of one of the boards with items of local history we displayed:

One of my favorite displays each year are the antique tractors:

The sign in front of each tractor tells what year and model the tractor is and the owner's name. Usually they include a couple of "before and after" photos, too, that show you what the tractor looked like when they first got it and then after it was restored. I've included a close up of one of these as an "insert" in the upper right corner of this next shot:

They always have a display of other old farm equipment, too, such as this antique, mechanical apple-peeler that I thought was pretty cool:

As well as antique generators (both steam-powered and gas-powered) such as this one:

Well... All in all, it was a pretty productive day... I talked to a lot of people who seemed very interested in joining the Historical Society, touring the Museum and Burbank's Farm or attending the Cemetery Walk in October in which yours truly will be performing!

But, as I said first, I am just DEAD TIRED right now... I think I'll put up my feet and take it easy for the rest of the evening...

Thanks for taking a peek at my photos of the Gravenstein Apple Fair today in Sebastopol! I'll try to catch up on all of your postings tomorrow...

luv,

jean