Here are a few area events that we attended and enjoyed in late Summer this year. There will be something most every weekend from now on through the end of Fall and it can be hard to choose!
Since we moved to Missouri in 1978, we have atteneded the Watercolor USA show at the Springfield Art Museum most years. I think we were here on the last couple days of the show. We usually find time in June to enjoy the opening festivities where they have lots of good food/wine for free! There are always some very interesting people that come out too and artists to talk about their skills.
Her are a few of my favorite Late Summer Events this year starting with Springfield's Watercolor USA:
We don't usually attend the Bolivar Country Days because it conflicts with the Settlers Village Harvest Festival on a Saturday. This year we decided to do Bolivar on the Saturday (its only day) and do the Settlers Village on Sunday (2 day event). There were lots of vendors to see here that is typical of these events and it covered the Bolivar square and a couple streets fronting Springfield Ave. to the south. We walked all around and had a great beef sandwich from the farmer's Cattle group; best ever! Mostly we enjoyed the car show along Springfield Ave. Here are my favorites:
1922 White Model 20, 2-ton tank truck with a hand crank, kerosene tank located in the rear, carbine gas headlights, wood interior
Ray Winters did all the work restoring this 1922 White Model 20. He says he can't give a value to it and plans to donate it to some Missouri museum someday.
1931 Ford Model A Convertable - "Ms Sunshine." This was the most expensive Model A in its day costing $640 new and there were only 407 built.
1951 Muntz Jet
Overview of the car show
Settlers Village Harvest Festival is the highlight of our volunteer garden work as Master Gardeners here in Hickory County. All the plants are at their best and most colorful this first week in September. The buildings are deteriorating and there's hope and some interest to do something about it. There is a separate building committee and a festival committee from our Master Gardener group. Keith and I are the only ones that take care of the gardens.
We were happy to see the roast chicken dinner come back to be available for purchase from the cook shack on Sunday. In recent years, they sold just a box lunch and many people were disappointed. Not sure if the building meets all the proper codes for preparing foods so the meals are catered by a local restaurant. I can remember days long ago that the chicken was barbequed outside in large grill pits. Those were the best days!
A fair amount of vendors on the Wheatland square showed up but this is one of the smaller years. I heard that the Saturday parade was better than last year though with more participants. I saw it last year and it was not much.
These grounds were typically full of vendors years ago!
The old church log building fell down and was removed earlier this year. It stood on the right where that blue canopy is now.
The bandstand has a local music group perform. People come and sit in the shaded picnic areas to listen and there are games and contests for participants.
We have mostly native plants, perennials, and self-seeders as our core plants. There are three long gardens in between the log building and a smaller Heritage Garden behind facing the north street. We do not do the landscape or any plants around the buildings for many years now. The zinnias add a lot of up front color and show off a variety of butterflies and bees.
People cannot go inside the log buildings anymore due to safety reason and liabilities but can look inside and see the staged decor than may have been used back in the day.
Some of the old church stuff was moved into another log building for display.
This Missouri Native American Beauty Berry plant is one of two that are my pride and joy!
Another great success and one that gets many good comments is the blue salvia plant. It really pops out the bright orange Mexican sunflowers!
This is the Heritage Garden that I have taken over in recent years. I had pulled it away from the buildings because they could possibly be contributing to the building deterioration from roots and watering. All the log building have poor foundations. I made a trench for watering farther away from the buildings. I have almost all native plants here.
The blue salvia has really grown big this year!
Keith is enjoying the smell of sage in the Heritage Garden.
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