mountain festivals

This time of year it seems that every little town has a festival going on. Jasper had its Marble Festival, the Harvest Sale in Blue Ridge, and of course our own Apple Festival. We decided to visit the Sorghum Festival in Blairsville, Georgia this weekend.

It was a pleasant surprise, still a small festival - you could drive right in and park, no shuttle busses, no charge to park or to enter the festival. Demonstrations of chain-saw carving, blacksmithing, moonshining were going on in addition to the namesake of the festival - the sorghum syrup making.




There were local vendors selling their crafts, the Little League was selling BBQ, and games and costests were being enjoyed by all, like the Biskit Eatin' Contest, Pole Climbin', Log Sawin', Rock Throwin', Baccur Spittin', and Horseshoe Throwin'.

What is sorghum? Like sugar cane, sweet sorghum cane is grown in fields and harvested. The stalks are run through a mill, which crushes them and extracts the juice. The juice is then filtered and boiled down to a thick brown molasses-like syrup and poured into jars, to be ultimately eaten with hot biscuits.

A cool but sunny day in the mountains, perfect for a good old fashioned festival.

More pictures here!