Sunflower Festival

 If you have never attended a sunflower festival, I am recommending that you go should you ever have the opportunity.

 I love them and the happiness they bring to everyone who steps up to these towering faces of sunshine for an annual photo op.  After watching numerous families have their photos taken in these fields, I am betting that this year many Christmas cards in our area will feature the Beaver Dam Farms 80 acres of sunflowers.

 This was only their second year of allowing people to amble along the paths around their fields and this year it was a bigger success than last year.  More sunflowers, and they added vendors selling hand made items and food!

The festival was held the week-end of September 9th and 10th and next year will fall somewhere near those same dates, providing the fields are ready.  

People from nearby states as well as from around our own state attended.

 I'll just be quiet now and let you enjoy photos of all the sunny faces.

Hope you will consider attending next year and have a day of joy just as I did the past two years.

Copper And Sunflowers

Today we travelled fifteen minutes from home to a small company that sits in the mountains of Botetourt County.

This is a company I knew nothing about until I found mention of it on the Beaver Dam Farm's Facebook page.

It is a small company that will be one of the vendors at the Beaver Dam's second annual Sunflower Festival which is being held the week-end of September 9th and 10th.  If you live in Virginia and are looking for an outdoor way to spend a week-end, you may want to visit the festival.  Lovely people. Fabulous sunflowers!

I snapped this photo at last year's festival.... the First Annual Beaver Dam Sunflower Festival.

Now.... back to our drive this morning....

We drove fifteen minutes to visit Caldwell Mountain Copper.

For the past few years we have had a 'copper plated' compost container on our kitchen counter that we purchased from a local retailer, and the copper plating is chipping and wearing off, so we decided to see about having a similar container made by this local copper smith. It's my understanding that there are only a handful of coppersmiths in the U.S., so we felt rather honored to speak with Elliot Muncey who learned the trade from Porter Caldwell.

This is a family business, and they make special order pieces to your specifications.

Copper is NOT inexpensive, so having something made may not be your cup of tea when it comes to the pocketbook, but these pieces are forever and will be items you will want to pass down through your family.

Our piece will not be started until mid-September, so we look forward to seeing how it looks when completed.

Here is the link to their website which has a video of them doing their copper work.

AND

Here is a video I made last year at the Beaver Dam Farm's Sunflower Festival.

If you get the chance, pay them a visit this year.
There will be acres and acres of sunflowers, and also vendors this year.
I'm going to be there!

The Sunny Side Of Life

 Today was a good day.

For the most part.

 I attended the very first ever Beaver Dam Farm Sunflower Festival, which they hope to hold each year.  Interest was good by the community, the parking lot was over-flowing, and although the skies were over-cast, it kept temperatures down so that not ALL the two year olds were making demands.

But that's just the norm for two year olds, isn't it?

 The sunflowers were happy, and although there were ONLY thirty acres of them, they seemed to go on forever into the distance.  

 I'll just let you look at a few more of the MANY photos I snapped today, and you can finish up with a video I put together at the bottom of this post.  It's kind of a pre-requisite to our wedding anniversary which we will be celebrating in a few days.

Thank you SO MUCH Beaver Dam Farm!
It was an enjoyable day and I know that all of the Botetourt County residents feel the same way I do.
YOU ROCK BEAVER DAM FARM!!
SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!!