Heritage Art & Food of the Cacapon Valley

5th Annual Fall Fundraiser

                                     October 4, 2014  *  11 am to 5 pm


Location:  WVU Experimental Farm - Reyman Memorial Farms
                  Route 259, just North of Wardensville, WV  

Join Trust staff and board members as we celebrate and support our local watershed community. The Cacapon and Lost River Valley is rich in more than just our natural resources. Come experience the wonderful art, food and music of the watershed and most importantly, have a great time. This year’s event will also feature a live auction, raffle, and lunch that will be available for purchase from our local food vendors. Information about the work of the WVU Experimental Farm and a brief tour of the facilities will also be offered.    


Tickets: $10 each until September 20, 2014, $15 after that date (limited quantity). Kids 12 and under are free. 
P.O. Box 58
Wardensville, WV 26851
www.cacapon.org
304-268-6167


Local Artists
We are thrilled to have three local artists from Hardy County participate in this year's event. Meet the artists, learn about their work and purchase one of a kind pieces created right here in the watershed.    
Joshua Miller Design
joshuamillerdesign.com
Furniture and Timber Frame

Albert Hutchings
albertsglass.com
Fused Glass

Kathy Kavanagh
Kahoka Hand Built Stoneware
Blog link


Local Food Vendors 
We are trying something new this year and will have a variety of food items available for purchase at the event.  The goal is to not only provide you with good local food, but to help support these types of businesses in our community.   
The Pink Knife – Personal Chef and Catering
BBQ Pork, sides and drinks
Facebook/ The Pink Knife Personal Chef and Catering

Capon Crossing Farm Market
& Sandy’s Grass-fed Beef
Burgers, sides, drinks


French’s Mill
Grow your own mushrooms, Shitake Mushrooms Logs will be available for purchase.


Local Music
Rain Crow
Rain Crow plays vintage rock-and-roll songs from the late 1950s and 60s. A typical performance includes the tunes of Chuck Berry, The Ventures, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Wilson Pickett, and Roy Orbison. At most gigs, they urge folks to get up, shake off the dust, and cut the rug.


They include four vintage guys. Jim Morris, retired police officer, singer and lead guitarist, who has opened for Franky Valli & the Four Seasons, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others. On rhythm guitar and singing, Steve Bailes is a retired Hampshire County middle-school social studies teacher, a guy who doesn’t know a stranger in these parts. Recently retired from his chimney-sweep business, Bill Harris, their bass guitarist, has opened for George Jones, Seldom Seen, Vince Gill, and others. Bill flashes the smile of a new grandfather. George Constantz, retired from ecological research and teaching,
but not from writing, beats his vintage Slingerland drums.

Rooted in Hampshire County, West Virginia, Rain Crow enjoys performing at local venues and for good causes. Three band members live in the Cacapon River watershed, while two have direct connections to lands under conservation easement.


Thank You To Our Business Sponsors  

     



        


                                    Campon Bridge Family Dentistry   Capon Valley Bank

                                  Shenandoah Restorations   Keaton Frazer & Mileson PLLC

 
Individual Sponsorship Levels

River Otter
@ $100 - $199 includes 2 tickets 

Brook Trout
@ $200 - $299  includes 4 tickets

Wood Turtle
@ $300 - $999 includes 5 tickets

Benefactor
@ $1,000 and up includes 10 tickets 


Copyright © 2014 Cacapon and Lost Rivers Land Trust, All rights reserved.
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Toad abodes

My husband and a neighbor were chatting on our porch when I got a call from Jo, who ordered two toad homes. The story was that she couldn’t move her trash container without disturbing the toad that lives under it. Her neighbor had a similar problem, so they needed two toad homes. And the structures have to have big, wide “Denver doors” because these are big, wide toads. Did I get eye rolls from the guys when I reported my new project!

When I got ready to build toad homes, Jo’s neighbor, Janet, decided she would come and make her own. What fun we had! Janet used a pumpkin mold for hers. I made Jo’s with coils. Janet fashioned a pumpkin flower top and will add a copper tendril. I used a pumpkin leaf to roof the ventilation holes in Jo’s toad’s abode. We used a couple different clays to make them earthy. I doubt there are a lot of toads out there with elegant stoneware homes, but there are at least two. The data are not yet in on how much they improve the quality of life of big, wide toads, but they were fun to make!

Small things

I like to make large pots. I have been known to lop the top off pots to get them to fit in my kilns. On the other hand, I don’t like firing those kilns with gaps on the shelves—and big pots leave large unused spaces between them. 

Consequently, I began making small cookie-cutter shapes and inch-round beads to fill the spaces. Putting those glazed beads in one at a time is not my greatest joy, but living near the Chesapeake Bay for a long time, I had driftwood to play with. Who could resist the combination? 

Along came those Kahoka mobiles and windchimes because stoneware resonates so beautifully. I experimented on my neighbors and found that the wind often untied the knots, so drops of epoxy were introduced. I conferred with someone from the Division of Natural Resources about moving wood around, and we concluded that a few coats of polyurethane spray would do in any wood-borne critter that survived the brackish bay water. Now, hundreds of mobiles later, they still do not do well in gale force winds, but they are not merely an artifact of filling up the shelves. I have fun making 

them.

Lost River Artisans’ Co-op: Fundraiser for Potomac Highlands Animal Rescue.

Saturday, August 30^th from 10 AM until 2 PM

Lost River Artisans’ Co-op (7151 Route 259 in Lost City, West Virginia) will sponsor a fundraiser for Potomac Highlands Animal Rescue.

PHAR is an all-volunteer 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded in 1997. It serves Hardy and Grant Counties by providing temporary shelter and foster homes, food, medical attention, spay and neuter assistance, and comfort to neglected, homeless, and injured animals. It also works to reunite lost animals with their human partners. My wonderful dog, Xander, came from PHAR after being rescued from a house fire. Please come out and support the cause. There will be some great Kahoka dog and cat pots to win!

Greetings from Algonquin Provincial Park

There are touches of red in the maples up here in northern Ontario, and the goldenrod is starting to bloom; it all foretells things to come for which I am not ready. It is rainy but great to rendezvous with long-time Canadian friends. On the other hand, since we live at the back of beyond in the peace and quiet of wonderful woods, even the most rustic campground seems contrived and crowded. 

I miss my clay and pots and their regular multi-phased progression by which the former becomes the latter. I expect I will meet a potter or two before getting back to Lost Hollow; I will need to get my hands around a nice stoneware shape. On the other hand, there is a 50-pound box of clay with us in the trailer, along with a tray and a straw. Do you know how many Kahoka beads that combination can produce? But first I’m looking for moose and if I am very lucky, maybe a wolf. Bears we have at home, for which I am grateful. Along the way I notice leaves I am not familiar with and imagine how they would look on clay. H’mmm.

Class act

My kiln is full of pots I did not make. Last Saturday was the final session of my class through Lost River Artisans’ Cooperative. We hold it at my studio, since moving wet pots bodes doom. Six students met two weeks earlier to make their coil and slab works of art. After those were cleaned, dried, and bisque fired, the students returned to glaze them. Most find glazing a trickier task than the building, since it is hard to imagine what the opaque glaze will look like after it is fired. There will be some grand surprises when they pick up their pots!

Some students had previous experience throwing on potters’ wheels, but few studios offer handbuilding classes. Perhaps we are a society too dependent on complex machines to think of rolling out clay and pressing leaves into it as creative. To handbuild, you need only your hands, some clay, and a sense of what you and the clay might do together. It is quiet and peaceful. Even my slab roller is a simple mechanical contraption. No learning curve there: turn the wheel and the roller squeezes the clay flat between two pieces of canvas. The potential is endless!