Rockbridge Fall Farm Day set for Sept. 22

One of the prettiest working farms in Rockbridge County will host a celebration of traditional Shenandoah Valley farming and agriculture on September 22.

The 7th annual Rockbridge Fall Farm Day will feature demonstrations, exhibits, hands-on activities for kids and lots more. It will run from 9 AM until 4 PM in the fields at 1 Bares Wood Lane, just off Route 60 near the intersection with I-81 between Lexington and Buena Vista.

The entry fee is a can of food for the local food bank.

There will be a corn maze, spinning and weaving demonstrations, arts and crafts, a sawmill demonstration, antique farm equipment, sheep-sheering, and cow-milking.

Kids will have a chance to make scare crows and bird feeders, and join in a turkey drive. (If you’ve got some old worn out clothes, the scare crows surely would appreciate ‘em.)

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For more information, visit rockbridgefallfarmday.com.

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There will also be horse-drawn wagon rides, live music by Showdown, mechanical bull rides.

There will be plenty of food, and an ocean of hay bales for kids to clamber and play on, as well as a climbing wall, a giant slide, a zip line and more.

There’s plenty of free parking, a tractor and wagon making regular stops throughout the day, and a custom-built trolly for kids.

The Fall Farm Day began as a way to celebrate farming, and to remind people, particularly children, that milk and butter isn’t produced in the refrigeration section of a grocery store, and that the wool in our clothes doesn’t come from a department store rack.

“We want to give children a chance to see for themselves some of what their ancestors had to do in order to eat and stay warm,” says Keith Holland, one of the organizers of the event. “It’s a chance to remind us of our connections to the land and the past, and celebrate those connections.”

Fall Farm Day has attracted well over 1,000 folks each year, and has generated several tons of food donations.

The event is sponsored this year in part by the Farm Credit Bureau, the Rockbridge Farm Bureau, CornerStone Bank, Central Virginia Rent-Alls, the Rockbridge Farmers Co-Op, Micro Bio Systems, and the Lexington Coffee Shop. And SVU will be providing several volunteers to help keep things running smoothly.