Despite rain, annual festival draws record crowds –
By Patricia Beech –
The 2018 Old Thyme Herb Fair and Harvest Festival closed Sunday after drawing record crowds to the 110-acre Grindstone Farm on Tater Ridge Road in the heart of Adams County’s Amish community.
Hosted by Grindstone Farm owners, Herb and Kim Erwin and their son Brad, the festival draws thousands of tourists to the county each year.
Visitors making the steep trek up Tater Ridge Road this year discovered a new addition to the festival’s eye-catching pumpkin display – a 1947 cab-over Ford farm truck that Herb purchased from Jim Frerichs, an elderly grain farmer from Atkinson, Nebraska who owned the truck for 42 years.
Frerichs sold the vintage vehicle to Erwin on the condition that he would never turn it into a “lowrider”.
The Erwins were surprised when Frerich and his wife appeared unexpectedly for the festival’s Friday opening.
“We sent him the Adams County tourist guide that featured our festival,” Kim says. “He and his wife decided they wanted to come, and they were just delighted by the festival, and happy to see how we had used their old truck.”
Over its 10-year history the Erwin’s festival has developed a reputation for offering quality products, and this year was no exception. Visitors shopped through a white canopied village 150 artisan vendors offering handcrafted and other unique items for sell.
Among them was Jesse C. Hall, the Blind Blacksmith, who was born with Stargardt Disease, a degenerative eye disorder.
Hall is not only an accomplished blacksmith, he is also a skilled carpenter and a gifted artist. He is currently working toward a degree in Electrical Mechanical Engineering.
He says he was inspired to become a blacksmith after watching an older gentleman forge tomahawks and knives at a festival.
“I was amazed by what he was doing,” he says. “My creativity was unleashed.”
He constructed his first forge in his family’s fabrication shop and hand forged his own blacksmith tools which he still uses to make furniture, art, and home décor items.
Hall says “because he is visually impaired, hand forging allows him to feel what he can’t see, so he’s chosen to focus on his ability rather than his disability”.
Kim says vendors like Hall are the heart of the festival.
“There wouldn’t be a festival without them,” she says, and acting accordingly, begins the work of scheduling vendors for the following year immediately after the festival ends.
“We’ve already received calls from vendors about next year,” she told the Defender Monday, the day after the festival closed. “They’ve heard how happy our vendors were with the festival this year – their sales were all up from last year.”
Erwin will spend the next several months visiting fairs and festivals searching for potential vendors, but most will be return business.
“We had 90 percent of our vendors sign up for next year,” Kim said. “They all did really well this year because we had a better turn out on Friday and Saturday than we did last year.”
A turn in the weather on Sunday didn’t keep festival-goers away.
“The vendors all stayed, and the most of the people brought umbrellas,” Kim said. “I don’t think the rain dampened anyone’s spirits.”
