1st Annual Harvest Festival

A new milestone for Ananda Valley Farm: The first annual Harvest Festival! After so many joyful workdays over the last year, it was time to go up there and just play.

Our amazingly resourceful farm staff and volunteers filled the afternoon with activities, including face painting, boat racing, pumpkin racing, tug-of-war, egg toss, ultimate nerf, hay rides, sharing nature activities, a plant identification lesson, a hike, and probably more that elude the memory at the moment.

After a delicious dinner in the greenhouse, we headed out to the pond for a sunset arati. Everyone received a small, paper bowl “boat,” containing flowers, a candle, and a stick of incense. Then to the accompaniment of prayers, chants, and Aums, we launched them all out on to the water.

And for the grand finale to the day, we had the farm’s first contradance! Omprakash came down from Seattle to teach the dances and play fiddle. The rest of the band was made up of his old contradance buddies Karen and David (on fiddle and piano, respectively), and Tandava (playing banjo and fiddle). With lots of enthusiastic new contradancers (including a very young one) we turned Sahadev’s workshop into a surprisingly good dancehall.

If you weren’t able to join us, plan on it next year. This is just the start of a wonderful tradition. More photos of the day are here.