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Are you an ardent explorer of special places
Secret places - Cilley Hill Pumpkin Festival
by Jeff "Foliage" Folger
Jackson takes his job of lighting the pumpkins very seriously and call for a new candle from his grandfather.
I arrived to find hundreds of pumpkins placed up and down the road that over the next few hours they would be lit by all the volunteers
As the sun sets the volunteers start running from pumpkin to pumpkin to get them all lit
The night drops and the pumpkins glow...
The volunteers gather round the fire to stay warm and share stories, news and partake of home made beans and hot dogs.
One of the nearby fields that the neighbors populate with their orange friends.
The crowds sometimes drive by slowly and some walk in from the main road to really enjoy the view.
Just some more wonders carved by the family and volunteers.
A few from the hill as I was leaving and the traffic was still driving by.
Howdy Foliage gang! I love turning the next corner and finding a new vista before me.
For me this is the best part of the search for fall color. Seeing new places and meeting new people. I suspect many of you are the same way which is both good and bad. Many of us "explorers" run from tree to tree seeing the color but we don't stop to smell the leaves. (what! ... you thought I'd say flowers?) :-)
I just returned from a trip to the North East Kingdom with Lisa and she had never been to Peacham and I have only been there once. So we explored the town and then moved on. The color is limited at this time but you can check out Tuesdays article to get a better view of the color and town.
I've written about secret places that we find in our travels and I love to share them with you. I would also love to hear about yours. Leave a comment with the details of your favorite found place, whether it is a place that is well known or you think it is only known by you...
This "unknown" is up in Jericho Vermont and it has been termed the Cilley Hill Pumpkin Festival. I read about it in Vermont life and seeing that there was nothing on it on the web I went to find this event that is for two nights only on the 30th and 31st of October and then all the pumpkins are gone until the next year.
Ann and Richard Stiles have been doing this for the past 15 years and they raise about 400 - 600 pumpkins for this purpose each year. depending on the weather. Then they and their neighbors along with a local scout troop spend the weeks leading up to Halloween carving the pumpkins.
On the afternoon of the 30th the volunteers start setting out the pumpkins and about an hour before darkness falls volunteers like Charles Novotny and his grandson Jackson start lighting the pumpkins. Other neighbors like Nate help get them pumpkins up into the hills. When Nate was much younger he used to climb the trees and pull up the pumpkins and tie them up in the branches. He says that now he's too big to do that, so they are placed along the stream that winds its way down the hill below the Stiles property.
I was asked to join the volunteers at the fire (and it was a very cold night so it was great to warm up). I listened to tales of past pumpkin lighting's and who had really large pumpkins this season and it was very easy to cocoon in around the fire and just soak up the friendship accorded me even though they knew nothing of me. I've run into this around the world in farming communities. Whether I was in Germany or in Oklahoma I've had neighbors invite me into conversations or into their homes. I think we lose something in this technologically busy world and you can have all the MySpace friends in the world but having real contact with real people beats digital ones any day.
Maybe a lot of people know about this place and maybe they don't but this was a magical night with pumpkins lighting the night...
I'd like to hear your thoughts on this and any other subjects in either the comments section or over in the foliage forum.
Jeff "Foliage" Folger
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