Fall

Fall is a great season for festivals here. They celebrate everything. They celebrate the cows coming from high mountain pastures down to the valleys. They celebrate sheering sheep. The celebrate all locally grown agricultural products.

And it fits in a gloriously reliable format. The (your town here) festival of (your product here) and Beer. Even the wine festivals have beer tents!

We recently got to go with our volksmarching friends to Markgroningen for a Shepherds Run, one of the most charming things I've seen. A huge celebration of everything sheep. At the parade floats passed out sheep-shaped cookies, sheep-shaped chocolates and bits of wool. It's the first time I've ever seen a euphonium player drink beer while marching in the parade.

After the parade, hundreds of people go to the field to watch re-enactments of great shepherding moments in history (don't ask me to explain, there were lots of men in knights' costumes charging through on horseback and shepherds defending their flocks... maybe. Definitely the charging horses though).

They had different shepherd dances--one was a waltz where partners danced around a pole that looked like a gallows except instead of a noose it had a plate with a cup of water on it. As the couples waltzed, one would waltz under the thin plate, lift his partner high in the air to knock off a cup of water. If you hit it, you douse either yourself or your partner. With the right flick of the head, you can send the cup sailing to land on another couple. Cup refilled after every successful hit for the next couple to dance under. And it wasn't just the men lifting the women. Some of those girls hefted their partners pretty high.

The actual shepherd's race is a barefoot race across the mown field. The fastest boy and girl are crowned king and queen for the year.

The only no-show was herding dogs. sigh. Otherwise, another wonderful day for
TeamFordham.