A hop north of the Auburn Golf Course on Green River Road, at the bottom of a broad bowl of trees and sky, along a drive that crunches under foot, is an expanse of bright green lawn.
On its broad shoulders, the turf carries an old barn, an apple orchard, a chicken coop, an old pickup truck, outhouses, cows, horses and chickens.
But last Saturday, as it has done for a few hours every year over the past seven years, the Mary Olson Farm became a place where people could come not only to marvel at the restoration of its turn-of-the-century farmhouse and other amenities but also to take in the sounds of local bands and sip micro-brews under a perfect September sun.
In its seven rain-less years, the White River Valley Museum’s Hops and Crops Festival has made itself into one of those not-to-miss events, a happy sendoff to the warm days of summer, suspended between the tic and toc of busy lives.
This year, 13 local vendors of micro-brews did their best to sate the parched legions, doling out small samples of beer, ale and hard cider i plastic cups for $1 a ticket.
“We have a happy, happy group, and they are all decked out, and an awful lot of them are repeat and happy repeaters,” said Patricia Cosgrove, director of the WRVM.
As Cosgrove noted, Hops and Crops offers a lot to see, hear, taste, whiff.
Like the many tattoos out in the open.
The man addressing his mooching dog: “Sorry boy, no micro-brew cookies here.”
Master’s next words proved more cheering to the hungry hound. “C’mon, boy, let’s get a piece of pizza.” When last spotted, dog and man were moving rapidly in the direction of Stella Fiore’s pizza stand.
The sippers and tasters, some perhaps looking oh, a bit too rosy, perhaps laughing, oh, maybe too loudly after their many samplings could be seen, sitting on the bank of Olson Creek, taking in the afternoon.
The woman in a folding chair, sipping from a brew, newspaper open in her lap, half listening as the lead singer of Seg and the Vices belts out “Helen, You’re a Volcano,” oblivious to the jet sailing far overhead.
Folks in the barn, studying photographs evoking the heyday of long-gone hop farms, operations that linger today solely on the cusp of memories of few now living, their reverie interrupted incongruously by a man shouting, “People don’t realize it, but goats will eat anything.”
And Nicole, the shuttle driver, zipping “a lot of happy people” back and forth all afternoon from parking lot to farm, smiling as big at 3 p.m. as she’d been at 11:30 a.m.
But the outlines of the mellow days of fall to come were there, too, perhaps evoked best by the mossy fruit tree under which a man sat strumming his guitar for an audience composed solely of 30 or so fallen apples.
Reber Ranch sponsored this year’s Hops and Crops bash, helping to make money that promotes the education of local school children who visit the farm every fall.
“I think it’s a wonderful fundraiser,” said Daryl Thompson, a veteran of many a Hops and Crops festivals. “The farm is beautiful, and this let’s the community know about this wonderful farm.”
