Ramble On

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Visiting the Page County Heritage Festival

Author's Comment: If you are reaching this page from the Page County Watch Blog, welcome and thanks for reading! This blog provides a weekender's view of Page County living...there are some posts here that fit with the spirit of the Watch blog - click the "Page County Economy" label in the right hand column for those. I've also got a series on "Project Clover" and the potential Fibrowatt plant - both are labels in the right hand column (and below). If you would like to go to the most recent posts, click http://www.hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/ . Also, you might check Keith Stoneberger's lurayva.com blog, which is one of the links on the Watch blog page. Best, Jim

Original Post:
On Sunday we had a wonderful fall day so Mary and I decided to head over to the Page County Heritage Festival. We haven't missed this event since we started coming out to the Hawksbill Cabin - this festival is a celebration of the traditional rural lifestyle that has made up the county since its founding.


The festival is one fundraising activity of the Page County Heritage Association (http://www.pagecountyheritage.com/), which oversees the preservation of Calendine, a local historic residence of William Randolph Barbee - a notable classic sculptor, the Mauck Meeting House , originally Union Church - built of pine logs and chestnut shingles, and the Massanutten School, which dates to the Civil War era.

We divided our time at the fest between searching out lunch and watching the sawmills at work. For lunch, we had carolina-style barbeque pork sandwiches and peach cobbler, finishing it off with some kettle corn. Then we settled in to watch the antique sawmills working on a large oak log, as shown in the highlight photos here.



3 comments:

Unknown said...

Jim,

I was looking at your website and noticed a correction that needs to be made reference to the brush fire in 2008 outside Stanley. The Stanley Volunteer Fire Department is an all volunteer department and receives no payments from any call we respond too. Donations are accepted. The Virginia Forestry Department by law has the right and will charge you for the cost of bringing a wildland fire under control and extingishing it. The money goes to the State of Virginia. During the 30 hours the Stanley fire department was on the scene of the Lucas Hollow fire the 25 members that responded all as always donated their time and the cost of fuel and supplies came out of our budget. The departments budget is $125,000.00 per year and the county of page supplies $45,000.00 of that total, we have to raise the rest through donations, meals, events, etc. I hope that the people that read your blog understand that we did not recieve any money and get the wrong idea that we do on calls.

Terry A. Pettit
Stanley Fire Chief

Unknown said...

Terry, thanks for the clarification and comment. I will add your comment to the posts about the fire, and will probably make a separate post the information you shared later this week or early next.

I'll include a link or other contact information to the Department as well.

Unknown said...

Chief Pettit - I added a clarifying comment to the two posts, and included your comments in full with each of them, in order to clarify the issues you pointed out.

"Blogger’s Comment: In November, the Hawksbill Cabin blog site was visited by Terry Pettit. He read some back posts and came across these two posts on the 2008 brush fire near Stanley. Chief Pettit was concerned that my posts may not have clearly emphasized the volunteer nature of the Stanley Volunteer Fire Department, the value of its contributions, and how it is organized to respond to these events. He offered some additional insight on the process and organization – clarifications I am glad to receive. I have included Chief Pettit’s comments in full at the end of the original posts – and I invite readers to be sure and read them as well. JT"

For ease of reference, the two posts may be found at:

http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2008/04/stanley-fire-update.html

and

http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2008/04/moving-on-wildfire-in-stanley.html