In case you weren't paying attention, August is Art in the Mad River Valley. Actually, August equals much more than art here. It includes culinary delights, shopping, music, parties, food (and more food), children's events, adult events, inside events, outside events, theater, visits to local cows and barns and much, much, more.
Some of the Vermont Festival of the Arts well-known signature events such as Taste of the Valley, the Community Picnic, the Big Red Barn Art Show and the Photo Show in the Round Barn are now very popular, and justifiably so.
This year in particular, the quality of the photography that was shown at the Round Barn was noteworthy. Happily some of that work will be part of the Green Mountain Cultural Center's fall photography show opening later this month. Don't miss it.
Thanks and congratulations are in order for the board, the director and the volunteers who make the monthlong Vermont Festival of the Arts happen every year. It's getting better and better every year and each year there is something new and more fun to do while the enormous popularity of events such as the Great Plein Air Paint-Out continues to grow.
We are fortunate here in The Valley to have our summer so well bracketed by all of the awesome events that take place from June to Labor Day, from the Green Mountain Opera Fest to the Stars and Stripes Airshow to the Warren Fourth of July Celebration to the Mad Marathon to the Vermont Festival of the Arts and finally the Green Mountain Stage Race. Kudos are also in order to all those who make those events happen. We're lucky.
Fall is in the air, at least at night now (and hopefully not before all the tomatoes in our gardens ripen), and it won't be long before we'll be in full foliage season swing with visitors from near and far admiring our trees and rolling hills.
In a blink of an eye it will be stick season and a minute after that it will be time to gather the gear for playing outside in the winter.
But between then and now, take a moment and think back on this long, glorious (sometimes too rainy) Vermont summer with all its lusciousness and events and hidden delights. Summer makes everything worth it in Vermont – well that and all the people who work so hard to bring us events, activities and festivals, etc.
