State Park Apple Butter Festival this weekend!

The annual Apple But­ter Fes­ti­val at the Mt. Gilead State Park this week­end is the old­est and bigget event of the year at the park. It is coor­di­nated by the great group of Vol­un­teers in Parks and is a major fund raiser for them. Join in the work and fes­tiv­i­ties and be sure to take home some apple but­ter fresh from the kettles.

Begin­ning early Fri­day morn­ing, cvrates and crates of apples at Shel­ter #1 will be peeled and pre­pared for cook­ing. Many vol­un­teers are needed to get this job done in good time. Fri­day evening is Trick of Treat in the camp­ground and children’s cos­tume judg­ing. The Nature Cen­ter will be open until 7:00 p.m.

The cook­ing begins at med­night so that the apple but­ter can be canned by early after­noon on Sat­ur­day. Boy scouts and their fam­i­lies will be doing a lot of stir­ring, but many other vol­un­teers are also needed to keep all the pots going hour after hour.

Enter­tain­ment, crafts, games, dis­plays and activ­i­ties includ­ing a bak­ing con­test will take place all day on Sat­ur­day. The camp­site con­test is always a delight to see and adult cos­tumes will be judged in the evening. Pick up a full sched­ule at the campstore.

Coun­try break­fasts will be served on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day morn­ings and the Nature Cen­ter will be open.

The Nat­u­ral­ists rep­re­sented Ohio State Parks at the Okto­ber­fest in the Nat­ural Resources Area at he fair grounds in Colum­bus on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day. Maizie, the corn snake gath­ered a crowd whe she ate her mice for lunch and the tiny snap­ping tur­tle was a big hit. Thank you to vol­un­teers Rachael Craw­ford, Heath McFar­land, and Logan Con­rad who kept the Nature Cen­ter open dur­ing the weekend.

“WEE” Dis­cover preschool con­tin­ues each Thurs­day through Octo­ber and this week’s topic will nat­u­rally be apples. Last week the rain dis­cour­aged some, but sev­eral other fam­i­lies weren’t both­etred by the weather and they learned a lot about birds. This group will have a pic­nic between ses­sions on Octo­ber 25.

Junior Nat­u­ral­ists have a month to com­plete their fif­teen points. Sev­eral are very close and may fin­ish up this week­end at the Apple But­ter Festival.

Fall is beau­ti­ful any time at the park. Come out often to enjoy it.

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Oct 3 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.