If you enjoy good old-fashioned family fun and like to celebrate the pleasures of small-town living, you won’t want to miss this weekend’s Hilltown Hoedown Spring Festival at the Cummington Fairgrounds.
The event will feature crafters, amusement rides, games for all ages, an antique truck parade, tractor pull, stone boat truck pulls, children’s pie eating contest, live country music and plenty of food and drink.
The musicians on Saturday are Dave Lincoln and Andy Hagadorn from noon to 2 p.m., Randy Cormier from 4 to 6 p.m. and Whiskey City from 7 to 10 p.m.
On Sunday, the Truck Stop Troubadours will play from 5 to 7 p.m.
For those who like a good game of cornhole (bean bag toss), the hoedown is having the first Western Mass Cornhole Tournament open to anyone who wants to sign up. On Saturday, adult teams compete at noon, and children’s teams at 3:30 p.m., and on Sunday, children’s teams compete at noon and adult teams at 3:30 p.m.
The “Hilltown Misfits” 4-H club will also be on hand operating pony rides and a petting zoo Saturday and Sunday.
The ponies and all of the petting zoo animals belong to the members of the 4-H club and include goats, llama, sheep, rabbits and lambs.
Proceeds from the Hilltown Hoedown help support the Hillside Agricultural scholarship fund that provides money to graduating high school seniors in Hampshire, Franklin and Berkshire counties.
Donations for the Hilltown Food Pantry will also be accepted. Anyone who brings a nonperishable food item will receive a free admission for one child under 12.
The Hilltown Food Pantry serves Chesterfield, Cummington, Goshen, Huntington, Middlefield, Plainfield, Westhampton, Williamsburg and Worthington and distributes approximately 1,000 pounds of nonperishable food each week.
Admission to the Hoedown is $8 for adults and $4 for children 12 and under.
Gates open at 10 a.m. and close at 10 p.m. on Saturday and 8 p.m. on Sunday.
The fairgrounds is at 97 Fairgrounds Road off Route 9.
Are you interested in solar power but unable to sink the cash into buying your own solar power system?
If so, you may want to attend the informational presentation on options for solar electricity being hosted by the Williamsburg Energy Committee from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Town Offices at 141 Main St. in Haydenville.
This event will focus on community solar and virtual net-metering, alternatives for those who want solar-produced electricity but cannot purchase their own solar panels.
Through the community solar alternative, companies that own large numbers of solar panels or solar farms offer the benefit of electricity produced to customers in a specific community at a reduced rate. These companies are able to offer the reduced rate through net-metering credits they receive from the local utility, which in Williamsburg is National Grid.
With virtual (group or neighborhood) net-metering, utility customers share the benefit of electricity output from a single power project, typically in proportion to their ownership of the shared system.
Representative from the following companies will attend to explain the details and advantages of these alternatives: Hampshire Council of Governments, Bluewave Solar, Coop Power and Clean Energy Consortium.
“Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America,” by Rachel Hope Cleves, will be the topic of an informal book discussion at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Bryant Free Library at 455 Berkshire Trail in Cummington.
Cleves’ book tells the story of Charity Bryant, the aunt of William Cullen Bryant, who was born in 1777 and raised in Massachusetts, and Sylvia Drake, her life partner of 44 years.
The book explores a variety of original documents, including diaries, letters, and poetry which help to trace the lives of these two women, their role in the community and the esteem in which they were held by residents of Weybridge, Vermont.
The New England Quarterly called this book “undeniably smart – a devastatingly handsome contribution to our understanding of the history of gender and sexuality in the United States and the history of the early republic and antebellum period generally.”
Copies of the book are available at several regional libraries. For more information, contact Brenda Arbib at 413-634-5542.
Ideas for this column on life in the Hilltowns can be sent to Fran Ryan at Fryan.gazette@gmail.com.