by Catherine Haug, May 12, 2012
Bigfork Emergency Response Team (BERT) hosted the first Bigfork Preparedness Fair on May 5, 2012. Although the weather was wet, windy and cold, the fair had an excellent turnout: over 300 people signed in and there were many booths both indoors and out, as well as several lecturers.
ESP had a booth in one corner of the main room, featuring a backboard of photos from past gatherings, books on sustainability topics to browse through, and Jeffrey Fund’s pedal-powered grain grinder for people to try out. We had several different grains to grind: spelt, Jeffrey’s wheat and Wheat Montana’s Prairie Gold wheat.
I think it was the kids who enjoyed the grinder the most, as many of them did not know this was how you made flour. They were intrigued by the pedal-power apparatus.
Next door to the ESP booth was MonaRae’s Master Gardener booth, for a good fit with ours, and she could keep an eye on the ESP booth if we needed to step away.
I took a couple photos of our booth, but am sorry I didn’t feel well enough to get around to all the other booths, too, and to take better quality shots.
ESP’s backboard:
ESP Backboard
A conversation at the grinder:
Conversation at grinder
MonaRae at her Master Gardener’s booth:
MonaRae's Master Gardener Booth
The loaf of freshly baked spelt sourdough I made from the flour ground at the fair:
Fresh Spelt Sourdough Loaf after Slicing