The day had finally arrived, and I actually got out of bed before 7:00 on a Saturday morning! Our destination was Bakers Acres garden center in North Lansing, NY for their annual Garlic Herb Festival. We came across the festival last summer by accident; Bakers had called us to let us know our Fern Leaf Peonies were ready for pickup, and when we arrived we found a chicken BBQ cooking, all kinds of garlic, hot pepper, and herb stuff for sale, and seminars being conducted under a big tent. When the announcement for this year’s event came in the mail, we immediately sent them a check for two lunches and the full day of workshops. We set a new travel time record this trip; only an hour and a half including one stop for donuts. Our goal was to get there by 10:00 a.m., so we opted for a fairly direct route…south on Route 14, picking up Route 318 just past the Thruway (the road that goes to the Outlet Mall), then east on 5& 20, south on Route 90. We hadn’t been along the east side of Cayuga Lake for quite a while. It’s a pleasant route with great views of the lake, passing through Aurora, a serene small town that’s home to Wells College. Also in that vicinity is the Mackenzie-Childs furniture-pottery making establishment. You can’t call it a "factory", as they turn out extraordinary, unique creations, combining furniture and pottery that are almost impossible to describe (i.e., we’ve seen ladder-back chairs with porcelain fish as the "ladders"). They are also almost impossible to pay for! We haven’t had a chance to take the tour that they offer through their workshop, but it’s on a future agenda. Picking up Route 34 south just after the town of Genoa, Bakers Acres is only a couple of miles down the road.

As we waited for the first workshop to start the smell of pastries baking floated through the tent and reminded us of the sure-to-be-magnificent lunch to come. Our first instructor, Cathy, was a member of the Baker family, and demonstrated how to make herb wreaths and swags. Buckets and buckets of fresh herbs and everlasting flowers were set up for us to choose from. We opted to make a swag together; a good choice as it really did require four hands to work on it at the same time! We created small bouquets of Mountain Mint, Tansy, Bergotton Sage, Silver Queen Artemisa , Purple and Pink Gomphrena, Garlic Scapes, Anise Hyssop, and Sweet Annie and wired them over top of a base of Curly Mint and Lemon Balm. Everybody in the class came up with different combinations of herbs and flowers, and at the end of the hour we all had beautiful creations to show.

Next up was Making a Garlic Braid…something we’ve been wanting to learn to do for a while. We had just harvested our own garlic; we grow softneck garlic, and our reddish-pink bulbs were stunning this year. Our instructor was Nancy Schauman, owner of Schauman’s Produce, and she’s absolutely wonderful! She provided crates of garlic and everything we’d need to embellish our braids. First order of business was to "break the necks" of the garlic, as this was hard-neck garlic. You need to make the stems pliable in order to work with them. Now we know why Nancy wears bandages on her thumbs...these are tough guys! She showed us how to tie bunches of 3 bulbs together, then eventually braid the stems. We wired some baby Indian corn and dried hot peppers into our braids, and finished them off with brightly colored raffia. Another success!

Lunch time arrived, and not a minute too soon. The chicken BBQ had been cooking for quite a while, and the aroma was fabulous. A member of the Baker family, Professor Robert C. Baker, developed the marinade. Because of Bob’s long affiliation with Cornell University, the sauce is often called Cornell Barbecue Sauce, and it undoubtedly is the best that we’ve ever had. They were most gracious in sharing the recipe; let us know if you’d like it! The lunch buffet was in keeping with the herb theme of the day…dill macaroni and pea salad, fire & ice vegetables with lovage, tarragon potato salad, mixed greens with raspberry dressing, spinach parsley quiche, garlic mint tabouli, fruit salad with lemon verbena, herbal breads and muffins, and sun dried tomato basil pasta salad. The table was adorned with bouquets of flowers and herbs surrounding each dish. And…if that wasn’t enough, out came the pies whose aroma tempted us earlier…Peach and Fruits of the Forest (strawberry, rhubarb, and other fruits).

Our final seminar was making a Chile Pepper Ristra. We were provided with all of the peppers that we’d need, and were instructed in how to secure small bunches with rubber bands then keep building on them. It took a lot more finger-coordination than I had anticipated, but our Ristra turned out great. After crowning it with shredded dried cornhusks and raffia, it really looked like some "professionals" created it!

It was one of the most fun days we spent all summer. We always meet the nicest people; just by chance a gal that was sharing our picnic table told us about some more **wonderful** gardens to visit, not far to the south in Owego. Hmmm…didn’t have anything planned for the next day, why not drive down to Owego, spend the night, and visit Tioga Gardens??? It was a plan!

We left Groton with our herb festival treasures, two more Fern Leaf Peonies, and an addition to our hosta collection, called "So Sweet". Route 38 south is a treat, following the East Branch of Owego Creek winding down through the Owego Valley. Just after we passed the Michigan Hill State Forest immediately south of Harford Mills we both caught a sign out of the corner of our eyes…"Cornell Sheep Complex". We looked at each other and found a driveway to turn around in. There were hundreds of sheep grazing in a lush green valley as we turned on the road heading up the hill. At the top, we found a huge complex of barns and had an engaging dialogue with a couple of fellows in the parking lot. "Is this part of the University?" "Yup." "Can we take a tour through the barns?" "No problem".

I was in heaven. I’ve never seen so many sheep in one place. There were lambs that could only have been a day or so old...tottering on their tiny legs and eventually tipping over on top of Mom. A few older and braver lambs came over to greet us, welcoming us with their sweet little bleats. It was more than I could have ever hoped for, our best "sheep sighting" yet!

Next time…Owego: a Gold Wing Rally, Tioga Gardens, and a **superb** Italian Restaurant!

Many thanks to all of you for your continuing kind words about my column; I’m considering putting a collection together to publish…one of these days in my "spare time"!