Wytheville, the largest town near Rural Retreat has held an annual Chautauqua Festival for more than 25 years. According to the national organization's website, the original Chautauqua was started in 1874 near a NY lake of that name as the Lake Sunday School Assembly. It was an educational experiment in out-of-school, vacation learning. It was successful and broadened almost immediately beyond courses for Sunday school teachers to include academic subjects, music, art and physical education. It was mostly ecumenical in spirit and practice, though primarily protestant. In 1878, the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (CLSC) was started to provide those who could not afford the time or money to attend college the opportunity of acquiring the skills and essential knowledge of a College education - one of the first attempts at distance learning. The CLSC program was also intended to show people how best to use their leisure time and avoid the growing availability of idle pastimes, such as drinking, gambling, dancing and theater-going, that posed a threat both to good morals and to god health. With the success of the CLSC, many new Chautauquas were created, known as 'Daughter Chautauquas,' - and Wytheville has one of these.
In Wytheville, the festival starts with a "hot air balloon glow" - which I seem to miss every year but I'm sure is spectacular. As usual I was still in FL. Each night there is entertainment, but don't expect to get to any of that this year. The festival goes for a week and Thursday I went to Wytheville to see the indoor art exhibit and for a class in Herbs. I found out what I'm doing wrong, or at least, how to grow my herbs better. One thing I learned is that there is a perennial basil called columnar basil. I'm going to the Beagle Ridge Herb Farm on Saturday to learn about lavendars, have an interesting lunch (think cooking with fresh herbs) and hope they have some columnar basil (like pictured on left) for sale. Tonight, I used dill and chives in our dinner- it was good!
In Wytheville, the festival starts with a "hot air balloon glow" - which I seem to miss every year but I'm sure is spectacular. As usual I was still in FL. Each night there is entertainment, but don't expect to get to any of that this year. The festival goes for a week and Thursday I went to Wytheville to see the indoor art exhibit and for a class in Herbs. I found out what I'm doing wrong, or at least, how to grow my herbs better. One thing I learned is that there is a perennial basil called columnar basil. I'm going to the Beagle Ridge Herb Farm on Saturday to learn about lavendars, have an interesting lunch (think cooking with fresh herbs) and hope they have some columnar basil (like pictured on left) for sale. Tonight, I used dill and chives in our dinner- it was good!
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