ASHFIELD – A parking spot may have been difficult to find, but there was no shortage of local arts and crafts, food and activities at the Ashfield Fall Festival this year.
The festival is a family friendly event with games and activities, like the football toss, toilet toss, where a child has to try to throw a roll of toilet paper into a painted toilet, and a cork-gun shoot. There was plenty of food, like apple crisp, vegetarian chili, homemade soup and more. Many people bought food and sat up by the rock wall on the Town Common to eat.
Whether going to the festival to see the tag sales, or to eat desserts, people had a different element of the festival they looked forward to every year.
Kimberly Hoyt of Northampton said she’s been attending the festival for years.
“I always love it; I usually come to look at the tag sales,” Hoyt said. “I’ve been coming for about four to five years. I bring my kids, too.”
Sue Lococo of Plainfield said she likes looking at the tag sales throughout the streets.
“I’ve been looking around at all the tag sales,” Lococo said. “I have to have the fried dough every year; I got to have it. Then I’m hoping to check out the arts and crafts.”
Theunis Hudspeth of Greenfield said she heard about the festival from word-of-mouth and came to try the food.
“It is something to do on the weekend — there’s good food and tag sales,” Hudspeth said. “The sausage grinder was the best, it was better than the Big E.”
Northampton residents Richard Lloyd and Binda Colebrook said they’re regulars of the festival.
“We come for the same things every year — food, atmosphere and the giant tag sale,” Colebrook said. “We haven’t gotten to the tag sale yet.”
“The atmosphere is a great, eclectic mix — people from the city, people from the hill towns,” Lloyd said. “It’s an awesome scene.”
Meghan Tomalin of Northampton and her brother, Brian Scully, of Bernardston, said they come every year for nostalgia’s sake.
“Yeah, we pretty much love everything about it — the pumpkin painting and activities,” Scully said.
“We grew up in Conway, and we’ve been coming to the festival since we were kids, and now we come with our kids,” Tomalin said.