Get Your Grits Right Here!

The Kenan's Mill Fall Festival is coming up Nov. 2, and this is the place

 to get your stone-ground cornmeal and grits! 

A recent renovation has the wheels turning again, and visitors 

can take a mill tour,

 listen to live bluegrass music,

 learn how to grow food organically,

 paint a gourd birdhouse,

 ride a wagon full of hay down a country lane, 

dine on catfish filets prepared by local Boy Scouts,

 eat Hoppin' John and barbecue,

 take a park tour on Old Mac's Farm train, 

walk across Valley Creek on a swinging bridge 

and jump up and down in the fire safety house.

 Arts and crafts vendors are also invited!

Linking to Our World Tuesday and City Daily Photo Blogs

The Carrell Family at Kenan's Mill

Kids enjoyed sitting up close to the music at Saturday's Kenan's Mill Festival.

On stage is The Carrell Family, a bluegrass gospel band from northeast Alabama.  

Also playing were The Grasshopper String Band and young fiddler Caleb Bryant. Below is a festival video of The Grasshopper Stringband.

Kenan's Mill Fall Festival

Saturday was a perfect day for the annual Kenan's Mill Fall Festival.

The 19th Century mill ground corn for sale. Musicians strummed bluegrass melodies, and cloggers tapped in time on the wooden pavilion. Charlie Lucas was there with his folk art paintings and trash-to-treasure sculptures. Other artists and craftsmen brought quilts, birdhouses and Christmas decorations. Children rode in a tractor-pulled wagon up the dirt road and then on ponies beneath the trees. They thrilled with a jaunt across Valley Creek on a swinging bridge.

Join us at the mill next year on the first Saturday in November!

Across the Creek

The bridge at Kenan's Mill will be swinging again this Saturday as folks cross Valley Creek to the annual fall festival. Of course, those who don't wish to bounce their way across can just take the road.

Anyway, bring your lawn chairs and sit all day listening to bluegrass music and tap along with the cloggers. I hear a little 7-year-old boy and his granddaddy from Tuscaloosa are gonna play some dueling banjoes too. Don't worry about getting hungry. There will be plenty to eat, including a taste of Selma's Best chili and cornbread in a couple of cookoffs. Get a team together for the cookoffs, and you might win cash and/or trophies!

Kids (and adults) have the added fun of free hayrides pulled by an antique tractor, pony rides and bouncing around on inflatables. There's arts and crafts, and the mill house will be open for tours as will the mill where you can buy fresh-ground cornmeal.

As you can tell in the photo above, Valley Creek was low and muddy last year, but a lot more rain has the creek spilling over the dam the way it's supposed to. Gates open at 9 a.m., and the music begins at 10.

Bluegrass fans

These two gentlemen were among a crowd of people who sat on hay bales or in folding chairs to listen to bluegrass music Saturday at Kenan's Mill.