Wells River
On Saturday, the village at the northeast end of Newbury celebrated the seventh annual So Long Summer, Hello Fall festival, attracting 45 vendors to Main Street.
“Outside of Town Meeting Day, it’s one of the few times in the year where this many people are all together, talking and interacting with each other,” said WRAP president Don Waterman, whose group had its own information table present. “There’s a lot of educational material being handed out, a lot of people buying and selling different items. It’s a way to build community.”
Behind the Happy Hour Restaurant, Cohase Chamber of Commerce personnel dumped 100 numbered children’s rubber balls into the river just after 11 a.m. Though it was only a short distance between there and the finish line behind the Wells River Welcome Center on Railroad Street, it took nearly 30 minutes for the winning ball — belonging to North Haverhill resident Barbara Swantak — to cross, thanks to low water levels and a trickling current. It still worked out better than last year’s rubber duck race, when many of them got caught up in rocks and branches and didn’t finish.
Swantak won $300 as the winner, while those owning the second- and third-place balls took home $200 and $100, respectively. With balls going for $10 a pop, the remaining $400 benefitted the Cohase Chamber.
“I suggested this event to the Chamber last year, basically because I thought it would be a lot of fun,” said Gary Scruton, the Cohase Chamber’s third-year president.
“We’ve really embraced the fervor it generated,” added Erik Volk, also a Cohase Chamber member.
Staged by the Wells River Action Program, or WRAP, a volunteer group dedicated to vibrancy in the village, the event included a rubber ball river race, a zucchini-growing contest and vendors offering items ranging from yard sale-style dry goods and jewelry to locally brewed kombucha, coffee and baked goods.
Another section of vendors featured information tables set up by various nonprofit and not-for-profit organizations such as The Mentorship Project of the Upper Valley and 302 Cares, a substance abuse prevention group named for the highway that passes through the village.
At high noon came the giant zucchini contest, WRAP’s homage to the elongated summer squash that event facilitator Janis Moore called “much maligned” because of its annual bumper crop harvest.
“This is the time of year when people start rolling up their windows, because if they don’t they’ll come back to their car and find about 20 pounds of zucchini in the front seat,” said Moore, a longtime vegetable and cattle farmer from Wells River. “Even if you do that, you might find it on your front porch when you get home. But we love zucchini here, all different kinds of them. I don’t think there’s another place on earth that respects zucchini like we do.”
This year’s contest drew seven entries, with first-, second- and third-place ribbons on the line as well various edible goodies and a full-size yard sign reading “Zucchini Contest Winner,” inscribed in dark green lettering.
Newbury Elementary School Principal Chance Lindsley was the contest’s judge, weighing each on a digital scale borrowed from a nearby copy center before measuring the length of each.
“Make sure there’s no weights inside those zucchnis, or catepillars that would add to the weight,” said Moore, tounge firmly in cheeck. “These should all be live zucchinis.”
Scores ranged from just under four pounds and 14.5 inches to 8.6 pounds and 21 inches, the winning entry belonging to maple syrup and vegetable farmer Lucas Vaughan, of Newbury.
“I don’t know if it’s my first blue ribbon, but it’s the first one I’ve ever won for a zucchini,” said Vaughan, whose Lizdick Farm also had a vendor space and who also took home homemade fudge as part of his winnings.
Second place went to an 8-pound, 20.5-inch behemoth grown by another vendor, Shirley Brooks, while the Kendall family, of Ryegate, Vt., took third with a 7.8-pound, 20-inch zucchini harvested by 10-year-old Ainsley Kendall. Kendall’s 7-year-old sister, Casey, also had an entry.
“The girls grow all of our zucchini themselves,” said mom Clarissa Kendall, whose family had won the event’s previous two editions. “We’ve been doing this for the last four years and it’s great family fun. We were pretty excited when we weighed it last night and saw (Casey’s) was 8 pounds.”
As for the theme of the event, not everyone was trumpeting the imminent arrival of autumn. Even the region’s exceptionally hot and humind summer hasn’t dissuaded WRAP volunteer Judy Waterman, President Don Waterman’s wife, from clinging to it.
“Summer is always too short,” she said. “I like the heat, the lushness all around in summer, and I like the snow. I’m just not big on the stuff in between.”
Woodworking vendor Brad Vietje said he may have spoke too soon while complaining about the heat recently.
“For a while there I was pretty sick of it, because it was just wicked hot,” said Vietje, who planned to donate the proceeds from the sale of his spinning tops and honey dippers to the village’s Baldwin Memorial Library. “Then all of a sudden, summer is coming to a close and it’s like, ‘Can we keep it going for a little while?’ ”
Maple sugarer Valeri Putnam, on the other hand, always welcomes the changing of the seasons. “I’m ready for fall and the cold; I like the winter months,” she said. “No winter would mean no spring, which would mean no maple syrup.”
Jared Pendak can be reached at jpendak@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.