my life

Barter Fair & Other Fall Musings

It's been a busy fall so far, and a fun one. I'm amazed at how quickly the cold weather snuck up on me! Our most recent fall adventure was our annual trek to the Okanogan Family Faire (OFF) near Tonasket, WA. We have been going to this event for the past 4 years or so, and wouldn't miss it for the world! It's the biggest barter fair (and the last) of the fall season, a miniature city the size of Moscow that springs up in the forest for a weekend. Barter fairs are hard to describe, but they're kind of a combination of a flea market with a campout - lots of people selling and trading homemade goods, really good food, and pretty much anything you could think of, and of course, there's a bit more nightlife than your average flea market with drum circles, bonfires & dancing, live music, and fire dancers. It was about a 5 hour drive from Moscow, and sadly our bus didn't make it. Seneca tried to get her ready to go and recently put in a new fuel injector, but then discovered that it wouldn't start and now we think it needs a new starter switch. :( So we piled in the car and took a mini-vacation, leaving on Wednesday night.

This year I volunteered for the barter fair (the whole event is run by volunteers) after hearing that they wanted to start banning dogs in a few years. I signed up to be a "dog patrol coordinator" and spent most of Thursday & Friday checking cars for dogs, explaining and publicizing dog rules, and generally watching out for dogs and preventing dog problems. I got a radio and everything, it was quite official! :) We got a good spot since we got there early, right by the main drum circle in the center of "town" and I set up my booth. I sold & bartered lots of soap, massage oil, and gemstone & hemp jewelry. I also handed out PETA stickers and leaflets (the kids love those stickers!) and shared the booth with friends who brought their handmade stuff to trade. We made some great trades over the weekend - I got a beautiful patchwork dress and fairy wings that look like leaves to wear for Halloween. I traded massage oil for a foot massage for both Seneca & I (which was awesome!) and we brought home a couple of new crystals and a case of homemade wine. We enjoyed meeting new people, checking out all the booths and shopping, eating some awesome veggie food (including a brick-oven pizza or two!), hiking up the nearby mountain, watching live music, and dancing by the fire. We had some friends come up from Boise, Albuquerque, and even Berkeley, as well as lots of Moscow friends that made the trip. It was a wonderful time with friends new & old and a beautiful weekend. Check out my pictures on my photo blog or even more on my flickr photo page - I took TONS as usual!

I've been busy with several projects this fall - I'm still working on a landscaping web site for a friend of my aunt's, I started work on my cousin Joan's wedding invitations, and I'm working on a logo, letterhead, t-shirt, posters, etc. for the Moscow CommUNITY walk. And of course I'm still working full-time as a web designer for PETA, and I design the Moscow Co-op's monthly newsletter. Yes, I am a workoholic, but I'm trying to save up for next spring when I go to Spain with mi familia, and Seneca is hoping to meet me there so we can check out some more of Europe as well (we're still planning that little trip). I'm so excited to go to Europe, hopefully everything works out and we can stay and go to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and wherever else we have time to visit. I'm especially excited for Paris and Amsterdam, and hopefully I can meet up with my friend Nate in Belgium and our friend Leonard if he's vacationing in Amsterdam at the same time. My main attraction to these two cities is their art museums (the Louvre in Paris and the Van Gogh museum, among others, in Amsterdam). I am an art nut - you should've seen me at the National Gallery in DC!

I have also been getting involved with the animal rights group at UI, "Compassion Speaks." They protest weekly at KFC so I've joined them a couple times for that, I helped table on campus for "Hug a Vegetarian Day" and handing out vegan cookies. And last night we had our first "Vegan Potluck" - which was fun and very well-attended. I ate waaaaayyyy to much, it was so good! Next week is Halloween and we're doing a KFC protest with the theme "We'd rather be zombies than eat at KFC" and we're all dressing up as zombies. We gotta have fun while we're saving the animals, right? :)

Well, back to work for now, I just figured it was time for an update! Things have been moving fast around here and we still haven't even begun to get ready for our big move to Oregon, which may end up happening next spring.

Labels: barter faire

posted by Megan @ 9:15 AM